Corsair Virtuoso RGB Wireless SE Gaming Headset Review
Corsair Virtuoso RGB Wireless SE Gaming Headset: A Closer Look
The Virtuoso are a departure from the Corsair Void and look like a pair of studio headphones. The beautiful brushed aluminum ear cups on the SE model, paired with the aluminum swivels and headband all look and feel high quality. Corsair appears to be targeting a more mature gamer with the Virtuoso and that is something that I can appreciate, as the over the top design of gaming headsets isn’t something I’ve ever been a fan of.
Corsair bundles all the controls for the Virtuoso onto the bottom side of the right ear cup. A volume rocker with knurled aluminum pattern offers very smooth, tactile adjustment, with a high quality feeling. The switch for USB and Wireless mode is placed right by the volume slider, which unfortunately means that it can be easily hit when you’re going to adjust your volume. There is no dedicated button to toggle surround sound mode, something I would definitely like to see.
The right ear cup of the Virtuoso is where all of the cables and microphone connect. There is also a small indicator LED between the stereo cable and USB-C charging input that informs the user of the battery life and status of the headset. The USB-C charging cable plugs into the bottom of the ear cup at an angle. This configuration isn’t the best, as the USB cable will run across your shoulder and cause the headset to pic up cable noise if you’re running in wired mode. The microphone input and stereo jack are both high quality and fit their respective cables well, with the mic and stereo cable both holding well and firm when connected, with no fear of anything coming loose during game play.
The headband of the Virtuoso is made of a leatherette material with a decent amount of memory foam padding underneath. This material lends well to long gaming sessions and feels comfortable, breathing well and providing an ample amount of stability. There are ten levels of height adjustment on each side of the Virtuoso. I have a fairly large head and found that the level seven was optimal for me. I have no doubt the Virtuoso will fit most consumers.
Comfortable ear cups are a must for any gaming headset and the Virtuoso are outfitted with an acceptable pair, for sure. Unfortunately, these ear cups do have some shortcomings. While the material feels great and the padding is adequate, the cups themselves aren’t too big around and they also lack a bit of depth. This situation means that for some users, the ear cups won’t contain the whole ear and your ear may rest against the driver area. I don’t have large ears and the ear cups barely fit over mine. I didn’t experience any discomfort for some time, but at about the hour mark I needed to take a break for just a moment, as I had to adjust the headset due to the pressure on my ears from the driver. I doubt most users are going to have issues and the other headset I had this issue with, the Arctis 7 from SteelSeries, is worse in this regard.
Corsair places their logo on each ear cup with perforations in the aluminum allowing LED lighting to bleed through, giving the Corsair logo a nice glow. The RGB effects here are subdued and limited to the logo. I must say, compared to the RGB implementations on some of the headsets out there, this is a tasteful implementation that should have minimal impact on battery life. One issue is that the perforations on the aluminum can clog with dust and other debris over time and they can be a pain to clean out due to their micro size.