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Gaming Headsets
With the headset in Bypass mode and the equalizer set to Corsair's "Music Reference" profile, I was blown away by how clear the Vengeance 1500s sounded. Bass, while not all that deep, was exceptionally clean and blended well with the clear highs and prominent mids as I took yet another journey through Tool's 10,000 Days, Pink Floyd's The Wall, and Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile. It's incredible just how many subtleties the 50mm drivers in these headphones allow you to pick out in these nuanced albums. The quirky chiptunes and sharp guitar solos that I love so dearly also benefited from the Vengeance 1500's relatively flat profile, though I found myself switching to the "Music + Bass" profile to bring out some extra oomph for listening to my Demoscene and Trance collections. Tweaking the 30 and 60Hz bands a few notches higher brings out even more oomph to the point where I could physically feel the bass kick, but amazingly the bass-heavy Dr Greenthumb track from Cypress Hill managed to retain its clarity. To put it simply, the sound reproduction on the Vengenace 1500 is the best I've seen on any USB headset that I've reviewed to date.
The debate rages between gamers about whether pure surround sound or virtual surround sound is better. (Debating gets much more intelligible once the virtual surround critics count their own ears.) As I see it, true surround can offer a somewhat better sense of spatial awareness since the placement of the physical drivers still relies on the positional cues that your ears have naturally adapted to since infancy. Virtual surround on the other hand uses an HRTF for a generic ear that most but not everyone can process, requiring a smallish learning curve before sound location becomes second nature. The main advantage to virtual surround is that since all sounds are produced from the same large physical drivers, the sound is much more even. In-game characters behind your person don't sound like they've suddenly gone through reverse puberty like they would on a "true" surround headset's 20 or 30mm drivers. Virtual surround also has the added benefit of fewer electronics in each earcup, helping to reduce weight and keep potential points of failure to a minimum.
The Vengeance 1500 makes use of Dolby Headphone to produce virtual surround, and it does a tremendous job of spatalization - a good deal better than the Megalodon and on-par in excellence with the G35. Separation and crossovers are top notch, and can be somewhat tweaked to preference by increasing or decreasing the room size. I personally preferred the middle "Cinema" setting.
Watching epic movies like Return of the King with these headphones is an absolute treat, but for DVDs it's necessary to set the Windows speaker configuration to 5.1 beforehand. There's still a sense of surround in 7.1 mode, but the application of Dolby Pro Logic IIx delivers a much more enveloping effect by placing the rear surround channels further behind the listener. This was especially evident when listening to the THX Jungle Sounds demo, where the helicopter and fly seemed to never cross behind my head without Pro Logic IIx enabled.
Music in Dolby Headphone mode was fairly appreciable, helping to reduce ear fatigue over extended listening sessions and generally keeping the original tone of the song intact. The surround effect gets even better when listening to live albums. Of course, this is dependent that the Windows speaker count is set to Stereo lest it sound awful. There's a few cases where the overall feel is degraded by Dolby Headphone such as Machinae Supremacy's Winterstorm where the already echo-y melody is made to sound hollow, but these are few in number and don't sound half as bad as how Creative's CMSS-3D mangles stereo. I personally found little fault when listening to Nectarine Radio with Dolby Headphone enabled all night, but I imagine this will mostly come down to personal preference.
If there's one thing that surround gaming headsets have in common, it's that they all have completely different levels of game compatibility. Some games have working surround sound, others don't, and a few are even known to rotate the soundfield 90 degrees so Front becomes Left. It's crazy, and unfortunately not everyone is aware of these problems, sometimes not even the manufacturers. A couple years back I found myself pointing out to a vendor at Quakecon that their flagship headset couldn't support surround in the Quake 4 demo they had running. Yes, for two days everyone who came to their booth to experience surround sound was listening to a placebo effect. And honestly with the way that games handle Stereo anymore, I can't really blame them for believing it in such a noisy environment. This is why I place such a strong emphasis on testing compatibility with as many games as possible, even the popular but oh-so-trashy ones like Modern Warfare 2. I do this by standing next to a static noise source like an open flame or a talking NPC, and rotating my in-game character to hear the HRTF. Tossing grenades or breaking glass and quickly turning are other techniques I'll use, and sometimes I'll even do quintuple-blind tests just to make sure I'm not falling for a placebo effect myself. So without further adieu, here are the compatibility results for Corsair's Vengeance 1500 headset in a record 36 tests under Windows 7 x64. *Sheds tear* It's beautiful, isn't it? Corsair managed to keep up in an astonishing 32 of 36 tests, just under 90% compatibility. This is very good considering other headsets usually only reach around 75% or so. The only titles it couldn't handle are Battlefield 2, Unreal Tournament 2004, Unreal Tournament 3, and Killing Floor (a commercial mod for UT2004). I'm a bit saddened that the Unreal series didn't make the cut, but at least some other Unreal Engine games including Mirror's Edge and Red Orchestra 2 turned out great. If anything, I consider it strange since Corsair's older HS1 headset based on the same CM6302 chip reportedly worked in UT2004, though I'm unable to verify this for myself. Battlefield 2 is another beast altogether; I've yet to find a USB headset that plays nicely with that game. One vital difference between the Vengeance 1500 and other popular headsets that played a huge role with compatibility is the ability to manually set the speaker count in Windows to 5.1. You see, many games are written only for 5.1, and there's a handful like Quake 4 and Prey that will only initialize surround if the speakers are set to 5.1 in Windows. Having Windows set to 7.1 is a complete no-go for those titles, the very same reason that Logitech and Razer's offerings can't support them. So kudos to C-Media and Corsair for keeping things configurable, even if it does mean a little extra work before watching a movie. The quality of surround in-game was largely dependent on the title. In Skyrim, it's amazing. I get chills from the ambient noise of dungeon crawling, and have come to rely heavily on the surround for hearing footsteps of bandits about to be slaughtered. Bad Company 2, ehh, not so much. Though that game does have working surround it tends to blend the channels together, making it a challenge to distinguish front from back. But that's a fault with the game, not the headset. What you should take away from all this is that the truly masterful works of sound - Skyrim, Dead Space 2, Battlefield 3, Left 4 Dead 2 - sound absolutely stunning on the Vengeance and make this comfortable headset a keeper. Indeed, the Vengeance 1500 has replaced the Megalodon as my daily driver.
The Vengeance 1500's microphone is somewhat disappointing in that it's only of average quality. Speech is very clear and easy to understand regardless of what the Microphone's recording level is set to, though the noise-cancelling properties of unidirectional microphone are minimal at best. Nasal breathing is soft but always picked up regardless of the mic level, as are my mouse clicks, keystrokes and ever-meowing cat. There's also a soft but constant noise floor that makes the microphone unsuitable for any professional recordings, though VoIP calls and in-game chat don't really suffer from it. Another problem I noticed with the microphone is that any time an application actively engages the microphone, be it the Windows Sound control panel, Skype or Audacity, a somewhat-noticeable high pitched sound emanates from both earcups. Thankfully, the whine is quickly drowned out by any conversation or game that's playing. Mimicking the G35 headset that had the same issue only worse for several hardware revisions, the whine is greatly amplified whenever the microphone is muted by the control pod. As such, I'd recommend muting through software or using push to talk as alternatives to the hardware mute. I have fairly sensitive ears and don't consider this a deal breaker, but some might.
Corsair's Vengeance 1500 is far from perfect, suffering from a middling microphone for the price point and first release software drivers that need some work. Even so, I cannot emphasize enough just how impressive this headset sounds. The 50mm drivers and flat profile do wonders for dynamic range with clean sounding bass, prominent mids, and sharp highs - all without cracking at volume. Coupled with the Dolby Headphone and Pro Logic IIx technology that sound as good as ever, the Vengance 1500 does wonders for surround sound gaming and movie watching. Best of all, the deep circumaural earcups with memory foam padding and an oversized headband make it the Vengeance 1500 extremely comfortable and well suited for blocking out unwanted sound. Highly recommended for only $100.
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Gaming Headsets 
INSIDE THIS REVIEW ▼
Stereo Sound Quality
With the headset in Bypass mode and the equalizer set to Corsair's "Music Reference" profile, I was blown away by how clear the Vengeance 1500s sounded. Bass, while not all that deep, was exceptionally clean and blended well with the clear highs and prominent mids as I took yet another journey through Tool's 10,000 Days, Pink Floyd's The Wall, and Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile. It's incredible just how many subtleties the 50mm drivers in these headphones allow you to pick out in these nuanced albums. The quirky chiptunes and sharp guitar solos that I love so dearly also benefited from the Vengeance 1500's relatively flat profile, though I found myself switching to the "Music + Bass" profile to bring out some extra oomph for listening to my Demoscene and Trance collections. Tweaking the 30 and 60Hz bands a few notches higher brings out even more oomph to the point where I could physically feel the bass kick, but amazingly the bass-heavy Dr Greenthumb track from Cypress Hill managed to retain its clarity. To put it simply, the sound reproduction on the Vengenace 1500 is the best I've seen on any USB headset that I've reviewed to date.
Surround Sound Quality
The debate rages between gamers about whether pure surround sound or virtual surround sound is better. (Debating gets much more intelligible once the virtual surround critics count their own ears.) As I see it, true surround can offer a somewhat better sense of spatial awareness since the placement of the physical drivers still relies on the positional cues that your ears have naturally adapted to since infancy. Virtual surround on the other hand uses an HRTF for a generic ear that most but not everyone can process, requiring a smallish learning curve before sound location becomes second nature. The main advantage to virtual surround is that since all sounds are produced from the same large physical drivers, the sound is much more even. In-game characters behind your person don't sound like they've suddenly gone through reverse puberty like they would on a "true" surround headset's 20 or 30mm drivers. Virtual surround also has the added benefit of fewer electronics in each earcup, helping to reduce weight and keep potential points of failure to a minimum.
The Vengeance 1500 makes use of Dolby Headphone to produce virtual surround, and it does a tremendous job of spatalization - a good deal better than the Megalodon and on-par in excellence with the G35. Separation and crossovers are top notch, and can be somewhat tweaked to preference by increasing or decreasing the room size. I personally preferred the middle "Cinema" setting.
Watching epic movies like Return of the King with these headphones is an absolute treat, but for DVDs it's necessary to set the Windows speaker configuration to 5.1 beforehand. There's still a sense of surround in 7.1 mode, but the application of Dolby Pro Logic IIx delivers a much more enveloping effect by placing the rear surround channels further behind the listener. This was especially evident when listening to the THX Jungle Sounds demo, where the helicopter and fly seemed to never cross behind my head without Pro Logic IIx enabled.
Music in Dolby Headphone mode was fairly appreciable, helping to reduce ear fatigue over extended listening sessions and generally keeping the original tone of the song intact. The surround effect gets even better when listening to live albums. Of course, this is dependent that the Windows speaker count is set to Stereo lest it sound awful. There's a few cases where the overall feel is degraded by Dolby Headphone such as Machinae Supremacy's Winterstorm where the already echo-y melody is made to sound hollow, but these are few in number and don't sound half as bad as how Creative's CMSS-3D mangles stereo. I personally found little fault when listening to Nectarine Radio with Dolby Headphone enabled all night, but I imagine this will mostly come down to personal preference.
Surround Sound Gaming
If there's one thing that surround gaming headsets have in common, it's that they all have completely different levels of game compatibility. Some games have working surround sound, others don't, and a few are even known to rotate the soundfield 90 degrees so Front becomes Left. It's crazy, and unfortunately not everyone is aware of these problems, sometimes not even the manufacturers. A couple years back I found myself pointing out to a vendor at Quakecon that their flagship headset couldn't support surround in the Quake 4 demo they had running. Yes, for two days everyone who came to their booth to experience surround sound was listening to a placebo effect. And honestly with the way that games handle Stereo anymore, I can't really blame them for believing it in such a noisy environment. This is why I place such a strong emphasis on testing compatibility with as many games as possible, even the popular but oh-so-trashy ones like Modern Warfare 2. I do this by standing next to a static noise source like an open flame or a talking NPC, and rotating my in-game character to hear the HRTF. Tossing grenades or breaking glass and quickly turning are other techniques I'll use, and sometimes I'll even do quintuple-blind tests just to make sure I'm not falling for a placebo effect myself. So without further adieu, here are the compatibility results for Corsair's Vengeance 1500 headset in a record 36 tests under Windows 7 x64. *Sheds tear* It's beautiful, isn't it? Corsair managed to keep up in an astonishing 32 of 36 tests, just under 90% compatibility. This is very good considering other headsets usually only reach around 75% or so. The only titles it couldn't handle are Battlefield 2, Unreal Tournament 2004, Unreal Tournament 3, and Killing Floor (a commercial mod for UT2004). I'm a bit saddened that the Unreal series didn't make the cut, but at least some other Unreal Engine games including Mirror's Edge and Red Orchestra 2 turned out great. If anything, I consider it strange since Corsair's older HS1 headset based on the same CM6302 chip reportedly worked in UT2004, though I'm unable to verify this for myself. Battlefield 2 is another beast altogether; I've yet to find a USB headset that plays nicely with that game. One vital difference between the Vengeance 1500 and other popular headsets that played a huge role with compatibility is the ability to manually set the speaker count in Windows to 5.1. You see, many games are written only for 5.1, and there's a handful like Quake 4 and Prey that will only initialize surround if the speakers are set to 5.1 in Windows. Having Windows set to 7.1 is a complete no-go for those titles, the very same reason that Logitech and Razer's offerings can't support them. So kudos to C-Media and Corsair for keeping things configurable, even if it does mean a little extra work before watching a movie. The quality of surround in-game was largely dependent on the title. In Skyrim, it's amazing. I get chills from the ambient noise of dungeon crawling, and have come to rely heavily on the surround for hearing footsteps of bandits about to be slaughtered. Bad Company 2, ehh, not so much. Though that game does have working surround it tends to blend the channels together, making it a challenge to distinguish front from back. But that's a fault with the game, not the headset. What you should take away from all this is that the truly masterful works of sound - Skyrim, Dead Space 2, Battlefield 3, Left 4 Dead 2 - sound absolutely stunning on the Vengeance and make this comfortable headset a keeper. Indeed, the Vengeance 1500 has replaced the Megalodon as my daily driver.
Microphone Quality
The Vengeance 1500's microphone is somewhat disappointing in that it's only of average quality. Speech is very clear and easy to understand regardless of what the Microphone's recording level is set to, though the noise-cancelling properties of unidirectional microphone are minimal at best. Nasal breathing is soft but always picked up regardless of the mic level, as are my mouse clicks, keystrokes and ever-meowing cat. There's also a soft but constant noise floor that makes the microphone unsuitable for any professional recordings, though VoIP calls and in-game chat don't really suffer from it. Another problem I noticed with the microphone is that any time an application actively engages the microphone, be it the Windows Sound control panel, Skype or Audacity, a somewhat-noticeable high pitched sound emanates from both earcups. Thankfully, the whine is quickly drowned out by any conversation or game that's playing. Mimicking the G35 headset that had the same issue only worse for several hardware revisions, the whine is greatly amplified whenever the microphone is muted by the control pod. As such, I'd recommend muting through software or using push to talk as alternatives to the hardware mute. I have fairly sensitive ears and don't consider this a deal breaker, but some might.
Recap
- Amazing sound quality
- Flat profile
- Comfortable for extended gaming sessions
- Excellent Dolby Headphone spatialization
- Excellent game compatibility
- Configurable speaker count through Windows
- These cans get really loud without sacrificing quality
- Solid construction
- Dolby Pro Logic IIx does not automatically upmix content
- Microphone is overly sensitive
- v1.1 drivers provide no mechanism for changing input channels
- v1.1 drivers break the Virtual Speaker Shifter
- Voice Shifting, Karaoke, environment effects are dropped features
- Headset lacks a carrying bag or case
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