The best thing about Arctis 7 is the air weave material used to make the earmuffs. It is comfortable and prevents your ears from getting warm. Unlike other headsets, you can use the Arctis 7 for longer sessions without getting uncomfortable.
The suspended headband also applies a balanced pressure and it almost feels like there is nothing on your headset. Moreover, you get the wireless feature to avoid cable management.
The Arctis 7 are perfect for competitive gaming or streaming.
With the phenomenal sound quality, there are a lot of other features that you get with this headset. Let’s go over what equalizer settings will be the best fit for you depending upon the type of games you like to play.
Arctis 7 Equalizer Settings
It is a common practice for gamers to use different presets depending upon what they are currently doing. You can set up different hotkeys for each preset and cycle through them according to the relevant audio settings.
The good thing is that SteelSeries has already included a lot of default presets in the SteelSeries engine that you can choose from. That will help you avoid the hassle of trying out different frequencies in the equalizer settings and you can just select a preset that matches your requirements.
- Immersion Preset
This preset will suit you when you’re trying to play casual story-based games. The immersion preset can enhance the gaming experience by providing more depth to the sound cues. So, if you play single-player games often then it would be best to keep this preset on during your sessions. The sub-bass and the bass frequencies are a bit higher than the mid and brilliance frequency ranges.
Moreover, you don’t have to worry about the sound cues getting masked with loud bass as SteelSeries has made sure that even the subtitles sound cues are easily distinguishable. But this preset won’t work well with competitive shooter games.
So, make sure to switch from this preset before you start playing an FPS game. To change presets, you need to just launch the SteelSeries engine and access the Arctis 7 settings. From there you will be able to cycle through different presets easily.
- Voice Preset
Now, moving on to the voice preset which is best for games that are dependent on communication between team members. This includes MOBA games that rely purely on strategy discussed between you and your teammates.
Frequency-wise, there is not much bass or sub-bass in this preset while the mid and high mid is set to almost max settings for more clarity in the communication between teammates. After choosing the preset you can pump up the bass a little bit if the sound is unpleasant to your ears.
This preset is not for users that are looking for sound quality or an immersive gameplay experience. The main focus is on the communication aspect and nothing else.
You might not enjoy the quality of sound coming from the headset but you will be able to clearly understand everything that your teammates are saying. So, if communication is more important than enjoying the game audio them make sure to turn on this preset before you launch the MOBA game.
- Performance Preset
This equalizer preset has all the equalizer settings around the mid-range. Even though the bass is less than average it is still a lot more than Voice preset. It focuses more on pumping up the frequency on the high mid and the presence bars.
That will allow you to hear footsteps and all other sound cues in competitive shooter games like CSGO. This preset is perfect for users that want to gain a positional advantage over other players. While this preset is on, the bass won’t cover any of the footsteps and reloading sounds cues that you get within the game.
The good thing about this preset is that overall, it is pretty balanced and the sound quality of the game won’t feel terrible. Meaning that you can still enjoy the sound effects while adjusting the frequencies to hear the footsteps easily.
Keeping this preset on all the time won’t be that annoying as compared to the voice preset that is mentioned above. So, depending upon which type of game you like to play you can choose from either one of these three presets and that will improve your overall experience.
- Custom Preset
There are also many other presets in the SteelSeries engine that you can cycle through, but the three presets mentioned above stand out depending upon the type of games you like. So, if you fit either of the 3 categories of gamers mentioned above then go for the relevant preset to improve your gameplay.
The music, flat, and other entertainment preset are good for casual use and don’t have any distinct features to them. However, you still have the option of creating a custom preset if you don’t like any of the presets that we discussed above.
Creating a custom preset is quite easy and you can use the SteelSeries engine as well as other third-party equalizers to manage the sound settings of your Arctis 7. But creating a good custom preset is quite hard and we suggest that you give the default presets another try.
But if you’re an audiophile and want the perfect equalizer settings then what you can do is put on your favorite song on the computer and connect the Arctis 7. Turn the live preview on from the SteelSeries engine and start chasing the equalizer settings.
You can try out different combinations of frequency settings depending upon the type of bass and clarity that you like. You can also ask other users for recommendations regarding the sound settings if you’re not able to find optimal settings yourself.
Online forums can prove to be excellent platforms for such queries and you can interact with other Arctis users there. Keep the equalizer settings around the mid-range and avoid maxing out the frequency settings on different bars for best results. That way you will get a balanced sound from the headset and you can tweak the settings a little bit to make them sound perfect.