Turtle Beach Recon 70 Review

Slow and steady wins the race

Table of Contents

Gaming headsets are quite often flashy affairs. They come with RGB lighting out the wazoo, gimmicks like haptic feedback or “HD Surround Sound,” and much more.

While Turtle Beach are not innocent, they do tend to stick to more old school aesthetics. And the Recon 70 might just be their simplest yet. Offering the bare minimum, Turtle Beach gives new meaning to the word basic with the Recon 70.

Let’s see what it’s all about in our in-depth Turtle Beach Recon 70 Review…

Our rating:

(4.4 / 5)

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Design

The word “basic” can be used to describe every single aspect of this headset. But we’ll do our best to give you a bit more than that. The simple, full plastic design is given some extra flair with a matte coating that feels nice to touch and looks great as well.

The leatherette earpads are industry standard at this point, but they offer a great deal of comfort. The headband doesn’t clamp down too hard. But does offer enough force to keep the headphones on your head whilst gaming, which is a sedentary activity for the most part.

Comfy, but a little stiff…

Even throughout our most heated gaming sessions, the headphones never even creaked. Making these not only comfy and secure but means the build quality is of a high-standard as well.

Our only concern is the firm earpads. There are no signs of cut-outs for glasses, which paired with stiffer earpads could lead to a very uncomfortable time if you do wear glasses.

Overall, the headphones feel great for hours upon hours of gaming. The design leaves very little flaws or breakable points, making them sturdy.

How does the Turtle Beach Recon 70 sound?

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The frequency response is quite neutral, which is very odd for gaming headsets. What is even more peculiar is the de-emphasis of the low-end frequencies.

Most gaming headsets boost this range, adding a lot of extra punch to the sub-bass and low-end frequencies. It works well for games but tends to make consuming media unpleasurable.

Good for multiple mediums…

What this “flatter” frequency response means is that not only will these headphones sound great while playing games, but it will also be great for listening to music and watching movies. In theory, that is.

In practice, we did find enjoyment whilst gaming. Even if the frequency response subdues a lot of the low-end frequencies, games are mixed professionally to sound good on most headsets and speakers. Meaning if there is an explosion, it will still be the loudest in the mix.

As for media consumption, the headphones sounded great. Conversations were easy to listen to, even during louder action sequences or with loud backing soundtracks.

A balanced sound…

If you enjoy your music with some extra low-end, you might be disappointed. There is some bass missing, but nothing too serious for casual listeners.

If you are an audiophile, you might be pleasantly surprised that a pair of gaming headphones offer a fairly neutral sound. Great if you might want to dabble in mixing or sound production but still want to do some gaming later.

Isolation is fairly standard, with most of the low end not able to penetrate, but higher frequencies still being heard whilst in use.

How does the Turtle Beach Recon 70 microphone sound?

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Gaming headsets need a good microphone since a lot of gamers play online and require voice chat. The microphone frequency is flat, which means it sounds exceptionally well, with no frequencies overblown or de-emphasized.

Considering the pocket-friendly price, we have seen much worse microphones on more expensive headsets. The microphone has clear audio, and all vocals, no matter the pitch, sound true to life.

Our only complaint is that the microphone doesn’t get loud enough and could do with a little bit of extra volume.

Connectivity

These headphones are wired. There are no wireless options.

The headset can be used on any system that supports a 3.5mm jack or adapters. We tried them out on a PC, PS4, and Xbox One and had no issues. On the PS4, we only had stereo sound, but if you are playing on a Windows supported device, you can make use of Window’s Sonic spatial audio, which provides a surround sound effect to the audio for some extra immersion.

This comes in handy when playing games like Fortnite, where footsteps and gunfire can be heard in any direction and is a key element of the gameplay mechanics.

To use the headset on current generation consoles, you need to plug it into the 3.5mm jack on the wireless controllers.

Who is the Turtle Beach Recon 70 for?

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For gamers on a budget. Considering the low price, this headset is easily the best gaming headset for the price. Comparing it to the HyperX Cloud Alpha, which is one of HyperX’s most prized budget headsets, the Recon 70 is still almost half the price.

For audiophiles who also play games. This headset sounds great whilst listening to music, especially if you like a neutral sounding mix. With such a low price, these headphones could easily be used as monitoring headphones if you were pinching pennies or forgot your monitors at home.