It's more important than ever to find a gaming headset with a great mic this Black Friday

There’s often an assumption that gaming headset mics aren’t going to be of the utmost quality. So when it comes to finding the best Black Friday gaming head deals you may instinctively want to overlook that aspect altogether. That assumption isn’t totally unwarranted, especially if you’re an old-age gaming pensioner like myself, who experienced the era of compressed mushy mic audio and lived to tell the tale. I’m sure many of us could recite horror stories in vivid detail of going online in Call of Duty Black Ops in 2010 and hearing nothing but a choir of over-peaking mics. Mics that are highly likely to be coming from kids who definitely shouldn’t be up at all hours playing Call of Duty.

Those days aren’t entirely behind us. Hearing screaming children while playing Fortnite is often why I now choose to play online games with my closest friends and them alone. However, the days of expecting bad-quality gaming mics are slowly becoming a thing of the past. The integrated microphones of some of the best gaming headsets, bring a crystal clear clarity that only professional condenser mics can best. And in an age where you can now voice call your friends directly from your PS5, ensuring you pick up a mic with a high-quality mic has never been more important.

Discord has been available on consoles for a while now. However, it wasn't until June this year that starting voice calls with your friend list was available on the PS5 without the use of the smart-phone app. This update also rolled out the ability to drop into voice chats on your favorite servers, all straight from your Sony console. With this feature on its way for Xbox X/S users too, ensuring your headset mic can provide the warmth, tone, and clarity to your voice, as if you were with your friends in person, makes sense. I mean, who wants to talk at length about games, or the upcoming Switch 2 all the while trying to decipher your hopes and dreams for the upcoming console through fuzzy, incomprehensible audio? Not your best friends, that's for sure.

A good gaming headset mic can go a long way

PC gaming fans usually have the advantage of ample desk space for a fancier-than-average gaming audio setup. In their case, I would occasionally recommend a Rode condenser mic like the NT1A hooked up to a Focusrite audio interface. But if you prefer your beloved living room console, that kind of setup is not realistic. It's the kind of setup you can't keep there overnight, with the amount of cables involved. Nevermind the idea of having to put it all together every time you want to talk to friends, or stream directly from your console. The next best thing is a gaming headset that doesn’t skimp on quality when it comes to the microphone.

This can be an expensive endeavor, which is why keeping an eye out for brands that know the importance of a good mic this Black Friday can help - especially during a time when having a clear audio quality is a necessity for a smoother online gaming experience. For example, the use of Discord has only become more prevalent since the June update this year, so you'll want to be understood if spending a lot of time in voice chats straight from your console and its headset. Additionally, some of the most popular modern games, like Fortnite and Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 benefit from you being able to clearly talk amongst your online teammates and talk strategy.

Clarity and being understood is a biggie when it comes to what makes a good headset mic. That should be pretty straightforward. If people can't hear you, there's not really a point to be using in-game voice chat, or talking over Discord in the first place. What can help with that is the sample rate. The higher than sample rate, the less white noise you're likely to hear, and the clearer your voice will come across. As headset mics don't have the room for pop shields, ensuring there's some form of foam cover or worthwhile alternative is also worth looking out for.

Pop shields are regularly used in professional studio settings. The plastic accessories provide a mesh of nylon, or other material, between your mouth and the mic. This way, harsh sounds like 'p' or 's' sound nicer on the ears. Adding these to headsets would look a bit odd, considering their often bigger than headphones generally, and so brands use foam coverings to make up for their loss. Alternatively, some headsets have a range of audio customization settings to play with that you can use to help fight against any harsh vocalizations.

Providing the ability to tinker around with the audio itself is also a great sign that you'll have a good mic at your disposal. This can allow you to create a warm and pleasant tone for your voice, so it won't become grating on the ears after prolonged use. Brands like SteelSeries even have audio monitoring or 'sidetone' in the Nova 5P headset so you can hear your mic as you talk. Being able to hear, and adjust your own mic is one of the best tools to have. That way, you can always keep an eye on how you sound to others, and be more conscious of any issues down the line.

The ClearCast Gen 2 microphone on the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless is a great contender for exactly that. Not only is it “Discord-certified” but the microphone makes use of a bidirectional pickup pattern. Also known as a figure-8 pattern, this means that your voice can be picked up easily from the front and back of the device. Pickup patterns are of utmost importance. So many of us get overly enthusiastic in a game of Dead by Daylight, and end up jumping around our sofa, as if that’ll give us an upper hand in-game. With all that movement, you’re going to want to be sure that your mic can still pick up your voice, and in this case, screams, even if you’ve pulled away in a bout of excitement.

The ClearCast mic isn’t just found on the Arctis Nova Pro Wireless. Every pair of cups within the Arctic line has one of these bad boys, includingmy favorite pair, the Arctis Nova 5 Wireless. Despite the 5P mic’s absence of a foam covering, which would help make some mouth sounds sound less harsh (similar to a pop-shield), I sound clear as day to my pals over Discord. Since adding the device to my arsenal, it’s made delegating generators to cover in DBD a breeze, and to this day I still get lovely comments on my audio clarity.

I’ve used a no-name brand headset before, and every gaming session was full of friends asking me to repeat myself. “Sorry, what was that” became a common phrase, and gradually detrimental to my overall enjoyment of playing online games. Switching to a high-quality mic changed all that, and now I don’t have to worry about sounding like a muffled, nonsensical mess.

SteelSeries isn’t the only brand oozing with high-end mic goodness these days. Razer, just as well known for its plethora of peripherals of every flavor, have done the same with the BlackShark V2 Pro. With it, Razer has included a detachable Razer HyperClear super wideband microphone with a high 32khz sampling rate. This high rate allows it to capture a better snapshot of audio, producing a creamy rich sound. A sound which received a lot of praise when chatting away with my friends over our weekly Discord film night. So much so, that the headset has since been commandeered by my partner for his WoW Classic gaming sessions.

Not only that, its unidirectional pickup pattern is one often found on some of the best condenser mics, ones I’ve even used in a professional studio setting. It’s no wonder why the BlackShark V2 Pro can make you sound as though you’re actually in the same room as your gaming pals, rather than separated by entire cities. I still wouldn’t recommend using it for singing, or even podcast audio recording. However, the more similarities mics like it to condenser mics that are designed to pick up every nuance of the human voice, the better.

The upper echelon of these inbuilt microphones do, of course, come at a price. Having that almost studio-grade pickup pattern, high sample rate, and portability with retractable and detachable mechanics go hand in hand with high-end, and sometimes the most expensive of, peripherals. The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless, for example, has an MSRP of $270. Meanwhile, the brand’s Arctis Nova 5P cups designed with the PS5 in mind are $129.99. Razer’s BlackShark V2 Pro isn’t on the cheap side either, coming in at $199.

Luckily, Black Friday gaming headset deals aren’t anything new, and we suspect some heavy hitters from SteelSeries, Razer and more will see some welcome discounts. So if you’re on the hunt for a new gaming headset this November, ensuring it doesn’t cheap out on its mic will not only benefit your next gaming session, but your friends will thank you. Trust me.

If you're gearing up for the release of the PS5 Pro our list of the best PS5 headsets will steer you in the right direction. We also have a curated list of the best Xbox X headsets if that's more your jam. Of course, with Black Friday gaming headset deals on their way, there's a ton of savings soon to be had.