Thank you Turtle Beach for sending us this headset to review!

Last year (2024), Turtle Beach brought back the Atlas name after being dormant for quite a while. The Atlas Air is probably my favorite gaming headset to date. While it's not perfect (is anything?), the comfort, sound quality, and several key features make it one of my favorites, and my go-to headset most of the time. If I have any reason to need its wireless features, or its awesome open-back sound, it's a real winner. But what if closed-back is okay, and I want 90% of the comfort and sound quality, and want it all for over $100 less? Yeah, I was surprised too - and very pleasantly so by Turtle Beach's latest Atlas 200.

I have been blessed to review most of Turtle Beach's headsets over the last several years. I've seen pretty much every model, and I've come to really appreciate their house sound. I've also come to know what drivers and designs of theirs I like, and which I don't (or no longer do). For example, when I first heard and reviewed the Recon 500, I lauded the headphone's fancy new dual-driver design. I have since had a lot more experience with different headphones, and I no longer hold that driver in high esteem, which negatively impacted my view of another headset using the same driver. However, the Nanoclear 50mm driver used to be reserved for their top-end models, which all sound really good. This Atlas 200 uses that same driver, and for a dramatically lower price. This may well be the least expensive headset to date to use the Nanoclear 50mm.

Another big surprise is how much the Atlas 200 borrows the Air's design. From just above the ear cups and up, they are virtually identical. This means that it borrows the extremely comfortable floating headband design that I love so much on the Atlas Air. The headband is made of a very light and flexible plastic that looks quite unique. There is an adjustable elastic band that attaches to the sides via velcro, and it is suspended in a cloth net of sorts. Between the net and the elastic, your head floats under the plastic frame holding everything in place. Because of how it's made, it's also really light, both with weight and clamping force.

The ear cups are one area of difference, as it no longer has the floating cup design but now uses a more traditional swivel attachment. It is a simpler mechanism, like many I've seen used over the years. The ear pads don't swivel quite as much as the Atlas Air did, especially forward and backwards, but it still rests pretty comfortably. The ear pads are extremely similar if not exactly the same as the Air, which is honestly a fantastic choice as they are so soft and plush you can almost forget they are on. I have worn this headset for many hours at a time without any notable discomfort. It's overall so light, and the pads are so plush, that it's actually one of the most comfortable pairs of headphones I've ever worn, headset or otherwise. Being closed back, your ears do get a bit warmer than with the Air, but it never got warm enough that I felt I had to take them off.

When it comes to features and such, these are quite a simple affair. For the console/multiplatform versions, there is only a single volume wheel and a flip up and down microphone. You connect the headset to your preferred source via the attached 3.5mm audio jack and you're off to the races. On this PC version I reviewed, they are identical in that sense, but if your PC doesn't happen to have an audio jack that you like, you can also use the included Turtle Beach USB Audio Adapter, which is basically just a dongle DAC. (DACs are digital to analog converters, and we call them dongle DACs because it's a tiny dongle adapter that's just a few inches long.) One other notable difference between the PC and console versions is the cable length; the PC version is 2 meters long, while the console versions are 1.2 meters. This difference makes sense when you consider most console users will connect the headset to their controller, while most PC users will connect it to their PC or a USB hub. Outside of the included DAC and extra cable length, everything else is identical. The price difference of $10 is entirely fair and almost exactly what a cheap dongle DAC costs on Amazon, so buy whichever version meets your needs better, as both are a great value.

The Turtle Beach included Audio Adapter is decent for what it is, and has a reasonable feature set. I'm grateful that their journey into 24-bit audio has continued even at this low price point, with this DAC supporting the 16- and 24-bit rates at 48kHz and 96kHz sample rates. I do wish 44.1kHz was included as well, since that would allow bit-perfect audio on a lot more sources, but this is still quite good considering the competition at this price point.

One unexpected perk is that the USB Audio Adapter works on Nintendo Switch 2. I was playing docked on my living room TV and had a USB hub extension because I was using a USB fight stick with it. Because it was late, I tried it with the Atlas 200's PC USB adapter to keep the room quiet, and it worked great! I did have to go into system settings and disable "Lower Max Headphone Volume" in order for it to be loud enough for my liking. It's not an advertised (or supported) feature, but that it works as a docked USB audio device sure is nice!

Turtle Beach has kept its basic feature set largely similar to those of other new Turtle Beach USB headsets we reviewed that use the same software. This is almost identical to the Atlas Air, the Stealth 500, and Stealth 600 Gen 3. The Windows application is Turtle Beach Swarm II. It works well, and the interface looks nice. Like those other headsets, you can adjust volume, SuperHuman Hearing, Game/Chat Mix, Chat Boost, and enable or disable Waves 3D, the included form of surround sound emulation. With how good this headset sounds out of the box, including with spatial cues, I felt no need for any additional enhancement. There is a setting that shows what your sample rate is currently set to; if you don't see "24 bit, 96000 Hz", then click on the little Windows logo and change the settings in Windows to set that correctly.

There are four stock EQ settings: Signature Sound, Bass Boost, Treble and Bass Boost, and Vocal Boost. You can also create custom 10-band EQ profiles if you like. I am grateful that it continues to offer these features, though honestly I find that Turtle Beach Signature Sound is just fine 99% of the time.

The microphone also sounds excellent. You can also use four different EQ profiles for the microphone: Signature Sound, Full, Clarity, or Smooth, and you can create a custom EQ as well. I'm not sure that this feature is working yet, since I'm reviewing this headset before launch, but my experience with the microphone EQ has been positive in past products. The Signature Sound option does not apply any EQ to your voice. You can enable microphone monitoring if you wish, and also raise or lower the mic sensitivity. The microphone input sample rate only supports 16-bit at 48kHz for the microphone signal, which is a fine default and more than good enough for most. Many headsets use a lower performing sample rate on microphones.

The mic flips up to mute and down for use, and has a long arm, giving you plenty of placement flexibility. As it sounds quite good, I used it for work from home and other situations like phone calls (my phone has a 3.5mm headphone jack) and no one had anything to complain about. I used it on a stream, and one commenter said I sounded great! Please check out how I sound here.

One negative I noticed is there seems to be a fair amount of background hiss in that stream. I confirmed this while doing test recordings via Audacity. My actual voice sounds great, but there is quite a bit of background hiss which you can hear in the stream above. I confirmed that this issue is related to the Turtle Beach Audio Adapter, as when I connected this headset to my PC via a much better and more expensive DAC, the Qudelix 5k, the headset mic sounds awesome with no noise to speak of. I also tested it with the Sound Blaster G8 I reviewed last year, and this is honestly a pretty epic combination on both the sound quality and microphone front. This is somewhat ironic, since Turtle Beach was a direct competitor to Creative Labs in the 1990s.

The 3.5mm audio connector uses the common TRRS connection, so you get both stereo audio and the microphone input at the same time. As I mentioned before, the drivers are good enough to sound noticeably better when driven by a better source. I really like how they sound when driven by a Fosi Audio DS2, but they sound quite good with several of my better DACs, including those mentioned above. The DS2 is under $60, but the rest of the above cost more than the headset itself! Regardless, these enjoy a good clean source to sound their best.

Speaking of sound quality, as I'm sure you've figured out by now, I'm very pleased with what's on offer. The overall tonal balance is quite good, with decent bass and detailed highs. There is always room for improvement of course, but I still prefer the sound over much of their lineup. The Atlas Air still wins of course, but for a closed-back, it's quite nice. It has a bit less bass than many other headsets, which matches my preferences. I will say that the highs can be a bit bright with some content. However, I have a little 'hack' to tame them without EQ which some of you may appreciate.

You see, most headphones with a volume wheel use a simple potentiometer wired in-line with the drivers (or common ground) to control the volume level. This works quite well, and it's inexpensive. However, potentiometers do introduce a small amount of impedance, which if you know anything about audio circuits, will by nature slightly lower the output for high frequencies. So, if they are too bright, lower the volume using the knob ever so slightly, and then turn back up your source (in this case, the Windows volume level). Or, alternatively, if you prefer a brighter sound, make sure the knob is all the way up and then use Windows to control your volume for best results.

The Turtle Beach Atlas 200 is yet another excellent entry into my now-favorite Atlas line from Turtle Beach. While it doesn't quite reach the heights of its more expensive big brother, the Atlas Air, it gets surprisingly close - and for a price that's nothing short of fantastic. This should seriously be the new go-to for wired headsets. The comfort is great, the mic is surprisingly good, and the sound quality hits way above its price point. Whether the extra $10 for the PC version's USB Audio Adapter is worth it depends on how important a quiet microphone is. Regardless, the Turtle Beach Atlas 200 Wired Gaming Headset gets my highest recommendation.