Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 Review

★★★★★ | Third time's the charm

About three months ago, I reviewed the Turtle Beach Stealth 500s. Those budget headphones, coming straight out of Turtle Beach’s lineup of midrange bang-for-the-buck goodness, impressed me in almost every regard except the build quality and all-around comfort.

So, imagine my surprise when the third iteration of their slightly higher-budget models dropped at my door. Surely there isn’t anything I could say about them in comparison to the 500s, which, let’s face it, aren’t hugely different in price.

Well, color me wrong, because the Stealth 600s have grown in development to the best deal money can buy in the headphone space. At least if you’re not a PlayStation and Xbox fan.

Comfort and usability

In brief: Stellar battery life, durable, fantastic sound quality, buttons still annoy, superb build quality.

Compared to the 500-series, which I still enjoyed despite clear compromises, the Stealth 600s are a joy. The moment I took them out of their box, I could tell the difference was like night and day. Where the 500s are a little flimsy, the 600s are rigid, and every bit of the design feels like a top-tier model.

My first test was to see how the headset fits over my head. Happily, compared to its sibling, the 600s aren’t just a comfortable fit, they have ample room for adjustments. No matter your size, the 600s should fit snugly to any head shape.

Similarly, the quality of the earcups is terrific, and I did not notice any irritation or discomfort even during extended use. The material is soft and there’s plenty of room for even a larger set of ears to fit without pressure on the lobes. The headset breathes well, and I didn’t notice any issues with overheating or sweating even as my office was kept at a toasty temperature to keep the winter storms at bay.

My one constant irritation from the 500s, and almost every Turtle Beach headset to date, continues in the 600 series: the button placement and coloring. In theory, I understand the why and how, but in practice, I struggle daily with their placement and usability. They’re still a row of smudgy and indistinguishable clickers that don’t feel natural to use.

By comparison, the upgraded microphone is a joy. It’s sturdy with a surprisingly satisfying click in its traction, which allows you to set the mic at any degree before it happily pops back into place on the side of the headset.

As for sound isolation, I tested the 600 series with my go-to titles Apex Legends and Call of Duty, and the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 provided yet another solid experience. There’s very little bleed from exterior sources and while, like its siblings, it’s not true noise isolation, and the headset didn’t work as well on a plane, for example, but it’s still perfectly fine for gaming at home or on a lighter commute.

Portability

In Brief: Supremely portable thanks to great build quality and rock solid Bluetooth connectivity. Battery life impresses as well.

Like the rest of the Stealth series, the 600 Gen 3 comes packed with a USB-A dongle, and a solid Bluetooth connectivity on top of the regular 2.4GHz wireless connection. Switching between sources is a breeze, even if you’ll have to choose between a PlayStation and Xbox version due to codec limitations.

At home, I paired the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 with my desktop, Macbook, PS5, and Nintendo Switch. Especially on the PlayStation, I found the experience so easy to use that after a few hours I stopped thinking about it altogether. If I started playing, I just reached out for the headset.

On a desktop, the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 works just fine, with accurate sound reproduction and great settings to separate game audio from chat. As an autistic gamer, I appreciate this immensely, since I can easily get overwhelmed by too much cross-talk or excessive loud noises.

Via Discord, my friends reported that my voice came through clear and without distortion, and with almost no perceivable external noise even with my often loud desktop humming nearby.

On the road, the Bluetooth connectivity was rock solid, delivering great performance with no latency issues or lag no matter where I was. On a smartphone, I found using the Turtle Beach 600 for games like Call of Duty Mobile and Genshin Impact to work without any issues.

As a mobile solution for gaming on the go, the Stealth 600s work just as well as their 500 series siblings. They’re a bit heavier, so I wouldn’t pick them as my first choice, but they’re certainly in the top 5. Especially if I know that I’ll be gaming.

Battery life and competition

In Brief: 40+ hour battery life in mixed use, even on the road. Almost no competition in this price range.

The Turtle Beach Stealth 600 has excellent staying power. At home, on a wireless connection, I got seven days of mixed use — meaning office tasks, Discord, gaming, and Youtube — amounting to around 40 hours. Often, I just left the headset on its own and didn’t even think about battery life until I got the notification to charge the headset, and by then I couldn’t even recall when I had done so last.

On the road, with Bluetooth and some challenging weather conditions, the Turtle Beach Stealth 600 gave around the same time, some 30-32 hours of use. Charging time from empty to full was around 90 minutes, but this isn’t a scientific test and more of a ballpark figure. In general, I found that if I plugged the headset in after a low battery notice, it was always ready for multiple hours or days when I needed it.

If you’re in the market for a solid headset with long battery life, excellent audio quality, and superb comfort, I couldn’t recommend the Turtle Beach Stealth 600s more warmly. They punch way above their price category and deliver everything you’d expect out of higher specced devices for half the price.

As for price, the Stealth 600 starts at 40 Euros higher than the 500 series, around 100€ currently. For that, you get a noticeably better build quality, a slightly better battery, and the same all-around quality connectivity.

If looking for a recommendation, I’d still argue the 500 series is better for first-timers and younger members of the family. At this price, the 600 competes directly with more top-of-the-line models and should serve well for years in the hands of more demanding gamers. They won’t be the go-to model for travel or movie watching, but if your main emphasis is gaming with light mixed use on the side, they’re the best you can get at this price point.