Made the jump to the Stealth Pro II’s, here is my initial impression

I finally decided to switch over to the Stealth Pro II’s on the PS5. I had a new pair of Pulse Elite’s but after two copies had a loose driver I decided to switch. Here are my first impressions after setting them up and testing them only on Home Screen and mic test. Think of this a first impressions minus sound quality. That will come later after many game hours:

- Build quality is fantastic. I could not be happier with the quality, they seem premium in every way. WAY better than the Pulse Elite. I know we are talking two drastically different price points.

- Ear cushions are very comfortable. Especially when my glasses are on. Some headphones drive my glasses stems into my head, these cups seem to mold around my glasses. Also based on the material I don’t think my ears will get hot after a long gaming session, but we will see. I had the Pulse Elite’s and because they were pleather my ears would get hot after several hours of playing.

- Clamping pressure is perfect, I had no issues at all with it.

- Weight seems fine. I was a little worried before buying them as they are a little heavier than the Pulse Elite’s. I have only worn them for a bout a half hour while setting up so this is something I will have to provide an update on after using them for longer.

- I used the app on my phone as I only have a Mac laptop so could not use the windows app. Having the app is great and it offers a lot of information and settings to change.

- Setup was quick and easy. Plugged base station into PS5, pulled the paper protecting the battery from the terminals and the headphones turned on. App connected easily and the firmware update took about 5 minutes. After that headphones were connected and working

- I do wish you could use the app when the headphones are turned off, seems like it does not load up when they are off. Would have liked to play around with the app and create different EQ sets while they are off.

- I did not experience the strong smell everyone is talking about. Sure there is a smell, it is not strong and it is not unpleasant in my opinion. Don’t think I would have even noticed it if I was not looking out for it.

- I wish I could use the mic monitoring while ANC is on. Hopefully that is something that can be updated in future.

- Mic monitoring (sidetone) is strong enough for my liking. I may even turn it down a bit. This was a big thing for me and I am good it seems to work well. Whenever I can’t get good monitoring I tend to muddle my words because I can’t hear myself.

- The mic quality seems good. I did a recording via PS5 and listened back and even with the mic not bent toward my mouth it picked my voice up load and clear. Quality seemed fine.

- One thing that scared me in the beginning was that the earphones were picking up every ambient detail in the room and turning it up loud in the headphones. My chair creaking sounded like a tree was cracking in half. I ended up finding the noise gate setting and turning that up to deal with it and it went away. But it was not clear in the beginning and I only found that after about 20 minutes of playing around with everything in the app.

- I think having the app on the phone is a great idea. It will allow me to switch between EQ sets on the fly while playing to tweak things in order to get the perfect settings.

My initial impressions are great, and I will update thoughts after using them for a while.