Turtle Beach Recon 500

Gaming headset with 60-millimetre dual drivers

In a nutshell

The Turtle Beach Recon 500 is an affordable, simple and at the same time excellent sounding headset. Some compromises have to be made, but at this price, they can be forgiven. There are no bells and whistles – no LEDs, no Bluetooth, no software. On the other hand, the Recon 500 is immediately ready for use on all devices with a 3.5 mm output. The 60 mm dual drivers are impressive and make more expensive models pale in comparison.

The Turtle Beach Recon 500 look inconspicuous, and even their best feature, the Eclipse dual driver with a lush 60-millimetre driver, is only given a discreet mention on the front of the packaging. Is their sound therefore supposed to speak for itself?

It can be so simple: Take a pair of headphones with large drivers, a permanently installed cable with a 3.5 mm jack plug and a length of 1.3 metres, and add a plug-in microphone – and the result is you’re compatible with all consoles and other devices, provided there’s an audio output. So if you have several devices, preferably even all available devices in your living room, the Turtle Beach Recon 500 gives you a headset that works with any of them without any problems.

In terms of price, the Recon 500 also belongs in a bracket where you wouldn’t expect extras like Bluetooth or surround sound. With this model, the manufacturer is focusing on the essentials.

Function and design

The design of this black headset with grey accents is rather plain. If this is too inconspicuous or even too boring, you can opt for the polar white camouflage version. The earpads are made of breathable memory foam and are extremely comfortable and thanks to the so-called “ProSpecs Glasses Relief” the headset also offers a high level of wearing comfort for those who wear glasses. However, to our taste, the padding on the headband could be a little thicker. You can feel the headset after a few hours of playing. Adjustment of the head size is a bit cumbersome, but fortunately it usually only needs to be adjusted once.

Sound

The 60 mm dual drivers are supposed to provide good quality sound and each come with their own tweeter and woofer. Indeed, there is almost nothing to complain about. The sound is very clearly defined in all (frequency) ranges, regardless of whether there is loud action, noisy engines or quiet dialogue coming from the TV. Some people might like a bit more power in the bass range, but Turtle Beach has opted for a more balanced sound instead of a fuzzy one. This strength is immediately noticeable in a direct comparison with a similarly simple headset, the Razer Kraken – this competitor, which “only” has 50 mm drivers, sounds a bit more powerful, but the Recon 500 simply has great impact across the entire frequency spectrum. All in all, the sound image is, therefore, more realistic in many situations.

Microphone

A decent headset naturally also needs a microphone. Turtle Beach uses a detachable microphone with noise cancellation (“TruSpeak”), which can be easily bent into the desired position. The only thing that is a little tricky at first is attaching it when the headphones are on. Some group sessions confirmed the good qualities of the microphone – our test recordings on a PC also underlined this impression. The voice is transmitted clearly, and there is no background noise. A well-placed mute button on the left earpiece can be operated intuitively, and the volume wheel, which is also located on this side, feels good to the touch after a little familiarisation.