Corsair Vengeance 2000 wireless headset review

Soundcards and Speakers 106 Page 6 of 9 Published by

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Gaming experiences and da MIC

 

Gaming

Testing out the Vengeance 2000, we used a few games, Portal 2, Metro 2033, and Dirt 3. 

Portal 2

First up, lets get to Portal 2. The first game, Portal, was a classic, spawning meme after meme, and not to mention a fine line of products that you can actually buy.

Portal 2 does everything the first game does, only better in about every way, including sound. The V2000 actually does a very nice job of presenting environment detail, and in the FPS gaming mode the bass gave some nice growl to the periodic music and environmental sounds. Intelligibility plays very importantly in Portal 2, because you have to listen to the voices to find out what the next clue is. The Vengeance 2000 scores very high for voice intelligibility, voices came through loud and clear -- in fact up-to par with the V1500, which was really good.

Metro 2033

Metro 2033 is a gorgeous game that has so much to get immersed in, great atmosphere, eye popping graphics, and beautiful sound design. I feel like Im giving it an award just for all that. Sound wise it is very impressive. Though there are some minor quibbles here and there, Metro 2033 uses sound as part of the game itself, part of (or a character in itself) the character. 

Much like the V1500 the Vengeance 2000 is very good at immersing you into the space of the game, into the world. The clarity of the 2000 does not make any illusions, you feel like you are inside the dark nature of the game. Again we notice excellent bass, almost like that thumping sound you get in a movie theatre. The dialog in Metro 2033 came through fine as did the environment sounds. But in the rear part of the audio environment you miss out on real environmental positioned noises.

See, the V2000 really is not a real 7.1 channel headset, it simply emulates surround by widening up 2-channel stereo. That might be the biggest caveat for this headset, it's advertised as 7.1 while it merely is trying to simulate a similar effect. And while it isn't bad at it, it simply isn't 7.1 channel sound.

DiRT3

Rally racing games have just about everything you could want if youre not into hardcore simulation. Dirt has some very good sounds, especially engine and gear noise, which are the heart and soul of a car. 

The Vengeance 2000 is real good on Dirt3, I didnt miss anything except apexes and gear shifts. And a bridge or two + a corner I jammed myself into :)

Now we do need to mention 7.1 surround sound again. You can hear simulated sounds behind you but emulating just isn't real 7.1. So if a driver is behind you to the left then you'd expect the motor sound in that position. That just isn't happening. Really, as good as the V2000 is sounding, they just should not have called it a 7.1 channel headset. Surround aside, the headset does deliver great bass. Damn good bass really as that engine has a growl my man.

Faster!

 

Microphones

As part of our protocol we tested the microphones out with a number of applications, Skype and some co-op play, playing back the sound samples with Audacity.

The Vengeance 2000 has a great microphone, plenty of gain and very good clarity. The V2000 also had very low noise and hum, as well as very good noise (echo) cancellation. Pretty much it seems to be on par and similar to the Vengeance 1500. Noise (echo) cancellation actually works surprisingly well.

  • Click here to listen to a small recording. The V2000 is not only great for voice communication, with an extra voiceover layer in Audacity it makes for a hip beat-box recorder as well.

Alright, that's how far we're going with games, the Vengeance 2000 really is fantastic sounding, but isn't a true 5.1 or 7.1 headset. It does sound great in all the games we threw at it -- and the virtualized Xear surround really isn't bad. But for the Counter-Striker's out there, the lack of real multi-channel surround could be an issue for them.

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