Corsair Vengeance 1300 Headset Review

Testing the Vengeance 1300

As we said, since it doesn’t require installation software, the Vengeance 1300 was directly plugged into our Intel Pearl Creek DG31PR on-board soundcard. The initial adjustment through the Windows 7 audio device manager took some time. We had to cancel some initial distortion and decrease the microphone boost to avoid registering the sound of a construction site right outside of our building (despite the noise-cancelling feature). Once that was done, the Vengeance 1300 proved to be a modest stereo headset. Then we had to open the system’s EQ to fine tune the headset’s performance. That changed things considerably.

In the end, the Vengeance 1300 had good performance while listening to music, but it was more or less effective in action games due to being an analog headset. It lost the surround sound ambiance found on Dolby Digital mixes. The stereo sound of aircraft flying over in Battlefield 3 was well played, and we managed to locate the source of enemy fire during the online matches. However, we lacked the more complete sound immersion found on digital headsets. This, of course, is the price of choosing an analog stereo headset over a digital model, and it was not a fault of the equipment per se.

As we have praised on the old HS1 model, the control unit is easy to locate in the middle of the cable and can be easily put on the desktop. Although the unit is not backlit, the thumb easily finds the volume wheel and the button to mute the microphone.

Since the ear cups rotate on their own axis, the Vengeance 1300 can be simply put on the table or stored in a backpack. In that case, since it is an analog model and doesn’t require installation software, the headset can work fairly quickly on other computers. However, you should take some time to adjust the EQ, as each on-board soundcard has its own quirks.