Turtle Beach Stealth 500 vs Stealth 600 Gen 3
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Quick Summary
Stealth 500 (left) and Stealth 600 Gen 3.
Both the Turtle Beach Stealth 500 and Stealth 600 are wireless gaming headsets with flip to mute microphones. The Stealth 600 has a more balanced sound, AI noise cancellation on the microphone, cloth padding, and double the battery life. The Stealth 500 has pleather padding, better raw mic audio, and a lighter build.
Overall, the Stealth 600 is better, but it launched for $100 compared to the $80 launch price of the Stealth 500.
Connectivity Options
Stealth 500
The Stealth 500 comes in an Xbox version and a PlayStation version. I got the Xbox version and it works with Series S|X and PC, but the Xbox version does NOT work with PS5.
Likewise, the PS5 version does not work with Xbox. The Stealth 500 only comes with one dongle and no switches. The QuickSwitch button on the headset swaps between Bluetooth audio and 2.4 GHz wireless audio.
It has a battery life of up to 40 hours.
Stealth 600
The Stealth 600 Gen 3 has both a PlayStation and Xbox version. The Xbox version works with PlayStation and PC also, so there's really no downside to just picking the Xbox version.
It comes with one dongle with a switch for USB (which is for PC and PS5) and Xbox. The QuickSwitch button again switches between 2.4 GHz wireless and Bluetooth. Unfortunately, the Stealth 600 Gen 3 produces a very annoying crackling when used Bluetooth.
This has a battery life of up to 80 hours.
Both headsets have a game/voice chat volume dial, but these only work on Xbox.
Headphone Audio Quality
The Stealth 500 has 40 mm drivers and it sounds harsh. The treble is piercing, the mids are open but tinny, and the bass is weak. This can be somewhat mitigated by EQ, but not really.
For most use cases, this is a hard pass for me, but a sound signature like this is still okay for FPS games. The overall sound separation is passable, but not great. Both headsets have a narrow soundstage meaning everything sounds pretty close up.
Starfield with the Stealth 600 Gen 3 was fun.
The Stealth 600 Gen 3 has 50 mm drivers and the sound is still treble focused. The curve can be tweaked to have some passable sub-bass, but unless you're a SteelSeries fan, the highs and upper mids will get fatiguing.
This has better sound separation and clarity and better responsiveness to EQ. Overall it's okay, but not great.
Microphone Audio Quality
The Stealth 500 has better raw microphone audio. It sounds much more natural and clear. The tonality is a bit nasally, but it’s unoffensive. Its main weakness is the passive background noise rejection is very limited.
The Stealth 600 Gen 3 sounds muffled and compressed. However, the AI powered background noise cancellation is very powerful. Keyboard typing is inaudible, and even loud controllers like arcade sticks are contained to almost nothing.
It’s a trade off, but after extended use, most people on the other end of the voice chat or gaming session preferred the Stealth 600 because it cuts out distractions.
Comfort and Build Quality
The Stealth 500 is all plastic and it has pleather ear cushions. It’s very light at 237 grams.
This has a suspension style headband (big dislike) that has 3 notches of adjustment. The headset itself cannot be extended to be longer, and I found it to be too small for my head. There's no swivel if you need that.
I don’t like how the Stealth 600 feels because of the cloth-like padding. It's all plastic again, but much heavier at 318 grams. This one does have swivel and adjustable length.
I give the Stealth 500 a B in comfort and a C for the Stealth 600.
Software
Turtle Beach has switched over to the Swarm II software for PC and Android/iOS. Just like Turtle Beach Audio Hub before it, it has an insane amount of functionality on paper. In practice, it’s just a buggy mess.
I remade my custom EQ presets several times using the Stealth 500, 600 Gen 3, and even 700 Gen 3. It refuses to remember them whenever the headsets are powered on, and most of the time the EQs don’t actually activate when selected. The also constantly resets basic settings such as side tone and voice prompt volume or just ignores them entirely.
If none of the settings or EQs stick, why even let me change them?
Verdict
Overall, the Stealth 600 Gen 3 is a better headset, but if you’re interested in it, I’d look into the Stealth 700 Gen 3 first which is even better and (usually) not that much more expensive. The Stealth 500 isn’t bad on a budget, and it’s a decent entry level option.
