I think the two biggest questions everyone has when looking to buy a wireless headset
is 1.
How long does the battery last?
and 2.
What is the microphone quality like?
And right about now I'm sure you're wondering what any of that has to do with the title
of this video?
How does playing 40 hours of Fortnite fit in to this?
Well first of all I should confess that the 40 hours was accumulated in 2 or 3 hour intervals
over the course of several weeks.
The reason?
Because I wanted to see how long the battery on the Corsair Virtuoso SE headset I recently
picked up would last.
This headset isn't new, in fact it's been on the market for a couple of years now but
I only recently picked one up because I needed another headset for a different video I made.
Overall the quality of the Virtuoso SE is fantastic.
It has a very high quality look and feel to it; as it should since it costs a little over
200 dollars.
All the gray portions you see are made of aluminum and the only visible plastic is the
adjoining black portion here.
The head band and ear cups are made with a very soft foam padding on them with a PU leather
covering, which is very soft to the touch and extremely comfortable against your skin.
As for what all comes with it in the box...
There's a nice bag for storing or transporting the headset,
the owners manual and other usual documentation,
a USB cable for charging as well as using the headset in wired mode,
the wireless dongle,
the detachable microphone and a 3.5mm aux cable.
You can use the aux cable rather than the USB cable if you prefer when using the headset
in wired mode but according to Corsair you get the best sound quality when using the
USB cable which we'll be testing out later on.
The 3.5mm cable also gives you the option to use the headset with your phone or other
mobile device, assuming your phone or device has a headphone jack on it of course.
The headband of the headset is highly adjustable allowing it to fit the smallest to the largest
of heads, and for those looking to use these with a VR headset; I was easily able to use
them with my Quest 2 which is equipped with a Kiwi Design Elite head strap.
The ear cups do swivel so if you're one who likes to pull your headset down around your
neck when not in use you can totally do that.
On the right ear cup is the mode selection switch which allows you to change the headset
between the wired and wireless modes and the volume wheel.
On the left ear cup is a mini USB port which is where our detachable mic plugs in, our
3.5mm audio jack, a power indicator LED and finally a USB C port for charging and using
the headset in USB wired mode.
The mic has a mute button on it here at the base and a ring LED on the end which illuminates
green when the mic is active and red when the mic is muted.
The mic arm itself is flexible so you can easily position it where ever you like it.
And since the mic is detachable you can completely remove it if you want to.
The Virtuoso SE, like pretty much all PC peripherals nowadays, has RGB lighting on it which is
controlled via Corsairs iCUE software.
Personally I leave the lights turned off since I can't see them when wearing the headset
anyway but I also like that Corsair took a more conservative approach with the lighting
by just having the illuminated logos on the ear cups.
When you look at them up close it looks like individual pixels but from what I understand
these are micro perforations in the aluminum which creates a cool looking aesthetic in
my opinion.
The sound quality of the Virtuoso SE is phenomenal.
I have never owned another pair of headphones that sounds as good as these do, but I've
also never spent $200 on another pair of headphones either.
It has great sounding bass and audio is crisp and clear even when you turn the volume up
to 100% . There are both Stereo and 7.1 surround modes which you toggle between in the iCUE
software.
As for noise cancellation, there is no active noise cancellation that I'm aware of but being
closed back headphones these do a great job of blocking out background noise in my opinion.
While testing these there was more than one occasion my wife would try talking to me from
the other room which I had no idea she was doing until she came into the room a little
angry with me that I hadn't been responding to her.
At first I didn't find the Virtuoso SE's to be comfortable at all during long play sessions.
The ear cups are kind of shallow and my ears touch the driver wall on the inside which
after an hour or so felt rather uncomfortable.
I found myself readjusting them on my head every so often to relieve the pressure which
did help.
But eventually I found if I tweak the ear cups toward the front a little this helped
with this problem a lot!
Overall I do think my Void Pro's are more comfortable than the Virtuoso's but since
they can be adjusted to sit reasonably comfortably, when it comes to comfort I'd give them a solid
B where as I'd give the Void Pros an A.
Now to finally address one of the questions I posed at the beginning of the video?
What is the microphone quality like?
Corsair advertises it as a broadcast quality microphone and compared to the mic on the
Corsair Void Pro headset, which I've been using for several years now, the microphone
on the Virtuoso definitely sounds better.
It provides a much richer and fuller sound in my opinion.
When I compare it to my Rode NT1 which is my primary mic for all my videos it still
sounds pretty good.
I feel the mic on the Virtuoso is a bit bassier but not as crisp as the Rode NT1 but for a
headset microphone is does sound incredibly good.
I also compared the mic on the Virtuoso to itself when using it in wired USB, wired 3.5mm
and in wireless modes and I had a hard time really distinguishing much of a difference.
I do feel the wired USB sounds the best of the 3 but it's really, really close in my
opinion.
Here's a quick comparison so you can decided for yourself.
Rocco the rum runner rubbed out Rico the Rat with his rosco for robbing his rum running
receipts.
Rocco the rum runner rubbed out Rico the Rat with his rosco for robbing his rum running
receipts.
Rocco the rum runner rubbed out Rico the Rat with his rosco for robbing his rum running
receipts.
Rocco the rum runner rubbed out Rico the Rat with his rosco for robbing his rum running
receipts.
Rocco the rum runner rubbed out Rico the Rat with his rosco for robbing his rum running
receipts.
And finally the whole reason I spent over 40 hours playing Fortnite...
the battery life.
Corsair advertises the battery life being up to 20 hours.
In my tests with the lighting on the battery lasted a full 16 hours and that was with the
lighting set at about 30% brightness.
With the lighting turned off though it lasted for 24 hours, so it actually exceeded Corsair's
claim of up to 20 hours.
Probably my biggest complaint about the Virtuoso SE is the way the battery indicator works.
First of all to see what the battery level is you have to unbury it from the iCUE settings.
You would think you could just click on your headset here and see the battery info but
NO.
You have to first go into Settings, then click on this tiny icon of your headset.
What's equally annoying to me is rather than giving the battery percentage Corsair just
gives you one of four status ranges which are High, Medium, Low and Critical.
I don't know...
Maybe I'm being a bit too picky here, I mean it is a really, really nice headset and the
battery life is also really good...
What do you guys think?