The Corsair HS80 headset is an intriguing one. At $150, it’s not quite a high-end headset, yet it features a premium design, Corsair’s proprietary Slipstream wireless, and 50mm neodymium drivers. It has an absolutely fantastic microphone. But what really makes the HS80 special is how it flawlessly connects to both PS5 and PC. That slightly unorthodox pairing makes it a strong contender for anyone looking for do-it-all headphones for both a PS5 and PC.
Corsair HS80 Gaming Headset – Design and Features
The HS80 features a smart, minimal design, with a shiny black body and gold accents. It sits squarely in the middle of Corsair’s wireless headset line, and has inherited some of these features from Corsair’s higher-end offerings – most notably the drivers and best-in-class microphones.
Gone are the metallic mesh grates found on so many Corsair headsets – including all of the other HS bodies. Instead, the HS80 sports matte black plastic cups, which look great, but are absolute fingerprint magnets. The headset is embellished with a small RGB logo, which can be customized with Corsair’s iCue software, along with audio profiles, sidetone, and equalizer settings. The headset is capable of up to 20 hours of battery life, even before blasting colors from the RGB logo.
Even for plastic, the headset boasts a super-premium feel, with a braided cord for USB-C charging (and connectivity). There’s a long bendable boom mic that folds up toward the headset, but can’t be removed. As for connectivity, it can be used with PS4, PS5, and PC.
The HS80 boasts custom-tuned 50mm neodymium drivers. On the left rear ear cup, you’ll find a power button, tiny little sync button, and power button. Each of these feels high quality, but the power button must be held for a weirdly long time to turn the headset on or off. The headset features voice alerts that let you know when the microphone is off, when you’ve enabled sidetone, and so on. But there’s nothing for EQ settings, which makes it hard to tell which EQ setting you’re using at any given time without opening iCUe.
The HS80 can be used both as wired or wireless headset, and connects easily to PS5 or PC through its Slipstream dongle.
Corsair HS80 Gaming Headset – Performance and Gaming
One of the more idiosyncratic features of the Corsair HS80 is its voice alerts. Everything you do (besides adjusting volume) is narrated by a weirdly realistic, dulcet voice. It can be a bit annoying in the middle of a game to fold your microphone up and hear a slow voice saying, “Mic off, mic feedback off,” but I quickly became accustomed to the voice.
The memory foam padded ear cups are comfy, but you can hear a lot through them. I could hear my mini fridge humming along, my TV volume when I’d forgotten to lower it, and even a squirrel climbing the tree outside my window.
And while I wish the natural noise isolation were a little stronger, the design feels remarkably solid. Everything from the headband to the earcups feels well-built and doesn’t creak or groan under twists or pressure. Which is good, because if you’re someone with a slightly larger head, these puppies might not fit. I occasionally rock a 7 ¾ or 7 ⅝ hat and I had to stretch the suspension headband to the absolute limits to make this headset comfortable. If my head were any larger (or God forbid, I was trying to use a VR headset with them) these would not work.
Okay, but how’s the sound? Not great… at least out of the box. In my audio tests, the headset proved to have strong, accurate bass and treble. But in practice, it sounded muddy in any mix I threw at it. Each of the EQ profiles in iCue all sounded off to me (Bass Boost being the best of the bunch). I created my own preset, loaded up one of my favorite albums, and started tweaking the sliders until it sounded right. Both to the headset’s credit (and my disbelief), I was able to craft something that sounded loads better than anything iCue offered.
But my custom preset was nothing compared to the EQ provided by Dolby Atmos (the HS80 comes with a license; Dolby Access lets you change your EQ profiles). Tweaking this vastly improved the sound of everything I tried: music, movies, games, sports, all of it. The difference is so stark, it’s shocking Corsair would release something so poorly equalized out of the box. Still, it was great to hear what these headphones were actually capable of, which was better-than-good sound.
And speaking of better-than-good, the microphone is out of this world. It looks a little weird at first – a wiggly, bendable boom mic that almost looks like a toy. It’s adorned with a white light at the end which will, annoyingly, always be in your line of sight. I found this light super distracting, but the microphone sound quality is nothing short of fantastic. I ran it through a slew of microphone tests and it always sounded crisp, clear and clean. But perhaps the best thing I can say about this microphone was that the first time I loaded up a game with my routine crew, they immediately remarked on how clear it sounded.
The HS80’s battery is rated at 20 hours, but in practice, I was constantly facing low battery warnings. Whether that’s because of a slow drain when the headset is off, or the RGB just eating the battery up, that 20 hours ended up just not being enough (meanwhile my 15-hour rated Microsoft Wireless Headset and A50s feel like they hold a charge much longer). And frustratingly, there’s no way to tell the exact battery life remaining. Charging is also pretty slow, so I was glad that the HS80 worked as a wired headset – sadly, I found myself using it plugged in far too often.
from IGN Reviews https://ift.tt/yGpuCeF
This could be a real lead forward for personal gaming... Revolutionise gaming
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