SteelSeries - Arctis Pro Wireless (Legacy Model)

I second steelseries. I have the pro wireless, the previous gen. Still great after four years

I'm a fan of Steelseries. Nova pro wireless is good, and there's also the elite which just recently released. It is a whopping $600. Swappable batteries are really nice.

I think the issue here is that you play on pc, which desktop mics are going to be a lot easier to plug in. Gaming headsets provide a plug and play experience, especially on console where you have to go through several loops just to get a DAC working. I believe that OP is on console, so advice for a desktop mic while doable isn't the most convenient and most definitely will end up out of the budget given. The maxwells have a strong sound signature but are way too heavy to be practical if you're not a big head. In my own experience, I ran Beyerdynamics on console for a bit and actually prefered my artics 5x, as the beyerdynamics were way to quiet especially for siege and as forementioned, getting a dac working on console just doesn't feel worth it. The headset was 16 ohms as well, so it shouldn't have been underpowered. Personally, i'm currently selling both the dac and the beyerdynamic headphones and will be upgrading to the artics elite.

I run the steelseries artics 5x (5p would be the playstation version) I'll be upgrading to the artic elite pro

I find the older style of the arctis pro much more comfortable than the artist nova pro. With third party pads and the more adjustable strap it's nice even if you wear glasses. 

I have the arctis elites which is my daily driver for everything around the house, the range is insane. But before that, the arctis 7 was holding up really well. The bad reviews are mainly the high price and the mic quality, which doesnt sound bad and is rated among the top 3 mics according to multiple reviews and youtube videos. Even hearing them use it on the videos, while not broadcast quality, sounds very close to normal speaking, albeit kind of nasally. Youll hear that audeze maxwells are better, which is true regarding sound, but planar drivers are known to break easily because it's super thin. Even pressing the ear cushions against your head can create air pressure that breaks it. Theres rumors of maxwell 2 releasing soon which I hope addresses the weight and planar issues. For sure, stay away from any sony headsets. You read a lot of qc issues from constant disconnects, to breaking very easily. i tried fiio ft1 and sennheiser 560s but I cant stand wired headsets and sennheiser is known to have high treble, even with EQ adjusted.

Is he a big audiophile? That can drastically change the answer and increase the cost by quite a lot. If he's just looking to game online, SteelSeries has some great headsets for like less than half of your budget. I think I paid $200 or so for my Nova set. I had a Pro (9, I think) that cost about as much and I liked it more, but it broke. But I think that was my own doing. 99% of free time spent in discord calls with a partner who spent 80% of our time belittling me wore me down enough to throw it a handful of times. The SteelSeries app is kind of hit and miss. Sometimes you have to open it and manually select the headset, but not super often. I find that it doesn't happen much if you wait for the PC to fully boot before turning the headset on. It's great for grabbing clips though and has a lot of EQ settings.

I have gone through all the premium/best-reviewed ones and the Corsair Virtuoso is the best overall in my experience. I didn't like the weird headband on the Steel Series Arctic line. For me it was not comfortable at all. I had a previous version of the Arctis with the little dock and hot-swap batteries, and I LOVED that battery switch feature.

I personally just got the Audeze Maxwell, which are essentially a hybrid between gaming and audiophile. They’re closed backs, but they still sound great. I agree that it’s important to take a step away from these overpriced “gaming” headsets that are really just garbage. My previous headset was the Arctis Pro Wireless, which was inferior in every regard, and it was *still* more expensive than the Maxwell’s. Really goes to show how poisonous gaming branding is.

I've been using this one for years and absolutely love it because of the rechargeable battery that's easy to swap. Quality is awesome and there are custom headbands out there. Granted, I haven't looked at the current landscape since this one has met my needs: Arctis Pro Wireless Gaming Headset steelseries Edit: this one also doesn't break the bank and is what I would consider a pretty affordable.

Yup, a DAC which is also the receiver if you're not using Bluetooth but it's great because it recognizes PlayStation and PC and has some extra controls on it giving it a little more flexibility in how you want to use it. There's also a program that can change how it works with your computer. Edit: one other neat feature is that you can use Bluetooth on it simultaneously so you can be in Discord on your phone but listening to PC Audio at the same time.

crazy that people dont know that it was one of the main things that made me buy this headset

Steel Series Artics 7 Pro or Logitech G Pro X. The logitech is kind of expensive but the only headset I can use while walking around my house or even parts of my backyard, worth it off that alone.