Corsair Vengeance 2100 Wireless Gaming Headset
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,721 words · ~8 min read
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by and unlocked Intel fourth gen cor i7 or core i5 processor and get a free copy
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of Rome 2 Total War click now to learn more welcome to an unboxing and review
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this is part two of our series of wireless gaming headsets so this will be
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part three and this one right here is part one the A50 from Astro um this is
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the Corsair Vengeance 2100 now normally I don't review gaming
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headsets because frankly I don't really care about them um generally speaking
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from more of an audio file brand you can get something for cheaper that sounds
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better and will have comparable or better comfort and build quality this is
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just a fact but when we move into
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Wireless products that fact starts to change a little bit because audio file
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grade wireless headphones are very very expensive so I wanted to check out the
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wireless options that are available out there if nothing else so the engin 2100
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from Corsair comes with a USB receiver
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or transmitter dongle rather that can plug directly into a port or it can plug
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into the little base station that has an extension cable on it and it comes with
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a usb2 micr B connector that is for
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charging the headset itself in terms of the construction and looks I really like
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the idea of Corsair's headsets the industrial design it feels quite solid
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and is a big Improvement in the uh
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solidity Department over the previous generation Vengeance 2000 things like
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the hinges have been reinforced significantly in terms of the weight it
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comes in at around 325 G making it almost exactly the same weight as the
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steel series H Wireless it does feature Dolby headphone virtual surround and
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that is pretty much it you can either have stereo over USB or you can have
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Dolby over USB because there's no uh
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base station there's no Optical input or anything like that so it's PC and mac
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and that's it so there's no consoles or anything like that it has an integrated
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non-user replaceable battery so you just plug that in and charge it just like
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that and uh it does also have an integrated volume wheel which I quite
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like it's got a nice knurled finish on it in terms of comfort um the weight is
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a little bit uh further out than I would than I would necessarily like so I find
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it Jiggles a little bit and unfortunately it doesn't fit me particularly well it has okay clamping
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force and in terms of the of the construction I mean the foam a little
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bit on the hard side but once it breaks in I would expect it to be nice and
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comfortable for me the problem is that at my head width they don't uh angle in
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enough and I don't quite get a seal at the bottom so so they leak which is
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which is really important for optimal fit as well as optimal sound quality now
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with all of that said with a longer break-in period I would expect these to
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improve in a way that I wouldn't expect from the Astro a50s as well as the steel
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series H Wireless cuz both of those come with softer foam out of the box which I
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guess is sort of one of those well do you want the one that feels better out
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of the box or the one that might wear out slower or it's up to you anyway uh
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for the range test I did my usual range test which is from the office having the
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base station installed I stayed within the same room pass I went to the other
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side of the wall about 8T away that was okay I went down the hallway about 15 ft
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away that was okay and then the 2100s
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failed when I went down to the stair Landing so it was quite far away and a
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as well as in the bathroom and the basement so I tried in five different locations the max volume of the
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Vengeance 2100s um I was noticeably
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discomfortable discomfortable uncomfortable caused discomfort I
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wouldn't want to listen to them like that I actually found that 20 to 30% was
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plenty for day-to-day music listening or casual gaming but what's great about the
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2100s compared to the a50s is that once
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I reach the maximum volume on them I there's no Distortion they seem to be
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capped internally so that you don't go so far that they sound bad they always
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sounded good uh noise isolation was a weak point of this headset for me
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because they don't seal correctly on my head but when I manually adjust them I'd
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say they're about they're about average for a closed back headphone and that's
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about the best that they can do because they do use a cloth ear cup a pleather
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ear cup will tend to uh will tend to isolate better than cloth although the
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benefit of cloth is of course that there's a sweat absorption as opposed to
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sweat causing uh the battery life is about 10 hours but the good news is you
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can run while you're connected to a charger so just like the a50s
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unfortunately unlike the H Wireless it doesn't have a swappable battery so you
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can pretty much go continuously the Vengeance 1500s are fully driverless I
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was up and running in about 15 seconds which is great um there is a sort of
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rudimentary software thing that you can install it's it's not fancy but it's
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functional so you can control surround as well as volume you can set your mic
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listen functionality and you can control your graphical EQ from within there and
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that's pretty much all there is to it the volume wheel is well integrated into
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Windows and actually controls your system volume as opposed to just
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controlling an independent volume on here whether you prefer that or not is
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up to you um I liked that the H Wireless controlled its own volume separately
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because they didn't really get that loud so being able to play around with the
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software and crank them a little higher would be kind of nice whereas with the 2100s it doesn't matter cuz they can get
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as loud as you would definitely want pretty much now when we move on to
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listening tests they were all tested the same way that is to say um on both of
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the ones that accept analog inputs I did use digital inputs so I used USB on a PC
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for all three of them H just for the best Apples to Apples comparison and
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about the Vengeance 2100s I'd say that bass was actually pretty tight without
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being overpowering it was quite nice to listen to and they felt fairly fairly
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flat a lot of gaming headsets will tend to have pump pumped up base the a50s
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were guilty of this a little bit and actually my personal favorite example of
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uh expensive gaming headphones that uh amp up the base a lot the razor Kraken
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forged um a lot of gaming headsets tend
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to do that the Vengeance 2100s didn't I did find the highs were a bit harsh to
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my ears at high volume but this is normal for me with with reference flat
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headphones so um your mileage may vary
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on that one and the mids were well controlled as well over overall I was pretty impressed with the 2100s
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especially given that they're a $150 wireless headset for the mic I
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actually wasn't that impressed with it this was the first one that I tried
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though so once I tried the H Wireless and the Astro a50s I uh I considered a
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strong performer now I'll let you guys listen though and make your own judgment
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call here this is my test of the Corsair Vengeance 2100 microphone I hope that
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you have enjoyed it thoroughly with a wireless headset a replacement mic
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solution like a clip on or a desktop microphone is really not much of an
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option so the built-in has to be adequate and although I hate boom mics
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and I really find them hard to position just right and I feel like retractable
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is the way to go I got to give Corsair full marks especially now that I've more
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carefully evaluated the competition for the microphone Solution on the Vengeance
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2100 so whether or not this guy makes sense it's going to come down to pretty
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much one or two things so number one is price it costs half as much as the other
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two headsets in this r Roundup half as much at $150 it's still quite expensive
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but at least it sounds good and it costs
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half as much as the other options but it lacks the features of the other ones so
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the H Wireless has their sexy little base station control thing with live
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mixing between your chat volume and your game volume it's got better Comfort
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better sound quality it has better range it has uh console compatibility the A50
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also has console compatibility it's got
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I would argue better Comfort it's so it doesn't have as good of a mic but it's
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got um the included stand and stuff like
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that so these I would consider the barebones value option for the strictly
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PC Gamer thank you for checking out this review of the Corsair Vengeance 2100
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like the video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it I'd love to hear
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from Vengeance 2100 owners what do you guys think of your headphone do you
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think that it'll be the big winner in this series of reviews or uh are you
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disappointed with your purchase let me know in the comments below and as always
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guys don't forget to subscribe subri to lus Tech tips for more unboxings reviews
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