Corsair Vengeance 1500 USB Gaming Headset Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
2,070 words · ~10 min read
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all right guys so today I have a very exciting product I recently unboxed the
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rest of the Vengeance series headsets from Corsair but now I have the cream of
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the crop the Vengeance 1500 this is a Dolby 7.1 gaming headset so yes it uses
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Dolby technology through software to enable a surround gaming experience in
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spite of the fact that it does have only two speakers it is for okay immersive
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intensive online gaming got that all right let's see what course there has to
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say for themselves on the back of the box you can experience immersive multi
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Channel gaming put on the Vengeance 1500 enjoy gaming the way it was intended 50
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mm drivers which is Awesome by the way uh deliver pristine audio reproduction
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and 7.1 Channel Dolby Digital USB Sound Processing gives you the Tactical
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advantage of pinpoint accuracy not everyone prefers virtual surround
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effects I personally prefer just leaving it in stereo but if you do like the
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virtual surround effects then this headset has it whereas something like
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the Vengeance 1300 if you're using it with your onboard audio or whatever the
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case may be doesn't have that option uh
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okay over here we've got sort of more General technical specifications so you
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can go ahead and pause the video If you really want to watch that this part is
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important for this one though is the fact that it's not going to work on a
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Mac it will only work on Windows 7 Vista or XP because it does require a driver
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for the built-in USB sound card okay Dolby headphone technology for 7.1
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surround we've talked about that so far oh this is interesting the subwoofer
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signal is mixed into the left and right channels in equal proportions so that
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means that regardless of uh where a base
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sort of noise is coming from you're actually going to get that encompassing
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sort of surround Rumble effect with the lows
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which is interesting because as you guys probably know Bas is supposed to be
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pretty non-directional so if you have a oops I unboxed it the wrong way so if
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you have a subwoofer in the corner of the room for example which is often the
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recommended setup for home theater setups then you know something like an
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explosion is not coming into only your right ear you're going to be sort of
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feeling it and hearing it all over so that's uh that's an interesting way to
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approach that so I'm going to take the headset out of the packaging this was
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actually a relatively easy to extract headset some headsets come in just
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brutal packaging that I can't figure out how to open and I'm just going to have a
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look at the documentation that corser includes so we've got a little warranty
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guide here so this headset includes
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a non-transferable warranty which is
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fine very few people are interested in Sharing headsets anyhow
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and for a specific length of time okay give me a second I'm going to find it
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just go ahead and cut it for
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now so guys it's not in here that's why I couldn't find it the specific length
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of time is outlined on the box itself Corsair guarantee of 2 years all right
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the next one is stop do not return this product to the store Corsair prefers
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that you contact them for technical support in order to give them a chance
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to resolve any issues you may have with the product before returning it which is
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great because Corsair is all about the support
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and uh giving them a chance to actually leverage that aspect of their business
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is definitely a good idea because they will usually 99% of the time find a way
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to make you happy so the Vengeance 1500
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besides using USB which we'll talk a little bit more about later has a
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slightly different overall build quality than the Vengeance 1300 so I'm just
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going to grab the Vengeance 1300 here for side by-side comparison so you guys
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can see and the first thing that stands out to me about the 50 1500 versus the
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1300 is the metal side so that looks
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really really sharp on the 1500 so you can tell that the 1300 is a slightly
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less expensive product you can also see that on the boom mics the Vengeance 1300
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uses shiny plastic here and the Vengeance 1500 uses a metal a metal
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which is yeah it's actually okay hold
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on I can't actually tell if it's made of metal or if it's more like a metallic
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looking plastic somewhat cold to the touch but then on the sides it looks
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like it looks like plastic so it's possible it's like a thin piece of metal
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over the plastic that would be my guess right about now but you know what if you
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guys know for sure let me know let me know uh okay another thing too is it
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uses matte accents instead of glossy Accents in certain places like here as
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well as actually that's about it okay so
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that covers the physical differences in terms of the headset itself so I'm going
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to go ahead I'm going to put it on I'll model it for you oh no wait I'll I'll do
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this first so I want to show you guys the uh the foam that Corsair is using on
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the ear pads so this is a nice soft foam
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that is actually very very
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um I I mean I want to call it memory
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like because I don't know that they're using memory foam but you can see that
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once I push on it it actually takes quite a while to rebound back to its
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original position this is much more comfortable than a foam that just flexes
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right back to the original position after you press it because what that'll
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do is it'll give constant pressure on your head and on your ears whereas this
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is going to mold itself to you and create more like a cushioning layer as
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opposed to pressing on you so the 50 mil drivers are here you can clearly see
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they're 5 cm in diameter and then also
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on the headset itself I want to show you guys the foam that's in the top here
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quite thick very soft uh shouldn't be
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too much of a difficulty in terms of uh of comfort corer headsets at this point
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are well known for the comfort that they provide so now I'm going to put the unit
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on before I talk about it anymore so in terms of adjustments you can adjust
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either side this much so if you have a very tall head and I mean a tall head I
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mean even with my hair all tall like this you can see I can here hold on I'm
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going to put it on my ears properly I can clearly stick my hand in between the
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headset and the top of my head so or I can pull the the earphones down to here
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whichever the case may be I'd use it pretty much in its smallest
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configuration or maybe couple notches out on either side very fine adjustments
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on both sides and it does stay in place quite well it's hard to move it which I
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think is a good thing because you don't want to be adjusting your headset every
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time you put it on the boom mic is adjustable this way so you can move it
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further or closer to your mouth depending on what you prefer and it can
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either go up all the way or it can come down to about here so if your mouth is
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located around the sort of Adam apple area then you will be able to easily
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talk into the mic regardless okay all right um what else do I want to say
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about this one I think that's pretty much it for the headset I mean if you guys want to see sort of the look from
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either side oh yeah having a little bit of trouble with
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that oh yeah so they are flexible this way so that means that if your head has
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sort of a different shape to it or your ears are further back or further forward
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on your head it's going to fit quite comfortably either way and let's have a
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look at the included options on this this side of
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things so we've got our volume down and our volume up as well as our microphone
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mute button here so these are in line and they come down about this far from
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where they attach to the headset so they'll hang comfortably somewhere where
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you can reach them at a moment's notice the cord itself is quite long so you can
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plug it into the front of your case or you can plug it into the back of your
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case or you can plug it into like the back of your neighbor's case should you
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so desire because it's really really long and it's a nice high quality
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braided cord so it's not going to s egg on anything and I wouldn't expect it to
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sustain any damage if you accidentally hit it with something sharp either
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although your cats could probably do a number on it I've lost a couple headsets to my CS the USB connector at the bottom
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so you can see this is a purely USB
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headset there's no analog options some headsets like the Vengeance here it is
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the Vengeance 1100 come with a little USB sound card and then analog
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connectors but this one just terminates straight to a USB connection because it
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is meant to be used with the included software and which I guess you download
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from Corsair's website because I don't see a dis included which is what I would
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tell you to do anyway download the latest software from the cors our
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website and it is not meant to be used with an analog sound card so I'll just
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kind of show you guys from all angles what it looks
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like you know here's with the mic down this is the part that people watch
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these videos for I suppose you know what does the product actually look like when
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it's installed in this case it's installed on a user and thank you for
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checking out my video the Vengeance 1500 from Corsair don't forget to subscribe
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to lus check tips for more unboxings reviews and other computer
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videos here's another difference that we didn't notice until after we stopped
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filming and that check this out so the 1300 actually uses more like they seem
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to use the same foam so I can tell you guys that right off the bat but the 1300
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uses like a pley material here whereas the 1500 uses a cloth material so these
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are going to sound more closed and these are going to sound more open so they are
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going to have slightly different audio characteristics even if you hook these
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two headsets up to the same source so these are very different products and it
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comes down to what the individual user is looking for whether they would want
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to choose a Vengeance 1500 or a Vengeance 1300 so a quick guide would be
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if you're using a notebook you don't have an you don't have a dedicated sound
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card I'd go with the, 1500 right off the bat especially if you don't want to buy
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a sound card if you do have a dedicated sound card it's probably going to be
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better than the USB audio solution um especially if it's a halfway decent card
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so then I'd go with something like the 1300 so that you can make use of the
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processing power of your sound card