SteelSeries Alias - Review

I have reviewed a number of SteelSeries products over the years and I have reviewed a number of microphones, but never a SteelSeries microphone, simply as they never had one before now. The Alias range takes what the group know about microphones and splits it away from the headsets they are usually paired with. Does this division of product result in something amazing, or were they better to leave well enough alone?

I have been a fan of the SteelSeries headphones for a number of years, to the point where I use their Arctis Nova Pro as my main headset, but I have never been a fan of the mics that they include in them. This is not an issue limited to just their products, microphones that are built into headsets generally fall short of where a standalone microphone can go, so having them build their own dedicated mic can only be a good thing. The short answer is that it is a very good thing, but before we get too far into the details, let us talk about the form factor, as that is important with any piece of hardware. The Alias has a few functions on the mic body, with all other options taking place in the software, more on that later. The front of the mic, and yes there is a proper front here, contains a mute function and headphone volume adjustment. The rear contains the gain adjustment for the microphone, USB-C connection point and the headphone jack. There is something else that I honestly kept forgetting about and that is the led indicators that live under the mesh front, when muted you will see a nice big X on the screen, but when not muted, you get a 5 stage level indicator, to help you see how loud you are.

From a design perspective its sleek and minimalistic, meaning there is not a lot to worry about here and it is one of the points I really like about it. The mic is connected to the frame by its shock mount, with four precisely strung elastic bands holding it in place. At first I was a little concerned that with so little a connection method, it would shake around to much, but with repeated and totally accidental bumps to my desk, it stayed rock solid. That shock mount connects to the included stand via a pivot hinge, which can also be connected to their planned arm mount, but that hinge provides a good amount of vertical movement. The only real point of concern here is that the hinge feels loose, as in you move the stand around and you can hear it rattle, and something that loose could be a problem later on. When you have the stand in place, or even holding it in your hands, the mic does not move at all, only when you move it around.

Inside the mic is perhaps the main reason why I was a fan of it from almost the point of connection and that is the 2.5cm wide mic capsule, something that dwarves most other mics on the market. The larger that a mic capsule is, the more sound it can grab and this one provides a 24-bit sampling range. Even without the software, again more later, the mic was able to pick up my speaking at it, when a fan was blowing from behind. This is partly due to the larger mic capsule, but more so because by design the mic has a much tighter cardioid pattern. Most mics these days have a wider or bi-directional pattern, in order to capture sound from a wider space, perfect for folks who do a podcast with multiple speakers and only one mic. In a game streaming space, that does not work as it would mean the mic can pick up your keyboard presses and everything else, so tighter is better. Here the microphone was able to pick up my voice clearly, with it being a comfortable distance away from my face and it ignored most of the external sounds around it.

I say most of, because no microphone can just capture your voice on its own, well at least not yet, but SteelSeries have their software to pair with the microphone. Sonar is part of GG, which is their suite for managing their products, customising and all that and stuff. For the Alias, it lets you configure it even further, the basic options let you tell it where your mic is sitting. This may not seem like a big deal, but device placement can go along way to helping you sound better. In the past I have used some software that offers the same, only for it to completely destroy my sound settings and I was honestly worried this would do the same, it did not. Once it was connected, the software asked me to choose a few settings, the input device, the output source and such and once I set them up, I was done. It was very simple to the point that the companies ‘Plug and say’ line actually feels like it’s a true fact and not marketing spin. Once the setup was done, I could start to mess with settings, or at least pretend to, the default options are good, but if you wanted to go further you can. Below the equalizer, for audio not Denzel Washington, there is the AI noise cancellation effect. This is very good and feels as like it cleans up the audio to just use my voice.

There are additional audio settings that you can do, but the real reason why I love the software is that it has a new ‘Streamer mode’ which lets you adjust audio outputs to a frightening degree. You can have music playing to yourself, but if you stream, your audience can hear nothing but the game, or vice versa. In addition you can tweak audio profile settings for a game, so you can hear more or less than the stream does. As all of the audio feeds out into a master channel, any program that uses that as a source is simplified, meaning you control it all on GG Sonar and not something like OBS. I even was taking advantage of the audio splitting and had music playing for just myself on work calls, with the occasional song selected for the rest of the audience. When setting things up for a stream, I was able to balance the mix of the game audio and my voice to the stream, and have it completely different from what I was hearing and it doesn’t take more than a few slider adjustments. If there was one big reason to get the Alias, the Sonar support would be it.

SteelSeries have made great headsets, but their microphones were always lacking that element that made them worth using, that is until now. The Alias is one of my favourite microphones to date, it is not only simple to set up, but even without any software works a treat, but pair it with the GG software, it opens itself up to suit any situation. The only thing that could be better than the Alias, is the Alias Pro... maybe.

The Score

9.5

Review unit provided by SteelSeries

The Pros

Plug and Say is not just marketing bs, as it legit is that simple

Pairing it with the software takes a great mic and makes it exceptional

The Cons

The included stand is quite short, which may not work for most users

Needing the software to dim the LEDs is a tad annoying