HARDWARE REVIEW

SteelSeries 840 Bluetooth Wireless Headset Review

by Luke Walsh, December 14th, 2016

The SteelSeries 840 Bluetooth wireless headset is the bigger brother of the previously released SteelSeries Siberia 800 headset. The biggest difference between the two is that the 840 adds bluetooth connectivity that the 800 lacked to be a all round headset.

Much like the 800, it is designed to work with pretty much every device you would possibly want to use; from PC, PS3 PS4, Xbox One, Xbox 360 and your smartphone or tablet. The setup of the Siberia 840 can be a cumbersome experience but the quality of the headset from the sound and microphone is worth that hassle if you can afford the £300 price tag.

In terms of design, for SteelSeries it is a little more toned down than your usual gaming headset which could be a way of trying to make it more useable outside of your gaming cave. It reminds me of the Lucid Sound LS-30 headset but bulkier. The device is mostly matte black hard plastic with a dash of orange around the stitching and inner earcups. Compared the the 800 the biggest change to the body is the replaced plastic outer earcup casing with a metal finished alternative.

Like a lot of SteelSeries headsets, the left earcup houses a retractable microphone, where as the right earcup has a tiny volume control knob which takes the same command as the central base. If you do struggle to find the battery location, it is contained within the left earcup. It was a welcomed idea to include two batteries instead of just the one, seen as a wireless headset is only as good as its charge level. The base station acts a charger for the batteries, so you can always have one being used and the other charging ready to go. This is a big plus in my books compared to other headsets which only comes with one battery, usually built into device rather than coming as a interchangeable extra.

Weighing up the Siberia 840, it is a fairly heavy headset compared others with the battery probably adding a little bit extra on top. Comfort wise though, SteelSeries have always excelled at making headsets that are really comfortable to wear and don’t hurt your head or ears after extended use.

Unlike previous Siberia headsets which feature the “suspension band” system, the 840 goes back to a more traditional headband approach. On the underside of the headset it has a bumped effect with additional padding, while the top sports the plastic frame and SteelSeries logo. Putting on the headset for the first time it can feel much more self-contained than the other Siberia headsets but it’s not a bad confinement. Even after hours of use, it never felt like it was too tight or claustrophobic inside by own head. It ultimately makes it feel more secure, than tight, not having to worry as you move around that it might fall off.

Like its older but younger brother the Siberia 800, it’s designed to work with a myriad of modern systems. In order to make this happen though, a trade off must happen with a large numbers of wires to ensure that all the different consoles and devices could connect to the base station. Setting up the amplified base station is not a quick process and is something you will most likely need the manual for, if you don’t want to pull your hair out. Each page has a detailed diagram of how to connect it up to each device but they every console has a different way of connecting. You’d expect it to be a simple plug and play via Bluetooth or a USB dongle but unfortunately without the hub you won’t get the versatility they are promoting.

Connecting to the PlayStation 4 for example, the diagram suggests that you connect the base station to the wall and then into the back of the PS4. Then you also need to connect the wireless headset via a wire to the PS4 controller itself. Or you can also connect via a optical cable and USB, then the headset will work in a wireless capacity. The same sort of setup is needed for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One.

Controlling the various different inputs on the 840 can be done via the amp, the headset itself by using the volume control or within the SteelSeries Engine 3 software. Having the three options is much better than just having one. Using just the amp can be quite cumbersome and the same can be said for the headset but when you are in game, it would not be ideal to have to switch out to access the settings. I feel that the menus on the amp could be simplified for a better user experience but having the three although balance out the difficulties of using them all solo.

Although the 840 is designed to connect all your systems together, there are a lack of multiple inputs to allow you to do this seamlessly. You can’t say plug in your PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in via the optical cable which means you either need to use an additional splitter or sacrifice the quality of one and the wireless function and wire it up using the analog setup.

Once set up though, the amp works really well and there is a lot of customisation you can do from tweaking the volume, choosing the different preset settings based on games, movies and music and create your own equalizer settings. All these can be customised per system and make swapping things over that little bit easier being able to save all your favourite options.

The 840 sound quality it just fantastic, the audio is crisp and clear across every genre of music I tested it on and within games it performs almost to perfection. By fine tuning the equalizer for different game types it removes the issue most gaming headsets have of usually being just too bassy for all different sound types. It also features Digital Dolby Surround Sound which can add a lot of extra depth and can be turned on or off depending on your preferences.

Playing Battlefield 1 on the PC, the explosions were nice and deep while the footsteps were light but clear which on other headsets can be drowned out. I was surprised how much clarity there was when it was switching between high and low frequencies. Inside Battlefield, every sound could be heard easily which I would normally overlook because of the great precision the 840 was able to offer.

I then decided to test the headset on my PlayStation 4 with the recently released The Last Guardian. With a game that focuses so much on the music it seemed like a perfect test. All I can say is that it was blissful, the strings and orchestral sounds the game made were picked up beautifully by the Siberia 840 and was really able to immerse me more into an already beautiful game. Voices within the game also came out great, with there being no issues with the quality.

Testing the headset with music, it was just as good as the different games I tried. Trying to be versatile myself, I picked some Prince, Classical and Pop Punk music, each one was pretty solid in playback. Even when tweaking the settings inside the equalizer, I found the standard mode (or balanced) mode to be adequate enough for most scenarios.

The microphone does just as well. During Skype conversations others could hear me clearly and there was no background or white noise. When using the wired option though, you do get audio degradation as trying to connect it while phoning someone off my smartphone was not as good as when it was being used wirelessly.

Speaking of the Bluetooth though, when connected to my mobile it was the same as connecting the headset wirelessly to my PC. The microphone came out crystal clear which makes the added bonus of the Bluetooth much stronger. The same could be said for the audio, whilst listening to music on my phone it had the same results as when it was plugged into the PC.

Functionality of the Bluetooth though could be better as you can’t control your devices completely, more than just controlling the volume which is a big shame. It would of been nice to have some control over phone calls or music as there are buttons on the headset which could of been tweaked to do so. You also don’t get the same number of options in terms of messing about with equalizer settings or pre-saved profiles.

I tried to connect my the headset to my car’s audio but could never get it to work right and the microphone never worked which ruled out using it on a slightly different Bluetooth enabled device. For mobiles it worked fine but I am not as convinced with other devices that might also have the same connection. You will still need the control base if you want to do anything more advanced such as the profiles and advanced music settings.

Overall, the SteelSeries Siberia 840 is a excellent headset for both gaming and music. Console gamers will love being able to get extra control on how their audio sounds, while PC gamers will enjoy the freedom the headset gives both in the hardware and in the software via the SteelSeries 3 Engine. The Bluetooth is a nice step-up from the 800, but it could be better as it is the bare minimum of what you would expect a Bluetooth enabled headset to do. The big deal breaker will really be the price, for £300+ you expect the audio to be amazing and the options to be above average but the barrier to entry it high. It will only appeal to gamers with deeper pockets than most. You also need to get over the tedious set up across all your devices and might need additional hardware to connect it all.