Turtle Beach Recon 500 Review

Featuring first-of-their-kind 60mm Eclipse Dual Drivers with dedicated woofers & tweeters and engineered with AccuTune for acoustic perfection, the brand-new Turtle Beach Recon 500 is a budget gaming headset.

The Recon 500 comes with a standard 3.5mm audio jack for cross-platform connectivity with Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S, PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, PC and mobile devices. The experience on the different platforms has really been great.

The headset features a TruSpeak uni-directional, noise-cancelling mic and comes with breathable memory foam ear cushions with a durable, lightweight, metal-reinforced headband.

Highlights:

• Turtle Beach 60mm Eclipse Dual Drivers
• AccuTune Precision Engineered Earcup Design
• Pro-Level TruSpeak Microphone

Specifications

Packaging

The packaging comes in a grey packaging with photos and specifications on the sides. The box is durable and the headset is well protected. Inside the box, we find the headset, accessories and the product information guide.

The headsets and accessories are well protected so that it does not move during transport. The packaging includes the below:

• Turtle Beach Recon 500 Gaming Headset
• TruSpeak Gaming Microphone
• Quick Start Guide
• Turtle Beach Sticker

Design

The Turtle Beach Recon 500 headset comes in two colors – matte black or white/grey camo color scheme. It has a metal-reinforced headband which can be easily adjusted to different head sizes and offers a very comfortable fit for hours.

The metal-reinforced headband gives the headset a premium feel. The rest of the headset is made of high-quality matte plastic which blends in well with the overall design and feel. The ear cups can also tilt to rotate 90 degrees.

There are just two buttons on the Turtle Beach Recon 500 and there are located on the left earcup – a volume slider and mute button for the mic. Also located here is the 3.5mm braided cable (which is fixed unfortunately) and the detachable microphone.

The soft memory foam ear cushions wrapped in athletic weave fabric are pretty comfortable and durable and also allows for better airflow to and from your ears. In terms of build quality, the Recon 500 is a sturdy headset, it feels solid and is comfortable at the same time. If you wear glasses, Turtle Beach’s exclusive ProSpecs comfort-driven design removes pressure while you play.

Performance

Two 60 mm Eclipse drivers are responsible for the audio conversion. According to Turtle Beach, the speakers are designed with two separate chambers to separate the high and low frequencies in order to provide better sound performance.

The sound quality is great for the price range and the headset works very well for gaming. But if you are also going to mostly use them to listen to music, not so much, as the audio quality doesn’t stand out as some of its’s competitors. The headset does not offer virtual or even real surround sound, only stereo. There is no support for any companion software either.

Microphone

The TruSpeak noise-cancelling mic is detachable and does a good job when in use, but the lack of pop protection causes because external noises to pass through. There is also a dedicated button on the left earcup to mute the mic.

Verdict

The Turtle Beach Recon 500 is a great headset for its price and is perfect for the gamers who own different gaming platforms as it works perfectly with game consoles, controllers, mobile devices, or anything with a standard 3.5mm jack.

It also offers decent audio quality when listening to music. In terms of comfort, the metal-reinforced headband with the breathable memory foam ear cushions is comfortable to use.