| Corsair CA-HS1NA USB Gaming Headset |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Audio | |
| Written by Joey Peng | |
| Tuesday, 08 February 2011 | |
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Corsair HS1NA Headset Detailed FeaturesThe Corsair HS1NA Headset is built to seem rigid, but in fact it's very flexible. The headband can be bent and widened so that the earpieces are some 30cm apart. Its elastic nature allows the headset to grip onto your head, ensuring a tight enough fit so that movement won't cause the headset to slip. Corsair didn't provide a case, but the flexibility of the HS1NA makes it a decent travel mate. The earpieces can be swiveled around to face one side to make the whole thing thin and pressure safe.
Corsair's ear pad design is a bit more interesting than other headsets. It uses memory foam which conforms to the shape of your head granting comfort for long durations. The ear covers are mostly made of a soft fabric, except for the part wrapped around the headset, which uses leather for durability. These covers are removable and replaceable. Spare parts can be purchased from retailers partnering with Corsair for about $15.
The Corsair HS1NA has a non-removable mic. It sits on a rotating boom, able to swivel 180 degrees. The mic itself is made up of 3 segments, only the middle segment capable of movement. While fairly limiting in terms of actual adjustability, the rubber part is solid and stays fixed in the positions you bend it.
The Corsair HS1NA's unidirectional noise cancelling mic ensures crisp and clear audio. In practice voices are clear with no audible background noise or static. The mic stretches to about 2cm away from the edge of your mouth, so you can safely snack and talk at the same time. The HS1NA's mic also avoids capturing breathing noises since the mic is positioned off on the side.
Quick audio options for the Corsair HS1NA are located on the controller, featuring volume buttons and a mic switch. The volume buttons light up as long as the headset is plugged in, and it uses Tron-like blue and red rings to indicate the status of the mic. However there are some inconsistencies in how the volume controls work. Typically it would adjust the Windows OS device volume, but when programs like Media Player is running it would adjust the program's volume instead.
Overall the Corsair HS1NA has a solid build. Its flexibility makes the headset durable and comfortable. Next up Benchmark Reviews will be diving into the software that came with the headset and check out all the features Corsair provides.
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Comments
Purely in terms of audio quality I'd go with Corsair's. It's cheaper than the rest by at least $35. Also the most comfortable. Logitech G930 is wireless, has a great mic, audio quality good but slightly worse than Corsair's, but again it's wireless.
Mad Catz's headset is true surround sound, not software driven. You will get much better surround sound results if the content does support true surround sound and do it well, but most don't. Make sure you know it matches what you do.
It's performance should be similar to the Corsair HS1. Both 50mm drivers. However SteelSeries seems to use proprietary software over industry leader Dolby for surround sound. You also won't get anything like Dolby Pro Logic that upmixes stereo to 7.1 surround. But the 7H has some interesting things going for it too like the external USB sound card which you can mix and match headsets/sound cards. Seems like a much better travel mate.
Currently I use Roccat Kave and I'm very found of.
But at some point of time (not that far) I'm planning to build mini-ITX system and for that one I would like to have nice USB headset
My Kave doesn't play that well with onboard audio (realtek 889A) - it gives bit hallow and muffled sound compared to the dedicated sound card, so I'm using XtremeGamer from Creative to drive it...