Review: The Sound of Vengeance

With playing a great new action shooter game comes great responsibility. This is especially if the responsibility comes in the form of 3 other roommates who absolutely despise witnessing the audial carnage of anti-tank RPGs ramming against steel panels of a tank at full force. While it may have been true that they could hear it from the floor below, and while it may have been true that it was 3 o’clock in the morning, I couldn’t understand why they were complaining about my 5.1 system being “a bit too loud”.

So it was time to find a new pair of headphones for these late-night rampages - but I was soon faced with a multitude of choices. As a sound engineer in the film and entertainment industry, I take accurate sound reproduction and spacialization seriously, and because of this, I was very picky on technical specs that most users tend to look over. It’s important to note that headphones of a “gaming headset” are normally built differently than ones built for studio reference or music listening, but I’ll dive into that further later in this review.

First Impressions

A couple months ago, Corsair was gracious enough to offer me a test-drive of their new Vengeance 1500 7.1 Gaming Headset, the top-tier model in the audio line of their Vengeance gaming peripherals. Right out of the box, I could tell that this USB circumaural (around-the-ear) headset was different from the others, with its refreshing design. With its firm construction complimented by a brushed-metal trim above each ear cup, it simply feltsolid, a feeling that I believe other headsets of this gauge have lacked.



Even the packaging was all product and no frills. Other than the included brief warranty notices, the unboxing immediately invited me to plug in and start listening. The 1500 headset is attached to a generous 3m (9.8 ft) sleeved USB cord, anchored by a standard illuminated in-line volume and microphone control unit. This simple unit features large and evenly placed buttons, highlighted by either a blue or red LED, depending on the mic’s mute. The attached mic is fully adjustable, and is also complimented by the same brushed-metal trim. Corsair advertizes the mic to be noise-cancelling, finely tuned to the the human voice, however I haven’t had a chance to test it out in a noisy environment, such as a LAN party or a construction site.