SteelSeries Spectrum 7xb Wireless Gaming Headset Review

Wireless Gaming Out of the Box

SteelSeries ships their Spectrum 7xb with everything you need to run wirelessly to not only your Xbox, but to a PC. Inside the box you will find the 7xb headsets, Headset Quick Start Guide, Spectrum Voice Regulator, Spectrum Transmitter, Audio Cable (with 3.5mm plugs), 2-AAA Batteries, RCA Audio Splitter cable.

For a retail cost of $179, we were hoping that SteelSeries would give us a storage bag or at least extra ear pads like the SteelSeries 7h. For storage purposes, the engineers at SteelSeries allow the user to literally Break Down the headsets into three parts. This is great for when you want to just throw everything in a backpack and head out to you nearest LAN party.

On the right hand side of the Spectrum 7xb headsets you will find a number of different control buttons and an indicator light. The first buttons you will see are the volume controls, labeled + and -, then there is a blue indicator that shows the power status and connection. Next is the power button, and the ExactSND (Exact Sound) button, and there the LiveMix button.

The indicator light looks like a Bluetooth indicator on a mobile wireless headset. Its actually quite cool looking with the SteelSeries logo glowing on.

On the left side of the headset, there is the retractable microphone boom. This microphone is unidirectional so it is designed to pick up your voice from wherever you like to place the mic. Some people like to have the microphone right in front of their face close to their lips like fighter pilots, while others like to keep the microphone near their cheek bones. SteelSeries allows for both of these different styles with a longer than average boom and microphone response.

To enable wireless transmission of sound, the SteelSeries Spectrum 7xb comes with the SteelSeries Spectrum Transmitter. This transmitter operates with wireless 4Mbit/s bandwidth for lossless digital audio broadcasting. It is smart enough to avoid interference from other wireless devices in the area by navigating or frequency hopping up to 344 times per second for static-free sound. The Spectrum 7xb headphones are designed to work up to 10 meters away (or 33 feet) from the transmitter.

To get the user to communicate wirelessly from the headset to the Xbox, you need to plug the headset into the AudioMixer that is in turn plugged into the Xbox 360 controller. Now we realize that this doesnt exactly make the system wireless, but this is the workaround that many manufacturers have been using for a while now.