Everything USB Gaming Headsets
Corsair may not be known for gaming headset, but they hold gleaming reputations for their power supplies and computer memory. Today, I will be looking Corsair's first foray into this market with their all new Corsair HS1. On paper, these sound like very potent headphones, but let's see if the HS1's really have what it takes to give Corsair the "in" they are looking for. Read on for my full review.

Headset Design

At first glance, the Corsair HS1 look like a serious pair of gaming headphones or even a pair of audiophile headphones (albeit an entry level in the price range between $150 and 200). These headphones not only have a large circular ear cup that easily accepted my big old ears comfortably, but also nice and plush cloth ear coverings which reminded me a lot of my Sennheiser HD595s. Though with their large circular ear cups a better analogy would be Shure.

This combination of plush cloth material with ultra thick and soft memory foam padding means you can wear the HS1 all day long and not even notice them. Corsair might not be known for their headphones, but whoever their OEM is (when asked directly they declined to name names), they certainly know their business. Since gaming headphones usually have a plastic gimmicky feel and look to them (just look at the Logitech G35 for example. As such, saying they look like they are designed for serious listening enjoyment is one of the highest accolades I can bestow on a pair of cans. Considering that the HS1 is Corsair's pioneer gaming headset, these features are quite impressive.

Further reinforcing my belief that the HS1 headset is meant for serious performance is the fact that Corsair (or at least their OEM) opted for the capable 50mm drivers. While bigger is not always better, with all other things being equal these drivers will have less distortion and provide a simply better and more precise soundstage than 40mm drivers can. Of course, as the old saying goes, it's not what you got, it's how you use it that counts. So, it will be interesting to see if Corsair could use this advantage to its potential.

If you trace the cable down far enough, you come to a nice large volume and microphone controller. This controller really is simplicity incarnate as it only has three buttons - volume up, volume down and microphone mute. In a very nice touch when the mic is active, the volume buttons glow blue, and when muted it glows red. Although it does lack a button to switch from stereo to surround, switching modes is restricted to software only . While this is not a deal breaker, it may become annoying in the future. To be blunt, this minor oversight does highlight Corsair's in-experience and hopefully future revisions will have a simply little slider switch.

The only other gripe I have with the HS1 is the fact Corsair doesn't come with a carrying case. Gaming headsets are more likely than not going to spend a good portion of their life going to or coming from LAN parties. When you are spending as much as these headphones cost, a carrying case would really have gone a long way to justifying the expense. Much like the lack of the control switch, I do not consider this a deal breaker. Rather, it is more of an annoyance than anything. If you are into LAN parties, I would strongly recommend getting a good Pelican hard case with foam to store these in as that is what I use for my valuable kit.

Software

At first glance, the Corsair HS1 software may seem a tad intimidating as it has been broken down into five tabs. With that being said, it is actually very intuitive and the learning curve is extremely short. The main tab is where you are going to spend most of your time as it controls the output, effects and overall soundstage. This last bit was extremely impressive as not only can you tweak the output of each speaker but also the overall size of the soundstage. If you want a nice and intimate feel to your movie or music make it smaller, as you can make it sound pretty darn close. All in all, the effects and customizability really do place the HS1 in a different league.

The second tab is only for adjusting the volume settings of your headphone and microphone. It is interesting that the software defaults to its lowest setting for mic volume and I strongly recommend turning this up before you really try out the mic.

Much like the Logitech G930's software, Corsair HS1 has included a bevy of sound effect features. It's not certain why Corsair wants to make your music sound like you were in a sewer pipe. However, like most good gaming headset software, you get a very nice ten channel equalizer. In this case, it gets its own easy to find tab called "mixer". As with the main tab, Corsair has gone above and beyond as you can not only tweak the typical 10 frequency's but Corsair also included numerous presets that should in theory help tune music to a particular genre.

The second last tab (and really actually the last useful tab) is for real-time tweaking of the microphone sound recording. In a nutshell, you can mask you voice and make it sound like a monster, a cartoon character, man or a woman. To be honest, I find these features an interesting bonus, but not really all that useful for day to day tasks. Voice changing gets old fairly quickly and you could be be spending all that much time on this tab.

When it comes to the performance of the microphone, I found it to be just as good as the rest of the HS1's features. The mic performs very well at cancelling background noise; though I did notice that it did pick up keystrokes when I talked and typed at the same time. Balancing this out was the fact that it did not clip off the last bit of any of my sentences so I consider a little bit of ambient noise to be well worth this trade-off. All in all, I liked the microphone and consider it to be better than my Psyko Audio's, my Logitech's (both G35 and G930) or even my Sennheiser PC350's.

Stereo & Surround Sound Quality

While the Corsair HS1 excels in comfort and looks, it does show weakness in its out-of-box sound quality with music. To be blunt, the default signature of these cans is great for gaming but absolutely atrocious for music be it in stereo or SACD / DVD-Audio / "other" 5.1 encoded music. These headphones push the mid and highs extremely forward to the point where they are fatiguing to use for music and the bass is all but gone. Further compounding matters was the fact that the bass, while precise was extremely anaemic, which is surprising coming from 50mm driver equipped cans.

The reason Corsair has done all this is to emphasize approaching enemy footsteps and such in games. Luckily, there is a mitigating feature of the Corsair HS1 which is of course the built-in EQ with numerous pre-selects. Click "Jazz" for instance and what was a fairly painful experience becomes a pretty darn good experience. It would be even better if Corsair could include physical sound profile switches for easy access. In all though, the HS1 could still sound excellent in any field, albeit a bit of tweaking would be required.

When it comes to movies I actually prefer the sound signature of these headphones to my Logitech G35, G930 and Razer Megalodon's. They make listening to movies on my laptop a very enjoyable and amazingly realistic experience when the Dolby Movie mode is used. Hopefully though in the future, Corsair will make a wireless version to maximize the movie experience. In the end, I consider the HS1 gaming headset's to be better than Logitech G35's and Razer Megalodon's but still not able to provide as good a movie watching experience as the wireless Logitech G930s as nothing beats 40-foot wireless headphones for ease of use.

Gaming Sound Quality & Compatibility

Let's face it. Music and movie experiences are not what the Corsair HS1 is designed for. This headset is for gaming and here they excel. It really is amazing that this is Corsair's first foray into gaming headphones as the experience just feels refined and perfect for a first effort. Unlike Logitech who made more than one "rookie mistake" with their G35's, Corsair really has taken the time to get the details right.

Everything from the ability to tweak the surround sound profile to match a particular game to the minuscule memory footprint of the software has been done to maximize your gaming experience regardless of your system configurations. Everything from a dual core laptop to gaming powerhouse would benefit from this headset.

I threw sixteen games at the HS1, with everything from ancient to new games. These games simply worked with the only caveat being I did have to do some hacking to Unreal Tournament to get it to play nice with these headphones. More importantly, it didn't seem to matter if my system was running onboard or dedicated soundcard, the Corsair HS1 played nice with all of them. This is something I cannot say of my Logitech's, Psyko Audio 5.1 gaming headphones or even Razer Megalodon. These cans really have been designed to "just work".

When it came to the actual surround sound stage, the HS1 does an admirable job. Better yet, if the sound is not perfect for you in a given game, a couple minutes tweaking of the outputs of the virtual speakers will make it darn near perfect. Corsair really has taken the time to get all the details right as these headphones may produce a sound stage that is as good if not better than my Psyko Audio's, but they are still not as good as a properly configured 5.1 speaker setup. With that being said, the package with all of the great features definitely makes the HS1 a pair of superb gaming headphones.

Recap

• Volume control over individual virtual channels
• Extremely intuitive and easy to use software
• Stylish good looks
• Surround sound works very well
• Extremely comfortable
• Long braided cable
• Low resource / lightweight software
• Massive 50mm drivers
• Memory foam ear cups

• No ability to change from stereo to virtual surround sound except via software
• Voice changer options are gimmicky
• No travel case included
• Extremely forward mids and highs in default setup
• Bass is less than expected from 50mm drivers

While Corsair may not have been perfect with the HS1 headset, they come very close. At their main job of making gaming more enjoyable, they are one of the best. Everything from the ultra plush memory foam pads to their ability to give you an extremely good and fairly realistic surround stage just plain works. More importantly, it really shows that Corsair not only took the time to do their homework but spent some serious money on R&D to make their first foray into the gaming headset marketplace a success.

With that being said, the HS1 headphones's are not perfect for all situations and scenarios. They still will not replace a properly configured 5.1 speaker setup as that really is the gold standard of gaming surround sound stages; nor do they do a wonderful job at music. They are also a wired solution. Unless you are within 10 feet of your HTPC, they probably are a less than optimal movie listening solution. In the end, if you don't mind their less than perfect music playing abilities, then these should be on your short list. I know that for LAN events that last long into the night, these probably are the headphones I would reach for.

You Might Also Like