I have an Arctis SteelSeries 7P and the new Sony Pulse 3D, tried them both with various games testing the 3D audio and the sound in blurays and streaming media. My opinion after using both:
- The overall quality of 3D audio in games is the same on both. Or at least, I can't tell a difference if there is any
- The Arctis can reach much higher volume, but when the new firmware finally drops it's going to have a feature that lets one adjust specific audio settings per device and beta testers are reporting the Pulse 3D can be made much louder with it
- The Arctis supports Dolby Atmos and Dolby DTS:X for blurays
- The Arctis is of clearly superior build quality
- The battery on my Pulse 3D lasts a few hours longer, but my Arctis is a few years old while my Pulse is only like two weeks old. So, yea, could just be predictable decreasing of battery life over time there
Edit: Oh yea, regarding the mic, I haven't heard complaints with either from friends when we're playing together