Turtle Beach Atlas Air - Review

Of all the recent gaming headsets Turtle Beach has put out, the Atlas Air sits at the top of the pricing spectrum which sets up some pretty high expectations. Both the budget-friendly Stealth 500 and the mid-range Stealth 600 proved to be great in their own right, but what could spending a decent chunk more get you? Well, for one, the most comfortable gaming headset I’ve used in recent memory, and two, sound quality that’s worthy of its price tag. And to boot, there are a few features that help round out the Atlas Air to compete with some of the best gaming headsets available today.

Turtle Beach Atlas Air – Design and Comfort

Right out of the box, the Atlas Air’s design gives the impression of a high-end headset – from the bulky earcups to the flexible and durable headband, it has the look and feel of a premium product. Comfort is undoubtedly a top priority for a gaming headset, and like I said at the top, the Atlas Air is extremely impressive in this regard. It has a very light clamp force which alleviates a lot of the pressure you’d feel from other headsets (even the Stealth 500), which is a credit to that flexible headband. And the earcups have a fluffy foam that isn’t necessarily dense, but easy on the ears to strike a balance between padding and a lightweight feel. Even with the leather-like upholstery, which tends to make things a bit sweaty after a long session, the Atlas Air managed to make me forget I had a headset on even after wearing it for three hours straight.

Another standout feature is that the Atlas Air sports an open-back design, meaning the earcups are not completely sealed off from where the actual audio drivers reside. Several high-end headphones use an open-back design, since it creates a more natural and spacious sound profile, as opposed to most gaming headsets that are designed to block as much outside noise as possible. There are pros and cons, of course, so if noise cancellation is important to you, open-back may be a dealbreaker. Otherwise, you’ll be treated to an audio experience that feels a bit less condensed.

Although the earcups themselves don’t slide out for fitting purposes, there’s more than enough room with the elastic strap underneath the headband for those who usually need to extend their headsets more. A mesh cover wraps the strap and headband together to give it stability, and you can loosen the tension of the strap if you need a more relaxed fit. The earcups are held together by elastic cables, which helps them flex and fit better around your ears. Overall, this is one of the best iterations I’ve seen from this style of headset where the headband sports a one-size-fits all design.

As is the case with most gaming headsets of this caliber, you get 2.4GHz wireless through the packaged dongle and Bluetooth connectivity to boot. The button layout is clean, so it’s easy to distinguish between the power, mode toggle, and Bluetooth switch. Another neat feature is that the master volume is conveniently controlled by the left earcup itself, which is actually a dial you turn to adjust the volume. The Atlas Air features a detachable microphone as opposed to the built-in design of other Turtle Beach headsets. When you plug in the mic, you’ll notice there’s an arm that can swivel out of the headset itself so you can flip up the mic to automatically mute and move it away from your face. Lastly, you can use the Atlas Air in wired mode with a 3.5mm cable (and one comes packaged with the headset).

The Turtle Beach Atlas Air is by far the most comfortable headset I've used in recent years.

Turtle Beach Atlas Air – Software, Utility, Battery Life

As is the case with all Turtle Beach products, you will need to use the Swarm II software to customize the settings on the Atlas Air. There’s a streamlined mobile app and a fully featured desktop version, both of which are easy to navigate and use. You can access typical features like chat boost, chat-game volume mix, microphone monitoring, and noise gate threshold, but the desktop version is where you can adjust the 10-band EQ settings. While that’s great for those who prefer tinkering with their own audio profiles, I find the default “Signature Sound” profile to be a good well-rounded option.

Again, you’ll also be able to access Turtle Beach’s Superhuman Hearing technology, which drastically adjusts the audio profile to emphasize specific sounds in competitive games: footsteps or gunshots, for example. As I’ve said before, this results in an artificial sound quality that sacrifices the audio experience for little-to-no real advantage in games. It’s optional, so no skin off my back, right? That said, I’ve had issues with Superhuman Hearing constantly defaulting to being on when booting up my PC regardless of whether or not I left it off last time I used the headset. So, as a fair warning, make sure it’s turned off, otherwise you’ll get a bad audio experience.

When it comes to battery life, the Atlas Air is no slouch – it's rated for up to 50 hours from a full charge. After using it for three days straight (roughly 12 hours total) swapping between 2.4GHz on PC and Bluetooth for my phone, it hit 21% capacity, which lines up with Turtle Beach’s own claims. While other wireless headsets, like the Stealth 600 and SteelSeries’ Nova 5, have the Atlas Air beat, I still think its battery capacity is decent enough.

Turtle Beach Atlas Air – Sound Quality and Microphone

I’ve sung the praises of its comfort, but the Atlas Air also delivers in the other important department: sound quality. You’ll get robust audio that’s balanced across all frequencies, meaning bass won’t drown out other highs or mids, the highs aren’t going to pierce your ears at loud volumes, and the mids don’t get distorted when things get busy.

I used the Atlas Air a lot for listening to music, and it performed wonderfully across all the genres of music I listen to. I believe it's a credit to the open-back design where music felt like it was playing on speakers around me rather than being blasted directly into my ears. That doesn’t mean other headsets are bad for music, it’s just that the general audio experience felt more relaxed.

Whether or not that translates to better in-game performance, well, it certainly can. Playing several ranked matches in Counter-Strike 2 showed the competitive side of the Atlas Air since I was able to distinguish the direction and distance of enemy footsteps in critical moments. I even clearly heard an enemy reloading around the corner while gunfire was going off elsewhere, letting me know that I could get the jump on the enemy in the midst of chaos. Those are the important details you need to hear in competitive games, and any gaming headset worth its salt should be capable of doing that, so it’s good to know that the Atlas Air definitely had me well-covered in that regard. 

That spacious sound thanks to the open-back design helped Final Fantasy XIV sound less busy when the action heated up and everyone’s spells started going off in raids. Because of how much is going on in the game, it can be tiring on your ears during long sessions, which is unfortunate because there’s also a wonderful soundtrack that plays an important role in the game’s overall ambiance. The fact that the Atlas Air is able to sort through all those sounds nicely made the gaming experience better.

You'll get robust audio that's balanced across all frequencies.

The packaged microphone is quite typical of a gaming headset; good enough to communicate clearly in games and in Discord, but nothing groundbreaking. Communicating while raiding in FFXIV worked just fine, but I could hear its limitations when recording in Audacity where I could hear it was a bit tinny overall.

High-end headphones can provide a more rich and detailed audio experience, and that’ll be more prominent when you’re moving into and upwards of $200 territory. While the Atlas Air might not be able to match audio gear of that caliber, it certainly stands among the best gaming headsets in all the important ways. Historically, I’ve loved the Sennheiser HD 500 series headphones and have used them over anything else, so it’s great to see a gaming headset take on a similar design philosophy and do it well.