Six years ago, PC gaming tech peripheral company SteelSeries launched their bold new Arctis Pro gaming headset. Unlike some other mouse and keyboard makers, they also have a long history of producing decent audio gear, and this Pro series was meant to be a watershed moment that would advance gaming sound forever.
Instead, it was just a bunch of empty promises glued onto a totally fine headset.
The key “new” innovation in the Arctis Pro was full support for so-called “Hi-Res Audio.” Normal audio quality is usually defined by the standards set for CD music playback so many decades ago, which uses 16-Bit 44Khz sound. Those bit depth and sampling rate numbers were chosen for their ability to perfectly replicate all the frequencies that a human can hear. The 16-bit side of the equation keeps the noise floor relatively low, allowing for about 96 decibels of dynamic range between the quietest and loudest sounds in your music, and the 44Khz sampling rate means that a CD can produce tones all the way up to 22Khz — well beyond the range of human hearing, and far too squeaky and high-pitched to ever enjoy anyway.
But that pristine level of quality apparently wasn’t enough for the music and tech industries, as both are ever-obsessed with finding new advancements…
