Gaming experiences and da MIC
Gaming
Testing out the Corsair gaming H1500 we used a few games, Battlefield 4, Metro Last Light, and Dirt 3.
Battlefield 4
First up, lets get to shoot some stuff ! Battlefield 4 does everything part 3 does, only better in about every way, including sound. The H1500 actually does a terrific nice job of presenting environment detail, and in the FPS gaming mode the bass is sounding really impressive to the periodic music and environmental sounds. You have to listen to the voices and intricate little sounds like enemies walking and shooting which will help you pin-pointing their position. The H1500 scores rates very high for voice and deep sounding explosions -- pretty good.
Metro Last Light
Metro Last Light is a game that has so much to get immersed in, stale atmosphere, and pretty decent graphics. The sound design is top notch in the game. Sound wise the picture is clean and clear. Metro uses sound as part of the game itself, part of (or a character in itself) the character. The H1500 is immersing you into the sound space of the game, into the world. Basically it makes it sound like it is realistic, inside the dark nature of the game. The bass is wide and deep but you will need to use the EQ tweaked a little, once done you get that deep thumping LFE feel you get in a movie theatre. The dialog in Metro came through fine as did the environment sounds. But in the rear part of the audio environment you miss a bit out on real environmental positioned noises. See, the H1500 really is not a real 7.1 channel headset, it simply emulates surround from its true source. That might be the biggest caveat for this headset, it's advertised as Dolby 7.1 while it merely is trying to simulate a similar effect. And while it isn't bad at it, it simply isn't true 7.1 channel sound.
DiRT 3
Rally racing games have just about everything you could want if youre not into hardcore simulation. Dirt has some very good sounds, especially engine and gear noise, which are the heart and soul of a car. The H1500 is real good with Dirt3, I didn't miss anything (except apexes and gear shifts). You can hear simulated sounds behind you but emulating just isn't real 7.1 so that is clearly virtualized sound. As good as the headset is sounding, they probably should not have called it a 7.1 channel headset. Surround aside, the headset does deliver great bass. Deep bass really as that engine has a growl my man.
Microphones
As part of our protocol we tested the microphones out with a number of applications, Skype and some co-op play, playing back the sound samples with Audacity. The Corsair Gaming h1500 has a great microphone, plenty of gain and very good clarity. The H1500 also had very low noise and hum, as well as very good noise (echo) cancellation. Pretty much it seems to be on par and similar to the Vengeance 1500 and 2000/2100. Noise (echo) cancellation actually works surprisingly well. Alright, that's how far we're going with games, the H1500 really is nice sounding. It does sound great in all the games we threw at it -- and the virtualized surround might not be true Dolby 7.1, but really isn't bad.
