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Out of the box the Corsair Vengeance 1500 immediately felt comfortable to wear. Fully enclosing the ear means there is no direct pressure on the ears and the headband does a great job distributing the weight evenly. However, users who move their head a lot may find the Corsair Vengeance 1500 too loose.
The cloth lining offers plenty of breath-ability. Even after prolonged gaming sessions I did not experience any heat related issues or fatigue on my ears.
Connecting the headphones simply requires plugging the headphones into an available USB port and allowing Windows to install the drivers. Afterwards, specific drivers can be downloaded from Corsair's website.
The driver suite is basic, yet effective. Corsair provide a handful of presets for users who just want to jump into their favorite games while offering enough flexibility for those who want to tweak their settings in detail.
In order to test music playback performance I used uncompressed recordings of The Jimi Hendrix Experience’s album Electric Ladyland as well as a 192kbps recording of the eponymous album Alexisonfire by Alexisonfire.
Using presets which focus on bringing out the lower registers did not drown out the higher frequencies. Using a ‘flat’ preset without any virtualization or other enhancements provided crisp audio at all times. Even at its maximum volume there was no distortion, courtesy of the capable 50mm drivers.
Even though the Corsair Vengeance 1500 was not made with a focus on listening to music it is nonetheless very capable of producing a very enjoyable experience.
In order to test gaming performance I used Counter-Strike: Source, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Battlefield 3. These games were chosen because Counter-Strike relies heavily on sound spatialization while Battlefield 3 on the PC brings together 64 players with an array of weaponry and a wide range of ambient sounds.
More information about sound spatialization in Counter-Strike and some background on the sound design of Battlefield 3 can be found here and here.
We were very satisfied with the Corsair Vengeance 1500's in-game performance. Footsteps and players reloading were easy to discern, as were subtle audio cues such as snipers zooming in whilst playing Counter-Strike. The bass is well-balanced and does not distort the audio, even at high volume levels.
The boom mic performed extremely well and party members confirmed that they had no trouble hearing me clearly at all times. I used a phone to play some music (approximately 1 meter away) while I used the microphone but did not notice any significant background noise while listening to the feedback.
To test the surround sound capabilities of the headphones I used the opening scene from Saving Private Ryan and The Dark Knight. Saving Private Ryan’s opening scene is a perfect way to test any surround sound setup, or virtualization solution, with its mix of explosive impacts and rifles being fired in an open field. The Dark Knight on the other hand has booming, impactful bass scenes and is a great way to test a headset’s capability to accurately produce high and low tones.
Overall, the bass added to the experience, rather than distract, and the Corsair Vengeance 1500 clearly reproduced the wide range of tones during the most hectic scenes of both movies.
