When it comes to choosing the right gaming headset, it’s hard to go wrong with a Turtle Beach branded peripheral. Years of experience has resulted in it becoming one of the more reliable third-party companies in terms of quality.
This is evident in its latest effort, the Recon 500 headset. This midrange wired gaming headset is durable, easy on the ears, and is bundled with an excellent mic. As a midrange unit – sitting somewhere between the Corsair HS35 and Asus ROG Delta S, both of which are featured on our Best Gaming Headset list – the Recon 500 is one of the better options for economically priced headsets.
Turtle Beach Recon 500 – Design and Features
The Recon 500 is built to be sturdy, yet comfortable to wear. The headset’s metal-reinforced headband had a tight squeeze on my head. Though adjustable, the amount of pressure being applied could cause some discomfort if not for the super-soft ear cushions. Turtle Beach knows how to properly utilize memory foam; regardless of how long I wore the headset, my sensitive ears always felt fine.
The inner workings of each earcup goes beyond comfort, as enhanced acoustics and new 60mm dual drivers provide a solid audio-based experience. A wood pulp composite enriches natural sounds while the drivers separate high and low frequencies, improving overall detail. Gun fire, explosions, the revving of engines – everything sounded great during play.
When it comes to external functions, The Recon 500 is a bit barebones. The left earcup houses the microphone jack, master volume dial and a big microphone mute button. All work as intended. A few extra dials would have been nice but ultimately aren’t needed; a separate volume wheel to adjust the chat volume separately of a game’s audio isn’t required on the Xbox One and Series X/S for instance.
The Recon 500’s TruSpeak detachable mic features noise cancellation software. It can be rather stiff, only bending a little towards or away from one’s face. That said, the mic did a great job of delivering clear audio to teammates, regardless of whatever was going on in the background at the time. This was true in most cases thanks to the headset’s wired connection. Being able to connect via a standard 3.5mm audio port made the Recon 500 compatible with the Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC, and mobile devices. There weren’t any latency issues that one might experience with a wireless mic regardless of platform.
Turtles Beach Recon 500 – Performance
The Recon 500 performed well. Using it with multiple consoles, I was able to communicate with my friends easily. The virtual surround sound options – Windows Sonic and 3D audio/Tempest for the Xbox X/S, PS4, and PS5 – allowed me to better pinpoint my rivals in games like Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Of course, the base use of surround sound software isn’t tied to the Recon 500. Any headset can utilize this sort of thing. The Recon 500’s other audio boons combined with this type of software to make for a great audio experience.
It’s worth noting: my consoles defaulted to these virtual surround sound options, and it’s possible to switch between the different headset audio variants on each console by going through their respective sound settings. For Xbox, you can switch between Windows Sonic, DTS, and Dolby Atmos for Headphones. I didn’t hear a big difference between them. The Recon 500 didn’t seem to have built-in Dolby Atmos support, for instance, so it sounded more or less the same as Windows Sonic.
With the PS4/PS5 (after selecting 3D audio), you’ll be able to alter the audio profile to adjust the position of sounds. You’d change this setting based on how your ears hear location-based audio. The Nintendo Switch doesn’t have these options, only TV-based surround sound, stereo and mono.
Connecting the Recon 500 to various devices is simple. Just plug its cord into the 3.5mm audio ports located on your console’s controller or directly into the Switch. You’ll need an adapter if using an older Xbox One controller or a splitter cable for PCs that use separate green and pink (headset and mic) audio ports. Once connected though, you’re good to go. No further adjustments are needed.
While most of my time with the Recon 500 was pleasant, I did notice a minor console-based issue. The headset worked great with my Xbox Series X as it offered the ability to change the chat and game volumes separately. Because the Recon 500 plugs directly into my controller, the Series X gave me access to this slider within the sound settings menu. This allowed me to tone down the explosions in favor of hearing my friends call out enemy positions. Unfortunately, this sort of thing is missing when playing on PS4 and PS5.
The only options given on Sony’s consoles is whether or not I wanted to hear all audio (chat and game) or just chat. There’s no slider to adjust how much of either sound is more or less prevalent. Thankfully, the default setting seemed to balance them both well, but some games are louder than others. Depending on what’s being played, not being able to fine-tune the audio coming through the headset could be problematic.
To be fair, this issue isn’t solely tied to the Recon 500. Xbox consoles share a similar problem when using wireless mics; for some reason, Microsoft’s consoles remove the option to adjust the chat and game audio if you don’t plug your headset directly into them. Unless the mic in question has a button or wheel that adjusts chat and game separately, like the Audeze Penrose X, then you’re stuck. This is why I previously made mention of the missing external functions. If the Recon 500 had a sound wheel that adjusted these settings on its own, then it would circumvent this issue on both Sony and Microsoft’s consoles. As of right now, it just happens to work better on Xbox.