titleIt’s rare to find a company that consistently hits home runs with their products, even more so in the tech industry with how quickly things change. Corsair is one of the few companies that have been consistently innovating in the industry over the past few years with introductions into PSU’s, Audio, and cooling. Because of that when they introduced their HS1A Gaming Headset a lot of people took notice, including us. Today we are going to take a listen to them and see if Corsair hit another home run or just a base hit.



Product Name: Corsair HS1A Gaming Headset
Review Sample Provided by: Corsair
Review by: Wes
Pictures by: Wes

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Specifications

Headphones

  • 20Hz to 20kHz frequency response
  • 32 Ohms impedance at 1kHz
  • Custom-engineered 50 mm drivers with 24 mm copper-wound voice coils
  • Extra-large circumaural earcups with a closed-back, noise-isolating design
  • Two sets of replaceable memory foam earpads: one covered in microfiber, one in synthetic leather
  • Attached 3 meter cable with inline volume/microphone controller and dual 3.5 mm (1/8”) connectors

Microphone

  • Unidirectional, noise-cancelling condenser with adjustable, rotating boom
  • 2.2k Ohms impedance
  • 200Hz to 10kHz (+/- 3dB) frequency response
  • -45dB (+4/-2dB) sensitivity

Package Contents

  • HS1A gaming headset with inline volume controller/microphone mute
  • Quick Start Guide

Dimension

210mm x 130mm x 235mm (8.3” x 5.1” x 9.25”)

Warranty

Two years




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Packaging
Corsair used a black and blue theme for their HS1A gaming headset. The design is classy and simple with a close up of the headset covering a good portion of the front aside from the plastic window on the right side giving you view of the headset and microphone. Up top there is a reasonable sized Corsair logo and then in the bottom left the product name is in large easy to read lettering. Around back they have nice write-ups on the HS1A’s audio quality, comfort, music and movie performance, and the corsair advantage.

Inside the headset is secured in place by cardboard folded into a capital I shape to keep it in place while still showing it off through the window. Around back they have the paperwork in a pouch secured to the cardboard. When pulling everything out you will notice that the headsets cable and in-line remote are all packed into the bottom section of the packaging. Pulling it all out took a minute, but there is no way any of it would be damaged during shipping.
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Installation

Being the non-USB variation of Corsairs headset the installation was extremely simple. You only have to plug in the green headphones plug and pink microphone plug. This may be into the front of your PC, back of your PC, or even into your speakers or keyboard on your desk. Because of the variation in lengths needed depending on where you plug in and how far away you sit from your PC Corsair gave the HS1A a three meter long cable (just under 10 feet for us in the states), or almost enough to reach across a small office or long enough to pick up your keyboard after throwing it.
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Comfort

To some comfort is the most important thing about a headset, considering how long you could end up wearing them at a LAN or in a long gaming session its really no surprise. Before I go into my experience with the HS1A, I would like to make sure everyone understand where I am coming from as everyone’s idea of comfortable is different. I have a large head that has cause me a few problems with smaller headsets in the past. I typically prefer a full sized headset over ear buds or an on-ear design. I am extra sensitive to pressure on my ears and I also experience problems with my ears getting too hot with ANY headset. Because of that my experience with the HS1A could be completely different than yours.

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Having gone over all of that I am sure you are wondering what I thought about them. Surprisingly even from the first time I put them on I found them to be extremely comfortable, up their with the Siberia v2 from Steel Series. With a larger headband I expected to feel more pressure on the top of my head but Corsair did a good job of limiting that with just the right amount of padding. Its still a little heavier and more noticeable than the lightweight spring loaded band style of headset but impressive non the less.

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Even more important than the headband for comfort are the ear cups. As I said before large ear-cups that go around my ears are my preference so it was no surprise that I found the HS1A’s ear-cups to be very comfortable. Where the ear-cup meets the headband they have a heavy duty joint that allows for full rotation and for the cup to pivot in. That rotation helps keep the cup in just the right spot while still keeping them on snugly. Corsair provided both microfiber, one in synthetic leather covered ear-pads with memory foam inside. That gives you your choice of materials, effecting both comfort and outside noise. I myself prefer the microfiber pads; they are extremely soft and allow for more air to pass than the synthetic leather.

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When you put it all together that makes the HS1A a very comfortable headset. The closed air design did lead to my ears getting hot like on every other headset, but when using the microfiber earcups they didn’t get any hotter than any other headset I have tested. I would call that more of a defect in my ears than the headset ;).
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Performance

After talking with Corsairs audio product manager at CES I was really excited to see how the HS1A sounded. It’s rare to find a product manager that gets so excited when talking about any of his products. But with Corsair I think that kind of excitement is why they have been so successful. I only spoke with him about their SP2500 speaker set, but that doesn’t stop me from having high hopes for the HS1A in the audio department.

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To put the headset to the test I went through a collection of music, movies, tv shows, and of course games to get an idea of its performance in different situations. A headset can sound amazing with music but lack the directionality or boom needed for movies and games, we have seen that even more with 5.1 and up headsets. Packing multiple speakers in each earcup doesn’t leave much room for good low range speakers.

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My first test was with a little bit of music. Excited to hear how they sounded up put on a little AC/DC to get me fired up. Although the music was extremely crisp, it was lacking something right from the start. Almost no bass was heard at all. Over the years I have come to expect some headsets to have more bass than others, but this was noticeably less than any of the others. I thought right away that I must have opened up a defective file. I jumped into a little rap with more bass with the same results. Everything I listened to lacked the low end that you would expect but the mid’s and highs were amazing. Playing in my settings and turning up the base helped a little bit, but still a little off.

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Anytime I can play games or watch movies and call it work I am the first to sign up. I selected a couple movies to watch including The Dark Knight and the 2009 version of Star Trek. Just like with my experience with music the lack of bass was obvious. But the highs and mids still made the movies enjoyable. A lot of movies incorporate booming lows to suck you in and make you feel like you are in the movie; the HS1A will struggle with this type of film. After experimenting with a few movies I found that this headset complemented musicals the most. The crisp highs and mids really helped bring out the singing. Unfortunately I am not a fan of musicals at all, in fact if my wife found out that I was watching one without moaning and complaining I would never hear the end of it. Because of that I quickly moved on to the gaming portion of my testing.
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With my experience with the movies in mind I selected a broader range of games to play around with to fully test the HS1A (TF2, Crysis Wars, Dirt 3, and mafia 2). I was curious if the lack of bass would hinder my experience, or possibly help with directionality. As it turns out I was right on both counts. I found the HS1A to have amazing directionality in the shooters; the boosted mids and highs really help gunshots and footsteps to stand out. I still felt like the lack of bass left something to be desired in the movie like mafia 2 and with the throaty engine roar in Dirt 3. This headset is clearly made for a specific genre, and in that genre it excels.




Overall

After all of my complaining about the lack of bass in the HS1A’s all it took was a few rounds in an FPS to figure out their true purpose. If you are looking for a headset to blast your music and movies you are looking at the wrong headset. Even as a gaming headset you may be a little disappointed if you are looking to be sucked into the game to the point where you duck for cover at the first mortar shot. But if you are playing to win... This is the headset. The lack of bass is a downside in most situations, but as it turns out this does a great job of helping you hear footsteps and gunfire in the distance. For a causal gaming like myself this may not be it, but I don’t think any hardcore gamer should be without. Now all you have to do is figure out where you stand.
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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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