Page 8 - Gaming and Movies
Audio
Audio performance of the Vengeance 1500 is pretty damn nice, actually. The first song is Stevie Wonders Loves In Need of Love Today, from Songs in the Key of Life. You get just about everything with a song like this, and the 1500 delivers. It has the Corsair family resemblance in regards to balance, which is towards the treble. It will need some EQ adjustment to get it to thump. If youre a Beats man, these wont cut it at all, regardless of the EQ settings you employ.
The Vengeance 1100 arent too bad, and they absolutely rock at anything bass heavy. Like Ultramagnetic MC's The Four Horsemen, or Kool Keith's Lovely Lady.
Of course, with EQ the Vengeance 1500 also pump out some strong bass.
Anyway, with the HS1 we noticed a little grain in the treble, and that also continues with the 1500, but less so. Stereo image is very stable and wide, and like a fine Grado headphone, is very close to your face. It does lack a bit of depth, meaning its not very 3D. Yeah, sound can be 3D. Anyway, it is very detailed however, and there were several songs where the detail exceeded the K701/Audio gd Sparrow combination, but not in a very natural way. The Vulcan ANC provides the best of both worlds, bass and detailed treble, especially driven with a decent sound card or external amp like the Audio-gd Sparrow.
The Vengeance 1100 deserves to have a little love though. They are have both USB and analog, offering very different experience for both. Driven with the Audio-gd Sparrow, the Vengeance 1100 come on like a, pardon the pun, vengeance. Ah, theres the bass! But, oh, wait a second, while its got the bass, it doesnt have a lot of treble, oh noes! On Megadeths Symphony of Destruction, the bass kicks but the cymbal strikes are a repressed a bit and the stick sounds arent audible at all. They do have good punch, though, which makes the Vengeance 1100 pretty decent overall.
The Vengeance 1100 works great on songs like Flo Ridas Wild Ones, the bass just takes your head and thumps. But it is a little heartbreaking not to hear all of Sias gorgeous vocals because of the treble. Well, OK, its not that bad, you do get used to it, but its hard if you know theres more there. With the Vengeance 1500, the subtle details of Sia's vocals are plainly revealed. Then there's the bass, with the EQ applied to the 1500's, it's just as strong as the 1100 and you get the clear treble.
The Vengeance 1500 are great for music with the EQ to bring up the bass.
DVD Watching
Hey, Ill be the first one to tell you its not all about gaming with headsets, no, its good to take a break once in a while. To see how these headsets stacked up against each other with some Netflix streaming and DVD viewing, I took the Vengeance 1500 and 1100 to task.
Yup, first up, a sweet little show called Clone High. The premise is about cloning famous historical figures and seeing what happens to them as they go through high school. And hilarity ensues.
The Vengeance 1500 is great for voice, actually, so they tend to excel in movies and video. I had no trouble picking out details in any of the Clone High episodes, which there are quite a few details and Easter eggs. The rather angst-y theme song was the only problem, though.
The drums are recorded live in a sound booth, but the Vengeance 1500 lacked the clarity of the AKG K701 in bringing out the room sounds. Well, I mean, the mix is not particularly good to begin with, but there is more detail in the audio that could be brought out. The Vengeance 1100 are really not very favorable for detail with the suckout in the high end. Starting at about 4KHz, the treble falls off a sharply and pretty much stays there. I think the Vengeance 1100s should be better than this, actually. Through the Audio-gd Sparrow, they do open up in the treble, but not by much.
After Clone High, I took in another animated adventure, Hayao Miyazakis Spirited Away. I havent watched Spirited Away in its entirety before, so it was a pleasure to watch the movie and be entertained. I did gravitate towards the K701s though based on sheer comfort, even though it was plain stereo. The Vengeance 1500s are a bit like a vise on my head, and the Vengeance 1100s sit over the ears like glasses which cause a little irritation. It was nice not to have something on the top of my head, though, so the Vengeance 1100s are a little more comfortable than the Vengeance 1500s overall for long sessions like movie watching or MMO action. **Update: Corsair have updated the Vengeance 1100s during the review addressing the comfort issue. I thought they were fine, but I guess the new revision is more comfortable.
The Vengeance 1500 support surround sound, so it was great to see how the software handled a movie in 5.1 channel surround (Spirited Away only supports 5.1). My opinion of surround sound headphones hasnt changed much. Although the Dolby solution is not bad, it is nothing like having a true surround system, though.
The Vengeance 1500 and the 1100 have very different sound, the 1500's are bright and clear, but not a lot of bass. The Vengeance 1100's have great bass, but don't have the smooth clarity of the 1500. If Corsair could meld the two into a single headset, then there wouldn't be much discussion, they'd be perfect! But alas, for the best effort, we can tame the bass of the V1500 with a bit of EQ.
The inevitable comparison with Corsair's previous headset, the HS1, we find that they are very similar in sound. Both the V1500 and the HS1 have a similar bright character, with not a lot of bass. I found the V1500 to be a little less harsh in the treble than the HS1, which is always a good thing. Other than that, the V1500 is an excellent headset for gaming, videos, gaming, Skype, and listening to music. I was hoping that the V1100 would carry the Corsair banner of having very clear treble range, but it is opposite that, having the bass I crave, but lacking in overall clarity. They are aimed at very different users and different price points, but they both offer headset functionality.
