SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite Wireless Gaming Headset - Obsidian / 40 mm Carbon Fiber Drivers / Hi-Res Audio wirelessly 96kHz/24bit / Dual batteries, no downtime / Up to 42% stronger ANC / Compatible with PC, PS5, PS4, Switch / 61661 + FREE DELIVERY !

The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite Wireless is a flagship gaming headset built around 40 mm carbon fibre drivers with Hi-Res Audio up to 96 kHz and 24-bit. Active Noise Cancellation shuts out the room, a dual-battery system removes charging downtime, and it works with PC, PS5, PS4 and Nintendo Switch. This is the Obsidian finish.

The video opens on the certification that sets this headset apart: official testing and approval by the Japan Audio Society, meeting the highest standards for wireless high-resolution sound. It shows what that certification buys in practice, namely clarity, lifelike spatial detail and ultra-low latency delivered over a wireless link rather than a cable.

The Infinite Power System is best understood by watching it. This video shows one battery charging in the GameHub while the other runs the headset, then the swap that keeps a session going without plugging in. It is the answer to the one problem every wireless headset otherwise has, which is running flat mid-game.

Audio is processed at 96 kHz and 24-bit, which is studio-grade resolution rather than the compressed stream most wireless headsets carry. More bits and a higher sample rate mean less is thrown away between the source and your ears, and the difference shows up in quiet detail rather than in raw volume.

The LC3+ codec carries the signal, giving low-latency lossless wireless audio across the whole frequency range. Lossless matters because it removes the usual wireless compromise, where a headset sounds fine on music but smears the fine detail that tells you where a sound came from in a game.

Each earcup holds a precision-tuned 40 mm driver with a carbon fibre diaphragm. Carbon fibre is chosen for rigidity, which is the property that determines how faithfully a driver can start and stop moving. It is an unusual material at this size in a gaming headset, where mylar and paper composites are the norm.

Because the carbon fibre diaphragm is ultra-rigid, it responds faster to transients and produces less harmonic distortion than a softer material would. That translates into crisp attack on percussive sounds and smooth, balanced highs that stay clean at volume instead of turning harsh as the driver is pushed.

A machined brass surround ring secures every driver in place. Brass is dense and dimensionally stable, so the ring holds the driver rigidly rather than flexing with it, and that mounting is as important to the final sound as the diaphragm material itself.

Held in the brass ring, the driver moves pistonically, travelling as a single unit instead of the diaphragm bending across its own surface. Break-up is a major source of distortion in loudspeakers of any size, and eliminating it is how the Nova Elite reaches studio-grade accuracy in reproduction.

Spatialisation places sound in a full 360-degree field around you rather than simply left and right. The effect depends on accurate drivers to work, which is why it sits alongside the carbon fibre and brass engineering rather than being treated as a software feature bolted on afterwards.

Positional precision is what spatial audio buys you in a match: identifying a footstep behind and to the left, a reload around a corner, or the environmental cue that says a door has opened. In competitive play that information arrives before anything appears on screen, which is the whole point of a headset over speakers.

The GameHub is the base station the headset works through, connecting to PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch and mobile devices at the same time. Instead of re-pairing every time you change machines, all of them stay attached to one hub, which makes a single headset workable across an entire setup.

OmniPlay is the layer that decides what you actually hear. It switches between connected sources or streams several of them at once, so a PC, a console and a phone stop being separate audio worlds and become one system feeding the same pair of ears.

Up to four audio sources can be mixed simultaneously with no loss of quality. That is the practical ceiling most people need: a game on one device, a voice call on another, music from a third and system alerts from a fourth, all present at once rather than competing for the connection.

Blending game audio with chat, music and incoming calls happens without interruptions or a drop in fidelity, so nothing has to be paused to take something else. For anyone playing on a console while talking on Discord from a phone, this removes the usual choice between hearing the game and hearing the group.

More than 200 professional EQ presets ship with the headset, covering games, genres and use cases without any tuning work of your own. Presets are the fastest route to a sound that suits a specific title, and they give a starting point to modify rather than a flat curve to build up from.

Sonar is the software behind the sound customisation, and it runs from a phone as readily as from a PC. Being able to reach the settings from mobile matters on a console, where there is no desktop application to open, and it keeps real-time adjustments available mid-session.

The ear cushions use plush memory foam wrapped in soft vegan leather, moulding to the shape of your head over the first few minutes of wear. Memory foam is what keeps a seal consistent as you move, and a consistent seal is what holds both the bass response and the noise cancelling steady.

A suspended inner headband carries the headset rather than a solid band pressing on one point, distributing weight evenly across the top of the head for a pressure-free fit. The frame is shaped to sit correctly for glasses wearers as well, which is the detail most gaming headsets get wrong over a long session.

Sonar for PC opens up an advanced Parametric EQ, giving control over every frequency rather than a handful of fixed bands. Custom curves can be created and saved as your own presets, so a tuning built for one game is recalled instantly the next time you load it.

The frame is built from cold-rolled steel and die-cast aluminium, materials chosen for durability at the points that take stress every time the headset is put on or taken off. The finish that results is sleek and modern, and metal construction is the clearest physical marker separating a flagship from a plastic-framed headset.

ChatMix sets the balance between game audio and voice chat, so teammates can be brought forward when calls matter or pushed back when the game does. It is the single adjustment most used during play, which is why it has its own control rather than living inside a settings menu.

Volume, ChatMix, Source Mix, mic mute, media playback, Active Noise Cancellation and Transparency Mode are all adjustable on the headset itself. Having each of those on the earcup means none of them requires a menu, a phone or a hand off the mouse to reach while a match is running.

Sonar for PC goes further than game and chat, letting volume be set per channel across game, chat, music and even separate applications. Turning down a browser without touching the game is the kind of control that normally requires a mixer, and here it is handled in software.

The GameHub interface handles volume, ChatMix, EQ and other audio settings directly from the desk, without opening software on a connected machine. On a console setup where no PC is involved, the hub is the control surface, which is why the settings live there as well as on the headset.

Active Noise Cancellation on the Nova Elite blocks up to 89% of background noise, which SteelSeries states is 42% stronger noise reduction than leading competitors based on independent lab testing conducted in August 2025. That is the difference between hearing a room quieten and hearing it disappear behind the game.

Transparency Mode is the counterpart to the noise cancelling, passing outside sound through when you need awareness of what is happening around you. It saves lifting an earcup to answer someone, and it is the mode that makes a heavily isolating headset usable in a shared room or an office.

On-board AI noise rejection strips up to 97% of background noise from the microphone before it reaches the people you are talking to. Processing on the headset rather than in software means the benefit applies on a console or a phone, not only on a PC running the desktop application.

SteelSeries states the mic processing is strong enough to block even the roar of a helicopter, based on independent lab testing in August 2025. Whatever your own room throws at it, a mechanical keyboard, a fan or traffic through an open window, sits far below that threshold.

Two microphones are built in: the gaming boom mic for the clearest voice pickup, and a discreet beamforming mic inside the headset when you would rather not have a boom in front of your face. The same headset therefore covers a competitive session and a video call without looking out of place in either.

Voice is captured at a high-bandwidth 32 kHz sampling rate, well above the narrow band most gaming headsets use for chat. The extra bandwidth is what carries the top end of a voice, which is the part that makes speech sound natural rather than filtered through a telephone.

Smart-Switching moves between the two microphones on its own: retract the main boom mic and the onboard microphone takes over instantly, with no toggle to find. That suits travel, streaming and quick calls, where the mic you want changes faster than any menu-driven setting could keep up with.