Turtle Beach has been a top dog in the gaming headset world for years, and for good reason. Along with offers excellent high-end gaming devices, it also offers awesome headsets on a budget. Now, the company is back with a headset that sits somewhere in the middle — the $100 Turtle Beach Elite Atlas.
The headset offers a sleek build, a wired connection, and support for a range of gaming consoles and devices, including the Nintendo Switch. But there’s also a lot of competition in this price range. Is it worth buying, or should you turn elsewhere? I’ve been testing the Turtle Beach Elite Atlas to find out.
Design
Gaming headsets are often colorful, boast a ton of LED lights, and more — however not everyone wants that approach. With a black color scheme with chrome highlights, the headset looks much more expensive than it actually is, which I really appreciate.
Because the headset is a wired headset, you won’t get many controls and features on the headset itself. On the left ear cup there are two ports for the main input and microphone output. There are in-line controls, however, with a volume control and microphone mute.
The headphones come with black plates, but those are magnetic, and can be replaced with plates of a different color for those who want a different look.
The headset is pretty durable too. There’s a strong metal frame over the top, and while the rest of the headset is largely built from plastic, it seemed strong in our tests. The headset will easily withstand most day-to-day abuse.
In the box, apart from the headset itself, you’ll get a simple single-connector cable, along with an extension cable with two connectors for separated microphone and audio outputs. There’s also a detachable microphone, which is a nice touch for those who won’t necessarily want the microphone always attached.
Comfort
The Turtle Beach Elite Atlas offers a ton of padding in the ear cups, plus the headband design ensures that the headset doesn’t get uncomfortable on the top of the head.
The ear cushions are also covered with a nice plush leather, and a softer leather on the face of them, where the headset clamps onto the head. Speaking of the clamp, it’s not too tight.
It’s good news. Gamers can often wear a headset for hours on end, and with this headset that won’t be difficult at all. The Elite Atlas is one of the more comfortable headsets out there.
Sound
The headset is well-designed and comfortable, but as with any headset, the sound quality is perhaps the most important thing. Thankfully , the Turtle Beach Elite Atlas sounds great.
For starters, the bass response is relatively well-tuned, offer tight, punchy kick drums and a decently smooth bass guitar tone. In gaming, that will translate to full-bodied explosions and gunshots, with plenty of rumble in car engines. That said, a little more bass extension would have been nice.
The mids are relatively well-tuned too. The low mids seem to take a slightly back seat here, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and the low mids that are there sound warm. The high mids are slightly more pronounced, which should help things like teammates’ voices cut nicely through a mix.
The highs on these headphones sound great. There’s plenty of clarity and detail to go around, with a good high-end extension. That’s somewhat to be expected from a wired headset like this, but not all wired headsets sound as good as this.
Microphone
The microphone built into the Turtle Beach Elite Atlas is pretty solid. As with most gaming headsets, it’s probably not the way to go for those who want to record podcasts or Let’s Play videos, but it’ll definitely do the trick for communicating with teammates.
Check out a sample of audio from the microphone below.
Conclusions
The Turtle Beach Elite Atlas headset has a lot going for it. The headset boasts a sleek design, a super comfortable fit, and an excellent sound-quality — plus the microphone is pretty solid too.
Of course, as mentioned, there’s some major competition — namely the SteelSeries Arctis 5. The main advantage to the Arctis 5 is that it also offers surround sound — and because of that, it’s probably still the way to go in this price range. That said, if you don’t want or care about surround sound, the Elite Atlas is probably the best gaming headset option out there.
Because of the headset’s excellent value-for-money and super comfortable fit, we’re awarding the Turtle Beach Elite Atlas the Headphone Review Silver Medal.
| Store | Price |
|---|---|
 |
$99.95 |
 |
$99.99 |
| Turtle Beach | $99.95 |
| Frequency response | 12Hz – 20kHz | Active noise cancellation | No |
| Driver size | 50mm | Noise attenuation | Unknown |
| Driver type | Dynamic | Inline controls | Yes |
| Design | Closed | Microphone | Yes |
| Sensitivity | Unknown | Earpad material | Memory foam |
| Rated impedance | Unknown | Magnet material | Neodymium |
| Total harmonic distortion | Unknown | Water resistance | No |
| Rated input power | Unknown | Battery life | N/A |
| Maximum input power | Unkown | Wireless distance | N/A |
| Wireless connection | No | Cable length | 1.2m (4ft) |
| Wired connection | 3.5mm | Case type | N/A |
| Detachable cable | Yes | In-the-box |
|
| Weight | Unknown | Colors | Black |