Hello, this is The Provoked Prawn, and this is a video to compare the Corsair Virtuoso XT with
the SteelSeries Arctis Pro wireless, these are two premium wireless gaming headsets and
ones with very similar features and interesting specifications that make them worth comparing
and talking about. Now I've recently unboxed and reviewed the Corsair Virtuoso XT and I'll
link to that in the description, and I've had the SteelSeries Arctis Pro wireless in my possession
for quite some time now, and it has been one of my top favorite headsets for quite some while,
and I'll talk to you about why as we go through this video. I'm going to focus for a minute
on the Corsair Virtuoso XT and show you why it's interesting. As you can see the thing comes with a
number of different connection options in the box and gadgets to connect to your various different
devices. It has detachable broadcast quality microphone, which captures some really good
audio and I'll demonstrate that later on. It also has a number of other things to it. For example it
will connect with a 3.5 mil cable that you can see here which has its own mic mute and volume
control wheel so you can use it to connect to a number of different devices. This thing shines
most on PC but it will also work on PlayStation 5 and Mac and PlayStation 4, and also will work
with Xbox One, Nintendo switch, and mobile. You will plug into your PC using this wired USB-C
to USB-A connection and that is where you get the best audio out of this headset,
because it has 96 kilohertz 24 bit high res audio when plugged in using that.
Alternatively you can get up to 48 kilohertz using the slipstream wireless dongle which gives you a
nice solid connection of up to 60 feet, and the battery on it will last around 15 hours,
so that shows that you have a number of really good connections. And there's also a Bluetooth
connection which uses Qualcomm's aptX HD technology, which means that you can use it
to stream music and Tidal with high-res audio over your phone and I'll talk to you a bit more about
that later on. The detachable microphone has its own mic mute button on the arm which you can use
to mute the microphone, and there's a ring around the end of the mic to let you know when it's muted
and unmuted. You can also press and hold that button to turn side tone on/off and the adjustment
of side tone level happens within IQ software. It is a little bit quiet but you can adjust it so
you can hear your own voice relatively easily. The fact that you can remove the microphone also means
that you can use this headset as headphones out of the house. Now the SteelSeries Arctis Pro wireless
has some controls on the headset and also some on the base station, so the base station for example
is used for connecting to your PC and other devices. Here you can see it plugged into my
PC with a single cable but you also have line in and line out connections, as well as optical
in and optical out. There's also a Bluetooth connection directly on the headset that I'll
tell you about in a minute. But this means that you can essentially plug in multitude of devices,
you could plug a 3.5 mil phone for example or a microphone if you're on PC into that base station
and be able to monitor it wirelessly over the headset which is a bonus. It has a retractable
microphone which has a mic mute light on it, and that mic also does some relatively decent
mic capture and I'll demonstrate that later on and it's not bad.what you'll see is quite a different
design this isn't the SteelSeries Arctis Pro wireless as it comes out of the box, it has a
adjustable color set up I'll show you that in a minute. Now the Corsair Virtuoso XT is probably
the nicer looking headset out of the two. It's solidly built with a really flexible headband
and some very nice padding on the top. It's designed to be lightweight and comfortable,
and it certainly has a good clamping force to it. You'll also know just how twistable
and turnable the headband and the earcups are so you can turn and twist and tilt the earcups
into a position that fits on the head nicely. The headband also extends out into quite a length so
it should fit on most head sizes and give you a comfortable fit from that. I personally do have
a problem with comfort I'll talk to you about in a minute and explain why I've got an issue with it,
but overall it has a very nice aesthetic to it. The SteelSeries Arctis Pro wireless might have the
upper hand in terms of customization though, and that's because you can swap out both the earcups
outer and the headband to change the look and feel of it. It has a solid headband design but what it
uses is this ski goggles type headband which it essentially allows you to remove that, so you
have a material headband that sits between your head and the metal headband. It's not quite as
flexible but it does mean that you can adjust the size of it. You'll also see that you can swap out
those outer earcup shells and the headband itself to change the look and feel of it so as standard
it comes with black straps and black earcups, but you can get different looks that you can buy from
SteelSeries, and places like D-Bands sell stickers that you can put over there to change the look and
feel of it as well so it is quite customizable, but what you will know is the headband itself as
in the metal bit essentially doesn't extend in any way so you might find if you have a particularly
large head that you struggle to fit this onto it. I haven't got any problems with it personally and
the headband is relatively easy to adjust that ski goggle one to sort of get a nice fit on your head.
Also the ear cups do turn quite nicely and so I found the fit to be quite good but the clamping
force is probably better on the Corsair headset. Overall though it's got a nice look and feel to it
and it is a comfortable fit for me personally. The Corsair Virtuoso XT has a little bit of RGB
lighting and it basically lights up around the Corsair logo on the outer ear cups. Now to talk
about the comfort problems that I've got with the Corsair, so here you can see a shot of the Corsair
Virtuoso XT alongside the previous version the SE special edition. It has ear cups that are very
similar. They are memory foam cushioned ear cups now but they are round in shape which essentially
means they're not quite big enough for me, they're not quite large enough and they're not quite deep
enough and the result is I have a pressure on my ear on the top and bottom and inwards from the
driver as well. This is really unfortunate and I know it's not an issue that not everyone suffers
with because I had a video on the Virtuoso the original Virtuoso where I commented on
this and I had lots of people saying they didn't have a problem with comfort, so if your ears are
a bit smaller on the small side or don't stick out too far then you might not have a problem.
I've personally found the earcups on all Virtuoso headsets that I've tried to be unfortunately too
small and too shallow, resulting in discomfort after just a couple of hours of wear. The Virtuoso
XT certainly seems to be more comfortable than the original Virtuoso but still there's unfortunate
amounts of pressure on the ear during the day. But we will see there is some nice memory foam
padding, also that faux leather setup means that it blocks out a fair amount of external noise
and allows you to just focus on the game. Now it's worth talking quickly about that audio as well
because the Virtuoso has 50 mil drivers compared to the SteelSeries which only has 40 mil drivers.
It can also go up to 40,000 hertz frequency response and that's the same for the SteelSeries
Arctis Pro wireless so they're both comparable in that way, but the Corsair shines because it has
up to 96 kilohertz 24 bit audio when plugged in on PC and it has that high res Bluetooth audio.
Now you can see some shots of the SteelSeries as it comes standard out of the box and then I want
to talk to you about those ear cups. The ear cups on the SteelSeries Acrtis Pro wireless as standard
are air weave fabric ear cushions and these are semi scratchy. I've not found them to be
terribly comfortable in terms of the sort of overall fit of them, however they are
more comfortable than those on the Virtuoso XT, at least personally I find them to put less pressure
on my ears and to be easier to wear all day long. Also that material obviously is a bit cooler than
faux leather and so it allows you to breathe a bit more and not get as hot. You can however purchase
from SteelSeries and other places upgraded earcups if you wish so these are the faux leather ones
from SteelSeries, that obviously adds in the bonus of a bit more noise cancellation and if you prefer
the sort of fit of faux leather then this is it. I actually found these to be a bit more comfortable
and it's fairly affordable upgrade that you can do and you can see it's really easy to do as well.
The ear cups on the Virtuoso XT also come off as you saw earlier on, they are twist off so you can
twist them off, they're quite difficult to get off but it is possible whereas the SteelSeries is
just held on with a lip that you can see so it's fairly easy to get those off and put new ones on
if you want to change up the look of it. So it's really easy to rejuvenate the look and feel of the
SteelSeries even if you've had it quite some time. I had this one for quite a while in the original
setup and then upgraded the look and feel with the headband and the outer ear cups and some new
inner ear cups as well so overall a nice fit. Now the Corsair Virtuoso XT has Dolby surround sound,
it uses Dolby Atmos so when you purchase it and plug it into your PC if you download Dolby access
you then automatically get Dolby Atmos as a license which gives you virtual surround sound
on the headset with relative ease. That compares to SteelSeries which has DTS Headphone X and
I'll show you a bit more on that in a minute, it basically gives you pretty good positional audio
whether using it wirelessly or wired. A close-up of the Virtuoso XT and you can see you have
multiple controls on the headset itself and this is one of the interesting things about it in my
mind is that it not only has the ability to plug into multiple devices but you can also
switch between wired and wireless mode, and you can use Bluetooth controls on the headset. What
you'll notice is there's two volume controls you have the standard volume control there and you
also have the Bluetooth volume control as well so you can control those volumes independently of one
another. It also has dual connectivity option so if you're using it in wireless for example
and you connect the Bluetooth device by pressing and holding that put it on Bluetooth mode you can
connect your phone to it and you can listen to audio from your phone and from your PC at the
same time separately, so you could stream Tidal on your phone while also playing games on your PC,
and you can adjust those volumes independently. Those buttons also have a multi-function setup so
you can use them to play, pause, and skip tracks and such. The SteelSeries Arctis Pro wireless
also has controls on the headphones you can easily see on the side of the ear cup here you have a mic
mute button, you have volume adjustment that volume wheel also is multi-function so you can
use that to switch between controls. You'll note there's also two buttons on there, a power button
and a Bluetooth button, so you can connect to this headset via Bluetooth really easily as well. That
also has a dual connectivity option so you can connect your phone directly to the headset and
then basically wander around with it in the house or go out of the house with it so you
don't need to worry about the base station, the base station obviously gives you the best signal,
and you can connect multiple devices to it. You'll see that it has a volume button on it and
that can also be used to adjust various different settings. You can turn DTS Headphone X on and off,
you can adjust the side tone of the microphone, you can adjust the Bluetooth volume as well on
here as well as the main volume and you can do this directly on the headset, so pressing the
volume button and you can actually navigate and change the volumes of various different things,
you can also go through a multitude of different settings on here. This control box also obviously
gives you a good signal, both headsets use 2.4 gigahertz wireless connection and I found them to
be comparable in terms of the distance. The thing that makes the SteelSeries shine above the Corsair
though is probably the removable batteries, so they're swappable batteries. It comes with two
batteries included and one is in the headset and one is in the charging base station and
essentially what that means is that when you're using the headset you have one battery on it and
then if it starts to run low you can take it out of the headset and swap it with the one in
the base station so when this is plugged in that battery is always on charge. So when you start to
run low you can just swap it out with this one and then put the other one into the station to charge
up again so you've always got that which means that you never have to plug this headset in which
is obviously a real bonus and makes it fantastic for just that reason. The battery doesn't last as
long as that on the Virtuoso XT so you probably have to swap those batteries more often and there
is a slight disconnect because obviously when you take the battery out, the headset powers down
so there's a short period of time where you've got a weight before you can get it back up again,
but it is really simple to do. Also once you've paired your Bluetooth device if you
turn Bluetooth on on the headset it reconnects automatically and really easily. This is a problem
I've struggled with with the Corsair when I have Bluetooth paired to my phone but it just doesn't
automatically connect and you have to go into your phone and reconnect it so it's a bit more fiddly,
it's a bit more seamless on the SteelSeries and I really have always enjoyed having that dual
connectivity option to be able to listen to music, watch YouTube videos on your phone
separately to the audio on your PC and have both of them in the headset really easily. You
also see a 3.5 mil connection directly on the headset and a micro-USB if you want to charge,
so what you can see is two fantastic headsets with comparable features, they're very different in the
look and feel and setup of them. The Corsair Virtuoso XT certainly has some nice padding on
top of the headband, it has a really nice overall aesthetic, it's probably a more premium looking
device in all honesty, especially if you take that microphone off it kind of looks exactly like a
nice quality pair of headphones so you could use it out of the house with a 3.5 mil connection or
Bluetooth quite easily and have great sound. It has as I said that Qualcomm HD audio setup so you
can use high-res audio on it through Bluetooth as well which is really nice. However the SteelSeries
is also really good for gaming, the Arctis Pro wireless is also really customizable so you can
change the look and feel of it more than you can the Corsair headset and also the flexibility and
convenience of that charging station cannot be overstated. So two really good headsets
with a number of really nice features to them. And here I am now with the Corsair Virtuoso XT
with it unplugged in wireless mode and this is the microphone quality when it's in that
mode and as you can see it captures some fantastic broadcast quality audio without much of a problem.
It delivers really great sound. Now I am going to type on the keyboard in the background and
the fans from my pc are running at high speed at the moment so, you'll see if you can pick up any
of that but I have noticed that it blocks out a fair amount of external noise and still delivers
a really good capture quality, it is fantastic. You can press and hold the mic mute button on
the other side to turn side tone on and off and you can adjust the levels of the mic and the side
tone within Corsair's IQ software. It's off as default so you can't hear yourself and because
of the padding on the ear cups it actually blocks out a lot of the external noise from surrounding
environments so you really do need it on to be able to hear yourself clearly I feel like,
but the levels of it are good enough that it delivers fantastic quality of audio capture.
There's a little bit of a [puff] it still picks up a little bit of mouth wind, but the overall
quality is very good. And here I am with the Arctis Pro wireless and that is in wireless
mode obviously with a microphone and this is the capture quality of that which as you can see
is very good. It has a really good side tone in it as well so I can hear myself nicely here which
is pretty important when you've got the upgrade with the faux leather earcups. You'll see how
it sits on the head here as well and it does have a good clamping force, it doesn't fly off
and the capture quality is very nice and just to demonstrate I'll do some typing on the keyboard
while I'm talking to you so you can see what it picks up in terms of the background noise.
A decent microphone and obviously a wonderful looking headset and it also has the bonus of
having that connection on the control box so you can mic monitor which is really handy
if you have something like a external microphone that you want to monitor through the headset but
do it wirelessly without having to plug anything in and that's one bonus that this Arctis Pro
wireless offers thanks to that charging base station, you can just plug a mic into it and
side tone monitor that easily within the headset, and then you can just mute the mic and retract it.
This has been The Provoked Prawn, hope you found this video useful, interesting, hilarious
or otherwise. Take a look at these other videos that I think you might find interesting as well,
and have a look at the description for links and other information you might find useful.
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