Final words and conclusion
Final words and conclusion
The new VOID series from Corsair ffer a nice improvement over the previous models in the 100 euro/USD range, which is good value for money. Interestingly enough at default settings the kit did not satisfy me. So pretty much the first thing you need to do after purchasing it is install the software and then change some stuff as fast as possible. Dolby Surround with music for example sounds pretty bad. Once disabled, sounds start to make sense, enable 'pure sound mode' and tweak the bass and treble a little to your preference. You'll find that after tweaking and messing about a little, all of a sudden this headset goes from okay to very good in audio quality. Let me also defend Corsair here, audio is subjective -- so for a reviewer that's a big large grey area that you need to try and describe. It's loaded with subjective perceptions and what we 'feel' is good / bad combined with technical facts. That makes it very difficult to review as I, for example, am more of an audiophile opposed to somebody that needs a headset for hardcore gaming.
Wearing Comfort and Audio Quality
The VOID series has a new design, over say the V2100 series I must state that the wearing comfort definitely has increased. The previous generation, for example, after a while of wearing would make your ears rather warm. Next to that the headband could cause a little irritation. The good news is that the VOID isn't bothered by that, a thicker headband in combo with a light-weight design seems to work out really well. The ear cups have very soft padding as well but do offer a bit of necessary ventilation. Other changes can be found in the design of the headband, whose hinges/swivel points have been redesigned to be much more hard-wearing. WIFI then - I think the 2.4GHz wireless connection has been left unchanged, as well as the 50mm drivers, which are good after tweaking I must say with specs featuring a frequency response of 20Hz - 20kHz and an impedance of 32 Ohms @ 1kHz. The headset has Dolby 7.1 as standard but well, enough said about that. During gaming and watching movies you might like it, but for me overall I'd leave the feature disabled. After you have tweaked the VOID a bit to your preference you'll notice that the sound quality is really good, I probably would not dare to state audiophile-quality but it is certainly above the level you expect for a $100-125 headset.
True Dolby Surround?
The Corsair Gaming VOID RGB Wireless Headset, is it really a 7.1 channel set? No, it isn't as it has two 50mm drivers and is thus in reality stereo. It's stereo that is being virtualized to 5.1 or 7.1. The overall surround envelope is wider in games and movies, but remains very average for music listening. Again stereo, each cup does not have multiple drivers, so to say.
Wireless
The wireless functionality works really well. In a range of say 10 meters you will have perfect reception. Even with a concrete floor below the transmitter we had reception. A floor below, after 5 to 10 meters things get difficult fast though, sound simply dies off when you are out of range (and will pop back online once you are in range again). Being wireless we have to talk about battery life. It's actually pretty good, we got a good 10 hours out of a single charge. Once you are out of juice you can simply plug in the charging cable and continue to play until all your base are belong to us.
RGB Lighting and InfoMIC
OK, so the RGB lighting system is a bit of a gimmicky thing?, it serves no other function than to aesthetically please or impress your friends. I do have one suggestion here though, at a LAN party if you like to piss off your competitor, set the LED animation as bright as possible, make it flash on/off fast and nag thy neighbour. InfoMIC offers the ability to observe by two LED lights housed inside the boom-stick which EQ setting you have selected. Again, a bit of a gimmick but I can see some functionality in it, sure. I mean if you flick to another mode, you are bound to perceive that information with your ears as the audio quality changes. But it's a bit of an extra, and heck, we like extras, always.
Concluding
The Corsair gaming VOID RGB is a good sounding product, once you have had the opportunity to tweak it to your preference. These conclusions are always difficult as sound is such a subjective thing. But let me put it this way, you can (and probably must) tweak the headset to your liking sound wise. You have the option to en/disable Dolby and as such if the end-result is a good sounding audio picture then it's all good right? So yeah, we find the default audio quality to be good, but after tweaking to be very good. Next to that Corsair overhauled the headset series in design and added a few extra features. Design wise it is a good looking kit, importantly I find the VOID very comfortable to wear, even more so compared to the previous models. Fun is the big-ass knob that allows you to switch to different sound modes with just your thumb, the reality however is often simple, you tweak a headset and leave it at that preference at all times. So that combined with the InfoMIC feature remains a little trivial albeit much a welcomed feature. We like RGB LEDs, but how important that will be for your purchasing decision, honestly I do not know. It's a bit of a gimmick, albeit a fun one for sure. Armed with the Corsair CUE software things are easy enough to configure, in the end though it's all about the sound quality. The 50mm neodyne drivers offer good quality in terms of sound combined with my aforementioned remarks, as yes, tweaking will be a necessity.
The included Dolby mode is a a very subjective matter, I found myself disabling it more often than should be necessary. However, again, audio and experiencing audio is a hugely vague, grey thing and will differ per person. The good thing is that Corsair will allow you to tweak this based on your preference, and that makes this headset hard to beat. And ehm hey, the MIC is great with noise cancellation that actually works. The wired version of this headset sells for 100 EURO, the wireless edition as tested is roughly 125 EURO. Personally I can really recommend wireless headsets, we had no distortion or quality loss. Only once you get out of a 5 to 10 meter range you can run into the fact that audio simply halts due to a lacking signal. We adore the fact of not having a wire running to the ear cups.
The bottom line; yes, you will likely need to tweak the VOID sound wise, but once that is done the headset is pretty darn slick for the money really. Sharp treble, deep dynamic bass, good MIC, nice design, RGB LEDs do make this a top pick at this price point.
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