Corsair Virtuoso RGB Wireless XT

Easily one of the best gaming headsets I have ever used – Design and Build Quality: Corsair is known for its high-quality build, and the Virtuoso is no exception. The headset features a sleek and premium design with attention to detail. They feel as good as they perform with the materials used from the RGB lighting behind those awesome aluminium ear pieces rather than the RGB RGB RGB!!11ty everywhere which seems to be the go to for most brands (including Corsair tbh) on their cheaper models. It just seems more adult / grown up if you know what I mean. I like the fact you can remove the mic, because I would happily wear these out and about to listen to music etc if I was traveling. Speaking of travel, the cables are all braided which means they should travel well without disintegrating easily and the padded travel bag is quite nice too. The only thing which I question is how long the leather pads and ear cups would last with constant use over the course of the next year. I used to use my Bose Comfort QCs a lot when I worked in the city and that super soft leather didnt last long.

Audio Quality: Out of the box for gaming it was great, especially in FPS. I believe out of the box it is actually set to FPS in the EQ. For music or movies however it sounded pretty bad. The fact it comes with a built in license for Dolby Atmos soon fixed that once it was enabled. It did however change the audio characteristics for gaming but unless you are a serious competitive gamer (those days are long over for me), it really doesn't make a difference. You can always just turn that off in your windows audio settings anyway.

Connectivity: You really do get it all with this headset. You can connect to wireless and Bluetooth at the same time. This can come in handy if you want to play games, watch a movie on your computer but still hear if your phone is getting a message etc. So yes, this will connect to pretty much anything from a PC to a Switch to a Phone and also comes with a USB and 3.5mm cable.

Microphone Quality: The 9.5mm microphone which is detachable is pretty solid quality. It has an LED ring on the end to tell you if the MIC is on (Green) or off (Red or White) and is customizable through the iCUE software. You can mute it through the button on the mic itself where you will be initially terrified if you don't know a voice will boomingly alert you to the option you just chose.

Comfort: Comfort is a priority, especially during long gaming sessions. The Virtuoso incorporates plush ear cushions and an adjustable headband to provide a comfortable fit for different head sizes. But in the XT model they have added more cushion to both the headband and the ear cups than the previous model which really does help a lot. They have also apparently lessened the clamping force from the previous model, but I wouldnt know that as I never used them, but I do know after wearing them for a couple of hours, they are pretty damn comfy.

Battery Life: Yeah this is probably the biggest flaw on these, the battery life is not the greatest. It should be plenty for a good solid gaming session, I believe 15 hours is what they are rated to, so they do require constant recharging, but they do say that this is expected when connecting to 2 devices at once. I just make sure that when not in use they are always plugged in. One thing that probably doesnt help is the lack of an actual on / off switch. Apparently you are meant to hold the mute button on the mic in for 10s (so yeah, you need to actually have it plugged in to turn it off). Really quite a puzzling move.

Summary: There really isn't a lot to dislike about them. They are an excellent headset and with the feature of being able to connect to 2 platforms and super comfortable. But they are quite expensive, retailing at around the $459 mark for Australia. But other than battery life and the price, I really cant fault them.