My first Sony-branded headphones were the Uncharted special edition PlayStation Gold headphones for the PS4 and I loved those so much I followed them up with the Pulse 3D headphones when the PlayStation 5 came out. There was something about the ease of use, good sound quality, and approachable price – and a pretty decent microphone, too – that melded well together.
Now the Pulse series is all grown up thanks to the new Pulse Elite headphones that not only promise to raise the bar on features and quality, but also the price. They’re certainly not sitting at the top of the hill when it comes to the latter, but they’re a fair bit more expensive than the standard Pulse 3D headphones, and in line with some of the best PS5 headsets. But despite that higher price, their comfort, sound quality, and a few excellent bonus features make them worthy of the “Elite” moniker.
PlayStation Pulse Elite Headphones – Design and Build
Sony has not shied away from avante-garde design in the PlayStation 5 era, and the Pulse Elite headphones are no exception: these look unusual. I don’t mind them when viewed in profile while I’m wearing them, but head-on I just don’t like the domed look they give my head.
While Sony’s previous headphones have used beamforming technology to isolate your voice (and were pretty darn good at it), the Pulse Elite headphones have a physical telescoping microphone. When pulled out, the microphone sits just to the side of your mouth.
The swooping lines on either side of the ear cups feature the only manual controls on these headphones. On the right side is the aforementioned microphone, along with a single button that toggles mute. It also has a light that turns red when you’re muted: helpful to remember that your team can’t hear you.
On the left side are inputs for a headphone cable (not included), a charging port, the power/PlayStation Link button (more on that later), and a volume rocker.
The design is simple since Sony clearly envisioned you using this headset mainly with a PS5. When connected, the PlayStation’s on-screen interface gives you a ton of other customization options such as sound mix, access to a customizable EQ, and more. All of this is great.
One option that is confusingly not located in this menu is sidetone.
Given that the Pulse Elite provides a very good level of passive noise isolation thanks to full coverage of your ears, sidetone is very important so you know how loud you’re being – especially if you share your living space with someone else.
If you were to pull these out of the box and plug them in, you would likely not realize sidetone is an option at all as it’s not mentioned anywhere on the box and it’s not in the main interface for interacting with them. No, instead you have to separately navigate to the audio section of the PlayStation's main settings. I’m grateful there is sidetone support, I’m just confused as to why it’s not more integrated into the experience.
Sidetone does not carry over to connected Bluetooth devices either. [Update 2/21/24: A PlayStation rep reached out to let us know that sidetone does carry over when using the headphones with other devices, and we were able to confirm this with additional testing. We regret the error.]
PlayStation Pulse Elite Headphones – In Use
Before getting to sound quality, there are a few notes I want to make about using the Pulse Elites. Firstly, these headphones use Sony’s PlayStation Link technology, which lets them immediately connect wirelessly to either a PlayStation Portal straightaway or a PlayStation 5 if you use the included USB dongle. Once that dongle is plugged in, it’s a single tap of the power/Link button and you’re connected. The range is pretty good, too, and outperforms the other headphones I have in my studio right now, including the Logitech A50x headphones that cost twice as much.
Secondly, just like with the Pulse Explore earbuds, the Pulse Elite headphones feature a type of wireless multipoint that allows them to connect and play audio from two connected devices simultaneously, provided one of them is a PlayStation.
The clear use case in mind is having the headphones connected to your phone via Bluetooth and to your PS5 via Link. In this way, you can play games but also hear your smartphone ring and even have a full conversation while not being disconnected from your game audio. It’s a great feature.
You can’t, however, use this feature to connect to two different Bluetooth devices at the same time. While yes, it can remember those devices and switch between them easily, it will only ever be connected to one of them at a time.
You can also triple-tap the PlayStation Link button to bring up the audio menu when it is connected to a PlayStation 5. You can also access this menu by navigating the main menu bar that comes up when you tap the PS button, but the triple tap is faster.
I mentioned the good passive noise isolation and I want to elaborate. These don’t have active noise cancelation, which is fine because the isolation is so good. They are also very comfortable, and the material Sony chose for the ear cups is soft, plush, and doesn’t get too hot even after wearing them for four or five straight hours.
That said, after years of previous experience with Sony headphones, I’m a bit worried about the long-term durability of these cups. They are soft to the degree I think they might easily tear if you catch a fingernail on them or they might break down after about a year or two of daily use; the PlayStation Pulse 3D and the former PlayStation Gold headphones had that issue, though it’s not consistent. Several of my friends have the Pulse 3D headphones and while one of them wore the cup material out within a year, another has been using his for several now without issues. The cups aren’t replaceable either, further emphasizing the issue. It’s not something I can test during a review period though, so your mileage may vary.
The Pulse Elite headphones feature two ways to charge them. You can either plug a USB-C cable into the charging port located right next to the power button or you can hang them on the included wall mount. I prefer the wall mount solution since it looks cleaner and it’s easier to attach and detach the headphones. The top of the headphones features contacts similar to the ones found on the bottom of PlayStation controllers, allowing them to charge while they are hanging. The bottom of the wall mount features a USB-C port where you can use the included cable and route it to a power source.
The headphones promise 20 hours of battery life per charge, but they seem to be even better than that in practice. I played for a four-hour session and that used just 10% of battery life. Go into it expecting 20 hours, but don’t be surprised if they give you more than that.
PlayStation Pulse Elite Headphones – Sound Quality
The Pulse Elite headphones take advantage of Sony’s recent acquisition of Audeze and integrate that brand’s excellent planar magnetic drivers, the same kind of driver that is used in the Pulse Explore Earbuds. I liked them there, but I love them here.
The difference this time is that they sound very good for a wide variety of use cases. The one thing to note is that you aren’t going to get the typical rumble or bump that comes with bass-heavy headphones. Instead, the Pulse Elites feature a more tightly controlled bass that sounds more “natural” and won’t come anywhere close to rattling your teeth. When I’m listening to music or watching movies, I tend to like a bit more rumble to bass, but when gaming these are pretty much perfect.
The bass blends well with the mids and highs to give you as the listener clear audio tells that are absolutely perfect for gaming when you need to know exactly what a sound cue is and where it’s coming from.
These headphones are so detail-oriented that when watching YouTube videos, I was very clearly hearing the light rustle of the host’s jacket against his lavalier microphone; these sounds are completely missing from other headphones I use regularly. This is somewhat distracting for that kind of content, but it’s fabulous when combined with the PlayStation 5.
Mixed with Sony’s spatial audio, these headphones sound absolutely great in everything from first-person shooters like Apex Legends to story-driven RPGs like Baldur’s Gate III.
Much to my surprise, the headphones actually sound very good for listening to music, too. Typically, gaming headphones don’t have the chops to provide a great music-listening experience, but the Pulse Elites do. As mentioned, you won’t get a deep, rumbling bass, but it will be present and you’ll hear it distinctly. While mids and vocals tend to be a bit de-emphasized, they are still clear and mix nicely with excellently rendered highs and lows.
The de-emphasized vocals can mean that when gaming in a chat party, you might not hear voices very well if the game is throwing a ton of music and sound effects at you. This isn’t uncommon and I found that I had to tweak the balance of game sound to chat sound depending on the game I was playing.
While listening to the Pulse Elite headphones is great, those you’re talking to won’t be nearly as impressed. The microphone on these headphones has a pretty narrow and muddled quality to it, not dissimilar from what you might hear during a phone call. In my opinion, it’s not outright bad; your voice is clear, which is of primary importance. However, it certainly falls short of the near “podcast quality” I’ve come to expect from similarly priced gaming headphones like the Logitech G Pro X and SteelSeries Arctis 9 – both have significantly better microphone quality.
One colleague I spoke to actually took it a step further and said they sound worse than taking a call using a modern smartphone. Elaborating, he added that he wouldn't likely think anything of it if he joined a group gaming chat and heard a voice that sounded like mine through the Pulse Elite headphones. You can take that comment one of two ways. On the one hand, it’s not so offensive that it would make him ask if there was a problem. On the other hand, it isn’t so good that it would elicit a comment about the high-quality sound of my voice either.
We can summarize the microphone quality of the Pulse Elite headphones as just a bit below average when we look at the whole gaming headset market but well below the performance of its similarly-priced peers.
What the microphone does have going for it is Sony’s AI-based “noise rejection” technology that does a remarkable job at only letting your voice through. I mentioned this in my review of the Pulse Explore Earbuds and it’s worth repeating here: I have a friend who absolutely cannot stand the sound of other people eating or drinking. That means when I’m chewing or even just enjoying a cough drop, I have to mute myself or it drives him up the wall. The Pulse Elite headphones don’t pick up these sounds at all, fully rejecting anything other than my voice. I don’t have a problem being heard and he doesn’t have to deal with the sounds that irritate him.
PlayStation Pulse Elite Headphones – The Competition
I’m very happy with the quality of the Pulse Elite headphones for the price: $150 for a pair of gaming-focused planar magnetic cans is quite the deal, especially when you consider the bonus features like PlayStation Link support and multipoint audio. The only downside is the microphone quality where the aforementioned $130 Logitech G Pro X and $150 SteelSeries Arctis 9 both perform better.
