titleOf all of the headsets that we have had into the office, almost every headset at some point in time has ended up tangled up in the wheels of my office chair. With wired headsets you either end up with too short of a cord or so much that you are running it over like me. Wireless is an interesting option but the wireless headsets available haven’t been interesting for the most part. Seeing Corsair bring out a wireless headset, I had to get my hands onto one to see if they live up to Corsairs growing reputation. After getting the Vengeance 2000 wireless gaming headset in and spending a few weeks we can go over their performance, comfort, and find out if wireless is the way to go.

Product Name: Corsair Vengeance 2000

Review Sample Provided by: Corsair

Written by: Wes

Pictures by: Wes

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Specifications

Headphones

Frequency Response: 20Hz to 20kHz

Impedance: 32 Ohms @ 1kHz

Sensitivity: 105dB (+/-3dB)

Drivers: 50mm

USB power consumption: 500mA

Connector: USB Type A

Wireless range: up to 40 feet (12m)

Battery life: Up to 10 hours

Microphone

Type: Unidirectional noise-cancelling condenser with adjustable, rotating boom

Impedance: 2.2k Ohms

Frequency Response: 100Hz to 10kHz

Sensitivity: -37dB (+/-3dB)

System requirements

PC with USB port

Windows® 7, Windows Vista®, or Windows XP

Internet connection (for software download)

Package contents

Corsair Vengeance 2000 wireless Gaming Headset

Dongle (wireless USB adapter)

1.5m USB extension cable

1.5m USB charging cable

Quick Start Guide

Safety Leaflet

Warranty Card

Warranty

Two years



Packaging

The Vengeance 2000 comes in a red and black box with two windows on the front. One window wraps around the side giving you a peak at the headset while the second window shows off its USB wireless adapter. Around back there are a few details about the headset including details on its battery life (up to 10 hours), its 50mm drivers, and details and a picture of the USB extension cable that you can use to move the wireless adapter into a position that gives it the best reception.

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Inside the headset is sitting in a plastic formed tray with a felt lining. Everything is held in place with zip ties. Around back you will find the charger cable as well as the extension cable for the wireless adapter. For paperwork you get a quick start guide, warranty information, a safety leaflet, and a paper reminding you to return directly to Corsair not the store.

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Software

The software downloaded directly from Corsairs website is extremely simple. Considering what I have seen from Logitech for example I expected more bells and whistles. I forgot that what Corsair does best is keep things simple and give you everything you need, but nothing that would be considered a marketing ploy. In this case you have volume controls for the mic and volume, an equalizer, and three surround effects. With the equalizer you have a whole list of different preset options in the drop down menu, you will notice they have even made one for MMO’s and one for FPS’s, a small but important detail that shows that Corsair kept gamers in mind with the Vengeance 2000.

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Audio Quality and Comfort

With a headset it’s important that it sound great, but it’s all for nothing if it isn’t comfortable as well. In the case of the Vengeance 2000, it also has to have good battery life. So today we are going to break down all three of these important functions and see how well it holds up. Starting with audio performance using our standard test’s below. All of the testing is done with a flat equalizer curve in Corsairs software as well.

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Bone Thugs N’ Harmony Tha Crossroads- Right from the beginning its hard to get over the amount of bass that the Vengeance 2000’s have over previous Corsair headsets. Each bass beat literally rattles my head. Also impressive is how loud they are, being wireless is obviously not holding them back. Beyond the lows, I was equally impressed with how well they responded to the highs in this song.

Eric Clapton - Rush (Soundtrack) - 10 - Tears In Heaven- After our last song I was worried that the Vengeance 2000’s bass would be too much, with this song I found it to be a little more subtle in most cases. You can still feel each beat and every ounce of his pain as he plays the song. The Vengeance 2000’s sounded amazing!

Nat King Cole & Natalie – Unforgettable – For something completely different, this song avoids the bass that has been so impressive with the Vengeance 2000’s so far. Coming from songs with more bass this felt a little flat, but the Vengeance 2000’s did a good job of replicating how this song was meant to sound like.

Ludwig van Beethoven - Für Elise- Much like Unforgettable, this song lacks the lows that make this headset really stand out. But it still does a good job, while still feeling a little flat. This isn’t anything a little tuning on the equalizer wouldn’t fix.

In Game – Battlefield 3- In game the head rattling lows come in handy. Every explosion or gunshot brings you into the game even more. Between the impressive lows and the crisps highs I felt as close as I would like to be to the action!

Movie – 2009 Star Trek Blu Ray- Considering how big of a roll that bass plays in big movies like this, I wasn’t shocked when during the opening scene I felt like I was right in the theater. The Vengeance 2000’s have amazing lows that suck you right in while rattling your teeth. I would highly recommend these for watching movies.

Almost across the board for audio performance I was very impressed. On the songs that lacked the lows that really impressed with the Vengeance 2000’s the songs did feel a little flat, but the headsets highs made up for it.

As I mentioned before comfort is just as important as audio performance, if you can’t keep them on for extended gaming sessions or for movies what good are they. As a whole, I love over the ear headphones for comfort. Most headphones that I use every day, other than when I travel, fall into this style. So I found the overall shape of the Vengeance 2000’s to be top notch, fitting all the way around my ears. The headband is very padded and covered in leather, even after hours of use I didn’t feel any pressure on the top of my head like you will sometimes get with headphones of this style. The adjustability on each side helps prevent that pressure as well but making sure it fits you correctly. What I found even more impressive was that my ears didn’t heat up as much as with other closed ear designs.

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Being a wireless headset I was concerned with how you keep them charged as well as their battery life when they came in. Corsair claims nearly 10 hours in battery life, so the first thing I did was charge them up using the included cable that plugs right into the side and put them to use. I was able to get a full work day out of the fully charged Vengeance 2000’s, an impressive feat considering the entire time I had my music cranked up. After finally running them down, you get a beeping notification every few minutes until you plug them in. It’s great they actually let you plug them in and continue using them as well, multiple times during my testing I forgot to plug them in after a late night of work/gaming and found them nearly dead in the morning. Charging while using them came in handy.

Another feature that I found especially useful that you wouldn’t normally find on a wired headset was the volume control built right into the side under the power button. This made it easy to turn up the volume when needed or to turn it all down when my wife said something important to me. Speaking of the power button, multiple times I found myself a little mixed up with this one push design. Trying to turn the Vengeance 2000’s on I would sometimes accidentally turn them on and off again, the same while trying to turn them off. I think a switch would have been a lot easier to use and a better way to prevent the battery from being run down.

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So the battery life was good, but how far can you really go with them? With at least a half battery charge I could make it from my office to my kitchen to grab a soda while still talking on Skype or listening to my music. The same could be said for making it into my bathroom with my music still playing as well. This was pushing a little beyond the 40 feet that corsair claims and is MUCH farther than what I would reach if using a corded headset.

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Last but not least we have the Vengeance 2000’s built in microphone. It wouldn’t be a headset without it right? The microphone in all cases worked perfectly and was crisp during conversations. I did have to keep the microphone turned all the way up in the settings, but this isn’t anything different than what I have had to do with all microphones coming into the office. There is little adjustment with the microphone beyond its swing down design. Because of this there are fewer reasons for it to break, as we have had issues with the highly adjustable microphones breaking over time in the past. The design is capped off with a small piece of matching metal at the end of the microphone boom to match it with the rest of the Vengeance 2000’s black and metal design.

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Overall and FV

When Corsair puts their minds to something, they stop at nothing to make it the best in the industry. I think the Vengeance 2000 is another great example of this. Our first experience with a Corsair headset was good but lacked the bass that some of today’s music, movies, and games demand.  The Vengeance 2000’s are a world apart when it comes to bass; we have never had a headset in the office that rattles our heads so easily. This made our in game, in movie, and music listening experiences great in all but a few cases. On top of that, I was very impressed with both its battery life and wireless range. The ability to control your volume right on the side of the headset was also a great addition. My only other complaint was with the power button, I hope in the future they consider something with a little more feedback like a switch. But that complaint is small compared to the Vengeance 2000’s pro’s. To top it all off, they are packed in a slick looking, aluminum design that is very eye catching. Of course you are paying for all of these features at almost $150 bucks. Of course, after ruining a few wired headsets just by running over the cord one to many times, it would have been a lot cheaper to go with this in the first place.

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Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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garfi3ld replied the topic: #26068 11 Jul 2012 21:09
Corsairs latest headset

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