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

Turtle Beach's Stealth 600 line has been some of their most popular, and for good reason. Since its introduction, it's struck a great balance between price, performance, and features. Nevertheless, after several years of having a similar lineup, I felt like they were starting to lag behind the competition in some ways. It seems to me they were aware of this, and released this refreshed model, along with some other new ones. This refresh is for real, adding serious new features and a major redesign to almost everything, and from what I can tell, this is a worthy successor to the popular Gen 2 model.

This Turtle Beach Stealth 600 Gen 3 is the new midrange model for Turtle Beach's wireless headsets, above the brand-new Stealth 500 model. I also reviewed the Stealth 500 (here), and I really like that headset. But the Stealth 600 does sound better, and looks and feels more premium, too. Thankfully, with the new features being delivered here, I feel this new model is in a strong position competitively in the market.

The Stealth 600 Gen 3 is a clear departure from the previous design, even if some of the lineage is noticeable. The headband has the pad integrated into it, rather than clearly glued on like before. The ear pads are largely similar to the softer version of the Gen 2 MAX, but have a slightly softer fabric. The headband attaches to the ear cups in a different way, and the swivel is also handled differently. Overall, the new design is much more mature and understated; this is great for me, since I work from home and use headsets like this on video sometimes. The plastic doesn't feel super premium to the touch, but I wouldn't say it feels cheap, either. It definitely feels more substantial than the Stealth 500, even if they are heavier than that crazy-light model. Thankfully these are comfortable, though I did have to shuffle them around to accommodate my large ears after several hours of use. Don't be afraid to move them around until you find a position that fits just right.

Thankfully, they have a ton of functionality are going to make a lot of gamers happy. First of all, these support multi-input. While I wish they would include 3.5mm inputs on more of their headsets, this one supports 2.4GHz wireless (with great range, too!) and Bluetooth 5.2. You can connect the headset to your phone and PC (or console) at the same time, and switch between them with a press of a button on the headset. I first saw this with the Corsair HS55 I reviewed last year; it's a great feature that you come to love, even if some higher-end headsets support both inputs simultaneously. You can answer a call, listen to music or podcasts on your phone, then switch to the PC when it's time to play. As I mentioned before, I use headsets for working from home, and this feature is indispensable for that use case.

While multi-input is certainly the headliner feature, and a great one at that, there are several others that are also excellent. There is an app on both Windows and mobile (Android, iOS) that lets you do all kinds of customization. You can adjust the volume with either the app, or via the top wheel on the back of the left ear cup. You can enable or customize Superhuman Hearing, a unique Turtle Beach feature that is supposed to make footsteps easier to hear. Not a fan myself, but it's there for those who like it. One of my favorite features is customizing the EQ to one of four presets (Signature Sound, Bass Boost, Bass and Treble Boost, Vocal Boost), or if you're on PC, making an entirely custom ten-band EQ profile. (This feature is not yet on the mobile app, but promised to be coming.) All of this functionality is in the new Turtle Beach Swarm II app, and I have to say that it's pretty good for still being in early beta. I look forward to its improvements and new features over time.

Other app features include updating firmware, customizing power usage via things like auto shut off, and adjusting the flip-down microphone. It has to be said that the microphone on this headset shocked me with how good it is. My son used this headset on a game stream. If you'd like, you can see how he sounds here:

The headset itself has that flip-down microphone, which is very convenient when you need to quickly mute or unmute. One feature that is a step up over the Stealth 500 is that you can adjust the microphone EQ. There are four EQ modes out of the box: Signature Sound, Full, Clarity, and Smooth. I like them all except for Clarity, since it makes me sound a bit tinny. My wife likes how Smooth sounds, as it tends to smooth out the roughness mics can sometimes pick up. Either way, it's a seriously solid microphone.

There are lots of buttons and wheels on this headset, similar to the Stealth 500; this set of features seems to be standard for this generation. There are two volume wheels, which is standard game or audio volume for the top one, and adjusting your microphone monitoring level for the bottom wheel (The bottom wheel can customized in the PC software only). The buttons are power (also can toggle on/off Superhuman Hearing), Mode (used to select one of the EQ presets), Bluetooth (used to pair and play/pause content), and input switch. That switch button gets the most use for me! There is also a USB-C port for charging, which you only need to do on occasion, as it gets eighty hours per charge! Eighty! At the time of this writing, I've used it almost non-stop for a day or so, and I'm still above ninety percent charged.

This headset sounds quite decent, and a bit more refined than the Stealth 500. I feel like it might sound a bit better than the old Stealth 600 Gen 2. I do think this one emphasizes the bass a bit more, though. I found this to be true when comparing the Stealth 500 against its bigger brother, the Stealth 600 Gen 3. Honestly, I think this headset is remarkably close in sound to the Stealth 700 Gen 2 MAX; I'm beginning to wonder if the 600 Gen 3 might sound better than its higher end brother. I will say that Turtle Beach used to reserve their Nanoclear driver technology for the Stealth 700 line and above, but now we get it here with the Stealth 600 Gen 3. Either way, this headset is a massive step up over the previous Stealth 600 Gen 2 line, in basically every way - Bluetooth functionality is new, the sound quality is comparable if not better, and the new design looks more refined and less 'cool gamer'.