Page 6 - Driver
Driver
As mentioned before, Corsair didnt include a software disc in the box, so youll have to download it off Corsairs web site like we did. I also notice that you can actually purchase the Vengeance right off Corsair's website. Anyway, the Vengeance 1500 and Vengeance 1100 do conform to USB Audio standards and Windows will install a basic driver to get it going. You dont get the Dolby Surround with the basic USB audio driver for the Vengeance 1500, but it works. This also means that the Vengeance 1500 and Vengeance 1100 are also an audio device like your sound card, in case you were wondering.
Windows has its own enhancements in the driver panels.
First, let's take a look at the Vengeance 1100. This is the standard Windows HID audio interface, with most of the features that you would find in the control panel or driver are found under 'Properties'.
Vengeance 1100:
Not a lot to see here, but the options are there. There's also an automatic gain control for the microphone that is defeatable, but sadly no karaoke controls. It's a thing of mine.
For the Vengeance 1500:
Some of the properties for the Vengeance 1500 are greyed out because the Corsair control panel takes over. Let's check that out.
Once the drivers are all sorted out, youre greeted with a nice display. Probably the first thing you want to do is hit the EQ to add some bass to the V1500. At stock settings, the V1500 sound a little thin to me. The EQ settings shown are what I used to get the V1500 to sound like the AKG K701. You can also ponder that for a second, with just a little EQ and you're sounding pretty close to a K701 is an interesting observation.
Now, I like minimal drivers, but these are pretty sparse. I like it. I do miss the karaoke mode like you find other headsets, but Ill take these.
Dolby Headphone and Surround are providing the software 7.1 surround. It used to be that Dolby processing (as well as Creatives CMSS) created a decent effect, but at the fairly considerable cost of sound quality. I can say that the surround mode on the Vengeance 1500 was very good, very good indeed.
We like simple drivers and Corsair seems to know about making simple, functional drivers. They were also stable and strangely nice to see the icon in the taskbar. The driver also exits when the Vengeance 1500 is unplugged, something the old HS1 drivers didn't do. All in all, good show with the drivers.
