Corsair void pro surround. Corsair Gaming VOID Pro Surround Dolby 7.1, análisis

Review | Corsair VOID PRO Wireless Dolby 7.1 RGB Gaming Headset

On this review, we are taking a look at the Corsair VOID PRO Wireless Dolby 7.1 RGB Gaming Headset. The best yet Corsair has to offer for the wireless gaming crowd with an exhausting model name to match.

The VOID PRO Wireless should be a step up from the older VOID Wireless models with small design improvements and major internal improvements. Under that fancy shell, Corsair re-built and re-tuned the 50mm neodymium drivers for better mid-range clarity and enhanced bass performance. The internal ear cup cavity has been improved too and with additional materials to provide better passive noise isolation.

Corsair also redesigned the microphone, giving it extra flexibility, flip up muting and a ring LED mute indicator for visibility. The microphone element is now actually 50% larger and it now comes with a windscreen. The VOID PRO has the best mic from the VOID series to date, according to Corsair.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:

The VOID PRO Wireless features a pair of dynamic 50mm drivers with 32 Ohms of impedance. It is a closed back, over the ear design with frequency response rated at 20Hz to 20KHz. Sensitivity is rated at 107 ±3dB.

The microphone on the other hand is a uni-directional one, with a 100Hz-10KHz Frequency Response range. Uni-directional mics are technically superior when it comes to background noise cancellation and we’ll see if this one is just as good.

There’s basically nothing about the specifications of the sound processor but it is Dolby Atmos certified.

PACKAGING AND ACCESSORIES:

The VOID PRO Wireless is enclosed inside a traditional Corsair gaming packaging, which is enough to keep it safe from bumps and bruises. It clearly states what the headset is all about with a clean execution.

The Corsair VOID PRO Wireless comes with a charging cable, a windscreen for the mic and a 2.4GHz wireless receiver. A more special edition of the VOID PRO Wireless will come with a docking bay for the receiver.

Of course, there are paper works too for those who still loves reading on paper. Seriously, we only need at least one or two here for the most important stuffs.

DESIGN, BUILD AND COMFORT:

The design of the Corsair VOID PRO Wireless is not much different from the older VOID models but there are subtle differences. First off, the mic no longer has the ridges which made the headset look sleeker and there’s no extra lighting bar below the LED lit Corsair logo. The VOID PRO weighs in at 375 grams without the cables and the receiver so it is pretty heavy for my liking. For something branded as a “PRO” I expected it to be 350 grams or lighter, but I guess wireless headsets are incomparable to wired ones when it comes to this area.

Headband itself is made out of plastic, in combination with a meshed foam padding which is really soft by the way. There are 8 level of Band adjustments and they lock in place securely with an audible click.

The ear cups are based on thick and removable mesh paddings. Corsair calls these as “True Form” pads. The pads has a depth of 25 mm, with an angular design so we’re looking at 50-60mm of clearance here (LxH). These meshed pads are soft and comfy enough for my liking, but I’d like Corsair to try something new with velour pads. This is their PRO line after all.

The microphone no longer features the InfoMic, but has been replaced with an indicator light for status information. The mic is swivel to mute which is a feature found only at the wireless VOID PRO models. The volume rocker below doubles up as a toggle for the Dolby 7.1 (long press) and profiling (short press).

The mic mute button is still present at the side, which is kinda redundant. It’s also the button for the sidetone feature though so I guess everything’s fine here (long press).

Comfort is generally good if not great due to the 375 gram weight. Clamping force on the other hand is not the best in class; which is light at best. So, don’t go trashing it on your head or face the consequences. It stays in place during normal usage so there’s nothing to complain here if you’re one of the norms.

SOFTWARE:

The CUE 2.0 is required if you want to maximize the Corsair VOID PRO to its fullest. There are only a few options here with lighting effects and EQ presets being the most important ones. Dolby Atmos can be toggled here, together with the mic / sidetone levels.

You’d get a total of 6 lighting effects, with adjustable speeds and their own sub effects to be desired. Only the Corsair logo can be adjusted for the RGB effects tho.

The battery level display is located at the global settings menu (cog icon), which is honestly not the best location. I hope Corsair will address this small nuance on their future CUE 2.0 updates.

TEST SETUP AND METHODOLOGY:

The vast world of head gears are subjective, and is usually a heated debacle among avid listeners. For an instance, some may favor heavy bass emphasis while others may favor less bass and prefer a richer mid-range or higher frequency range details. In short, a head gear might sound great from someone’s perception while at the same time, it may sound awful to other listeners. There are also things to look out for such as the sound stage, imaging, the general sound signature of the head gear and several others.

Gears used to take cross reference sampling is my Sony MDR-7506 studio headphone. Performance is evaluated with our motherboard’s audio solution, unless it requires other forms of input. SPL should be around 85dBA during the tests. Tracks, movies and games used are outlined below:

• Caribbean Blue – Enya
• Hey Nineteen – Steely Dan
• Unfinished Sympathy – D2
• Axel F – Harold Faltermeyer
• Hotel California – Eagles

As for microphones, performance is evaluated with our motherboard’s audio solution. That’s unless, the microphone requires other forms of input. Sampling is taken with the Windows 10 Voice Recorder on a 34dB environment.

This review has been made possible with Banggood‘s photography equipment. Learn more from this link.

OBJECTIVE AUDIO PERFORMANCE:

Head gears although mostly subjective, can still be tested for basic objective measurements with the help of AudioCheck.net’s Headphones and Earphones Benchmarking Test Files.

Based on the test files from AudioCheck.net, the Corsair VOID PRO passed with flying colors across most test suites. The frequency range from Bass to Treble are excellent, able to go as low as 10 Hz, and up high at 19 KHz. Dynamic range is 42 dB however and could be due to the light clamping force and the materials used. Noise cancelling is not its strong suit as far as our tests are concerned.

GENERAL AUDIO PERFORMANCE:

As much as I’d like to test the VOID PRO Wireless on its default EQ settings, we really have to bump its sensitivity shown at the screenshot below. This is on our opinion, the best settings for our ears, enabling us to get richer presence and brilliance together with a more believable upper midrange output.

The low end performance of the VOID PRO Wireless has a good sub-bass and mid-bass presentation, while the upper limits towards the lower mid-ranges could be somewhat better. While EQ adjustments will improve the quantity around the bass area, it doesn’t necessarily improves the quality so we’re leaving them at the default mark.

The default EQ levels of the mid range is kinda just alright for my liking so I really have to bump up the EQ 2dB – 4dB higher than the default. Mid range performance at these levels bumped up the clarity of vocals even with the Dolby 7.1 activated. If you really want to get what you’re paying for, then you really have to play with the EQ.

Treble really needs a 4dB of bump since it lacks the spark I’m looking for by default. We do love analytical sound signature so our adjustments fits our needs for richer presence and brilliance. While I may sound like nitpicking the the VOID PRO, its performance is actually rather great for a wireless gaming headset. Sure it’s not comparable to my studio monitors, but it is good enough for what it is and its worth. For 99 USD, there’s hardly any other wireless gaming headsets that could come close, output wise.

GAMING PERFORMANCE:

Immersive and believable performance are the things we are looking for when it comes to gaming. With the Dolby 7.1 surround in play, the Corsair VOID PRO Wireless puts its name on the line without hesitation.

Localization with surround turned on is astonishingly good. Usually, it’s the other way around with lesser surround implementations, but Corsair really did a great job with this one. This is a proper Dolby 7.1 surround headset we’ve got, similar to the HyperX Revolver S that we’ve tested months ago. I’m not going to explain how good gunshots and explosions sounds with this headset. It’s just that good. As far as gaming performance is concerned, we are looking at a winner here. Stay tuned for our updated testing procedures. We are working on a binaural demo for head gear audio quality sampling.

MICROPHONE PERFORMANCE:

Microphone performance is also a strong suit of the Corsair VOID PRO Wireless. It has to be expected, since Corsair markets the VOID PRO’s mic as the best they’ve done so far. There is considerable amount of white noise though at higher levels, so keep it below 70% for quality output and reduced noise. Excellent stuff overall.

WRAPPING IT UP:

The Corsair VOID PRO Wireless is an excellent gaming headset, with features built for streamers and seasoned gamers. Its 7.1 surround feature is definitely one of its strong points, with the excellent microphone complementing it along the way. This is a bass and mid-range oriented headgear, so for those who are looking for richer treble output you have to work on it on the EQ.

Design wise, the Corsair VOID PRO Wireless is one sleek headset. It no longer has the small design elements that some might find annoying on the last VOID iterations; making it a proper looking headset with a dash of non-obtrusive gaming oriented design. Build quality is astounding too, but you are paying for an excess weight with that in mind. 350 grams and below is actually my preference but as a wireless headphone, this should be expected.

Now on the aspect of wireless performance, we could get a full 18 hours of run time with the VOID PRO. That of course includes the idle time so it’s rather good for a day or two. Just make sure to disable the RGB lighting, since we could only get a maximum of 8 hours with the feature turned on. RGB is not my thing especially on headsets so I don’t really care much about it.

Pricing is set at 99 USD which translates to around 5000 Pesos. That’s for our wireless model, while the wired one will set you back at 79 USD. Any of the VOID PRO models should feature an identical audio performance so it basically boils down on your preferences. Either way you go, both will keep you occupied like a happy camper.

• LIGHT CLAMPING FORCE
• BATTERY LIFE WITH RGB LIGHTING ENABLED

Corsair Gaming VOID Pro Surround Dolby 7.1, análisis

El avance de la calidad gráfica de los videojuegos que hemos vivido durante los últimos años ha sido tan grande que ha relegado otros aspectos a un segundo plano. Uno de ellos es el sonido y es una lástima, ya que éste apartado continúa siendo un elemento clave tanto en la inmersión como en la jugabilidad, y hoy podemos disfrutarlo mejor que nunca gracias a soluciones como el Corsair Gaming VOID Pro Surround Dolby 7.1.

En este artículo tuve la oportunidad de analizar los Corsair Gaming VOID RGB 7.1, una versión inalámbrica y con iluminación RGB que nos sorprendió gratamente ya que ofrecían una alta calidad de construcción, un diseño muy atractivo, una configuración muy completa y muy sencilla y una calidad de sonido excelente.

Recientemente se produjo el lanzamiento de los Corsair Gaming VOID Pro Surround Dolby 7.1, un nuevo modelo que que se presenta como una alternativa cableada (jack de 3,5 mm y USB) que hemos querido analizar porque nos parece una opción muy interesante, ya que ofrece compatibilidad plena tanto con PC como con las consolas de nueva generación PlayStation 4-PlayStation 4 Pro y Xbox One-Xbox One S.

Gracias a Corsair hemos podido recibir una muestra y tras varios días utilizando los Corsair Gaming VOID Pro Surround Dolby 7.1 por fin tenemos listo nuestro análisis. Como siempre poneos cómodos, que hay mucho que leer.

Primer vistazo; diseño, ergonomía y acabados

Los Corsair Gaming VOID Pro Surround Dolby 7.1 mantienen las mismas líneas de diseño y la calidad de acabados que encontramos en el modelo Corsair Gaming VOID RGB 7.1, un dato muy positivo que nos permite tener claro desde el primer momento que estamos ante unos auriculares de primer nivel.

El modelo que hemos analizado carece de iluminación LED RGB, un detalle que personalmente no va a afectar a la puntuación final ya que es un detalle meramente estético que creemos que no debe influir en la valoración, así que nos centraremos en los materiales, la comodidad y la calidad del sonido.

En general la estética de los Corsair Gaming VOID RGB 7.1 es muy atractiva. Desde que analicé el modelo sin cables quedé muy satisfecho con el diseño, pero estos auriculares con algo más que una simple cara bonita.

La calidad de los materiales y la ergonomía es muy buena y ha mejorado con respecto al primer modelo, tanto que podrás llevarlos puestos durante largas sesiones de gaming sin notar la más mínima molestia. Puedo dar fe de ello, ya que los he llevado puestos durante cinco horas seguidas sin ningún problema, y eso que utilizo gafas.

Los auriculares son circumaurales, es decir, cubren totalmente la oreja, algo importante ya que ayudan a conseguir un alto grado de aislamiento.

Antes de cerrar este apartado quiero destacar que el ajuste (adaptable) y la presión que ejercen al estar colocados es casi perfecta. Los auriculares se mantienen en su sitio sin moverse lo más mínimo pero al mismo tiempo no resultan opresivos.

Con respecto al cable es lo bastante largo como para utilizarlos en casi cualquier situación y podemos optar entre conectarlos a través del jack de 3,5 o del USB. Esto es muy útil ya que nos permite utilizarlos cómodamente con el mando de nuestra consola PlayStation 4 o Xbox One.

El cableado está bien protegido en las zonas más vulnerables (ambos extremos) para evitar roturas por el uso continuado y el enrollado del mismo, un detalle que culmina un acabado sobresaliente.

Calidad de sonido y micrófono

Antes de entrar en detalles debemos tener en cuenta que si utilizamos los Corsair Gaming VOID Pro Surround Dolby 7.1 a través del conector jack de 3,5 mm estaremos limitados a sonido estéreo, ya que los controladores CUE no reconocerán el dispositivo.

Esto tiene aunque una ventaja muy importante aunque no lo parezca, y es que permite utilizar los auriculares con prácticamente cualquier dispositivo que cuente con dicho conector, y sin tener que hacer ningún tipo de configuración.

Al utilizar el adaptador USB disfrutaremos de un modo de sonido envolvente 7.1 que está emulado por software, aunque podemos activarlo y desactivarlo en cualquier momento a través del software CUE de Corsair.

La configuración es muy sencilla, basta con descargar los últimos controladores desde la web oficial de Corsair, instalarlos y listo, no tendremos que hacer nada más. En el menú de opciones podremos llevar a cabo diferentes ajustes; como activar y desactivar el micrófono, elegir un ecualizador predefinido o crear uno propio y regular el volumen del micro y la autopercepción.

En los modelos que cuentan con iluminación LED RGB también es posible configurar diferentes aspectos de la misma como los efectos, los colores y los ciclos y patrones que seguirán.

Saltamos a la calidad de sonido y francamente Corsair ha hecho un gran trabajo. Con el sonido 7.1 activado en juegos como The Evil Within 2 y Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus la experiencia ha sido fantástica.

La integración ha sido perfecta y he podido disfrutar en todo momento de un sonido posicional muy cuidado y nítido. Es lo que dijimos al inicio, el sonido es pieza clave en la inmersión y la experiencia de juego y los Corsair Gaming VOID Pro Surround Dolby 7.1 son un complemento de primera.

En las pruebas de reproducción de contenidos multimedia (películas y música) la experiencia de uso también ha sido sobresaliente, aunque OS recomiendo que si utilizáis portales como YouTube y reproducís contenidos en calidad baja configuréis los auriculares en modo estéreo.

No podemos terminar sin hablar del micro. Corsair ha mantenido las opciones de configuración, la posición y el diseño, pero ha mejorado la calidad de sonido con respecto a los Corsair Gaming VOID RGB 7.1 y esto es muy positivo, ya que prácticamente el único punto «mejorable» que encontré en aquellos.

Notas finales

He disfrutado cada segundo que he llevado puestos los Corsair Gaming VOID Pro Surround Dolby 7.1. Son muy cómodos, ligeros y ofrecen una calidad de sonido excelente incluso en el modo estéreo, pero además son compatibles con equipos basados en Windows, Mac y consolas, así que podréis sacarles partido en una gran cantidad de dispositivos.

La configuración es muy sencilla y no he tenido el más mínimo problema usándolos en un PC basado en Windows 10 y en una consola PlayStation 4.

Haciendo un balance global y teniendo en cuenta su precio recomendado (89,90 euros) creo que ofrecen una buena relación calidad-precio y son una opción muy recomendable, tanto si los vas a utilizar para juegos como para reproducir tus contenidos multimedia favoritos.

Ahora mismo los tenéis en oferta especial en Amazon, donde están rebajados a 76,99 euros.

Nos ha gustado

• La calidad de sonido es muy buena, tanto en 7.1 como en estéreo.
• Son muy cómodos y aíslan perfectamente del exterior.
• Excelente diseño y gran calidad de construcción.
• La calidad del micrófono ha mejorado y es buena.

No nos ha gustado

Corsair Void Pro – Disassembly and Repair.

We recently had a friend bring to me a Corsair Void Pro headset. That during their travels through airports, the headset sustained some damage that rendered it inoperable. Although this is a simple repair. It’s still informative to those who don’t want to see it on YouTube dealing with “shakey-cam” footage on the repair process of these headsets. On top of it since we’ve already gone off about other corsair products such as the M65 and their Scimitar. Why not start on their headset line?

The problem.

There are two problems with these headphones but we’re going to just FOCUS on the overall functionality of the headset. The paint job illustrated in the picture above is what happens when you decide to use a high-powered solvent to clean your headphones with, resulting in said solvent eating away the paint job a little. The real problem with these headphones is the fact that the cord is ripped away from its initial connector. Possibly due to a random angry gamer throwing their wireless controller across the room. Who knows and who cares it’s broken right? Let’s get to fixing this.

Tools of the trade.

For the repair you may need the following equipment:

• PH0 screwdriver for removing the plastic tapping screws.
• A rotary tool with a router/drill bit for reshaping the plastic and getting a female audio connector installed.
• Soldering Iron at around 30-40 watts with solder. Pointed tip preferred.
• Multi-Meter for performing continuity testing.
• Wire strippers.
• Some wire.
• 4-pin female audio jack connectors.
• 4-pin audio cable.
• Small shrink tubing.
• Electrical tape to insulate our wires after we are done soldering.
• Love.

Disassembly.

The first thing that we’re going to do is remove the foam pads which cover the speaker assembly. You can use your fingers to slowly pull up on the foam to remove however be careful. After they are removed now would be a good time to hit them with soap and water to get them nice and clean. Especially if you receive a pair used just like these!

If you attempt to forcibly remove the headset by taking it off or by stretching the leather too far to wrap around the plastics on the inside. You’ll quickly find out the low-quality leather used by Corsair tears very easily. Our advice when repairing your headset is after you fix them wear them without the foam pads for a little while before committing. This little step will save big on the wear and tear from popping them off.

Next, we will be taking a PH0-bit Phillips screwdriver and removing the array of screws holding the speaker as well as the outer housing in the arrow tabs below. These are standard plastic tapping screws similar to what is used on the PS3 controllers.

The moment the speaker casing is released be careful to not use any force to pull it off as doing so will wreck the connection to your speaker wire due to the asinine way Corsair decided to perform cable management. We just gently removed the tape to reveal what it is that we are playing with inside.

Once again, similar to my M65 mouse repair. I have to give Kudos to corsair for properly marking what each of the pads does on the board making it very easy for us to wire it all up. Although we are a little confused as to why there’s a MIC_GND and AGND plane when even after removing these wires they are both connected on a continuity test. In an ideal audio world, you would want to have these two grounds isolated so that your microphone cannot receive any interference from other electrical devices such as the speakers.

Perhaps this was something Corsair was thinking down the road on isolating the microphone portion from the audio? It would make sense, But why not insulate it further if they care so much about electrical radiation?

I’m left with more questions than answers on this one. Anyhow, we’re going to remove the cabling by removing the two screws. Also, we will be de-soldering all of the pads to eject the old cabling. We should point out the overall size of the cables inside and how insanely thin the wiring is. If this was a regular gauge wire like what you would use in a mouse then perhaps it wouldn’t have been destroyed in the first place. It was a bit of a pain in removing the old wiring harness as you had to twist the boot 180 degrees and then release it. But after a little bit of cutting of wires and some of the boot itself, it finally released.

Now, we could do a re-cabling job as we did with our Wico C=64 joysticks by using a heavier gauge wire and boot replacement. But fitting the boot would be a bit of a pain in the ass in a setup like this. But with how much room there is in the cavity of the Corsair Void Pro why should I repeat the mistakes of the engineers at Corsair?

If fact, there was something already designed by Corsair to which they walked away which is simply adding a jack at the bottom of the headset as they did with the Corsair void standard edition. For this mod, we will be using a 4-position female headphone connector (image 1). The reason why a 4-pin version is to accommodate the microphone part of the jack and it also makes it easy to just purchase a male-to-male cable to hook into game controllers, cell phones, and whatever else you want at that level.

Also, if it rips again no need to open it! just purchase another straight-through cable for a few bucks! As far as cost is concerned you can purchase from a Chinese vendor for 2-3 (USD) although the odds of them shipping it is low. We went through an American vendor for about 7(USD). Alternatively for those seeking a reputable dealer, there’s always Digi-Key for barrel audio connectors.

Regardless of where you purchase your female stereo connectors from always check the pins you are about to solder with a multi-meter that has a continuity function! Too many times have we purchased these types of connectors and the white papers are nowhere near to where the pin design is! You’ll note that the sleeve (base ring closest to the cord) is always ground except for the 4-pin Microphone/audio adapter as the sleeve is the microphone signal and the ring closest to the sleeve is ground.

We will prepare our female connector by soldering a few wires onto it. Yellow for channel left. Red for channel right? Black for ground. Finally, orange for the microphone. We will use some shrink tubing here to prevent the connectors from touching each other and from accidentally pressing into the PCB inside of the Corsair Void.

We need to make space for our jack. So using a rotary tool with a drill bit we can easily cut away all of the plastics that were surrounding the hole of the jack. Also, due to the way the plastics are molded at the bottom, the connector will not sit flush inside. Our female connector will stick up and smash into the speaker. So we also need to cut away some of the circuit board for the connector to be pushed back into the housing.

We did an initial fit-test to see if everything would go together nicely too which it does. The speakers can be clamped down and screwed into position. and despite using some thick wires they can be easily tucked underneath the circuit board so they do not touch the speaker housing to affect the sound coming out of them. At this point, we plugged the headset into the cel-phone just to make sure everything is working such as speakers and microphones. Once we were satisfied we bolted down the female connector and then threw in some hot glue into the corners to act as reinforcement. Once again we should note that the connector will not sit flush against the plastics because of the curvature. However, the washer still bites down on the plastics and does not move when we insert and remove our jack.

To make sure that everything on this side of the headset sits perfectly. We also cut away some of the plastics where the female connector allows us to close it without too much worry if we’re squeezing the plastics too hard. Also at this level, you can check the wires around your speaker, to make sure they aren’t falling off. Or, if you are experiencing audio crackling as you move your headset around. A cold/loose connector on your speaker is what usually causes it on these headphones.

With the jack repaired the only thing that is left is to go completely nuts with masking tape and spray-paint the damaged section of the corsair headset. However, we will save that for another project. From a functional standpoint, our headset is fully operational.

Some other notes to consider.

For those who may not have the Corsair USB dongle or if you are like me and think that the audio chip on that dongle is utter crap. You may be tempted to get a 4-pin 3.5mm to 3-pin 3.5mm converter from china. The one that is pictured on the left is one that we purchased from china for about two dollars. It’s not even wired correctly. Pin1 and Pin2 for left and right speakers are reversed. Also, the microphone crackles and disconnects in the slightest of moves because the microphone jack is a female 2-pin jack! Not a 3-pin! So now we have Chinese manufacturers unable to tell the difference between right and left and also giving us terrible connectivity. great!

DIY to be sure.

As we can no longer trust the manufacturing processes overseas combined with the fact that all of the Radio-Shacks of the world are gone leaving you with Amazon which delivers the same garbage. We made our Splitter. using the same 4-pin female connector we used for the headset. And using 3-pin female connectors so we could simply patch it into our Audigy 5 RX sound card.

Pin-0uts of the audio connectors.

When building your headphone jacks and/or making your cables it is essential to have a multimeter set for continuity testing to ensure that you are indeed connecting to the right ports. Even if the whitepapers tell you what each pin is and it’s marked on the connectors do not trust it! Many of these Garbage manufacturers can’t even tell the difference between left to right speakers much less trust them with numbers. Each diagram shows the tip, the rings which are the pieces in the middle. Finally the sleeve. I also had to point out the traditional microphone in the respect that the ground position is elevated a little so if you decide to recycle a 3-ring jack that’s fine. Just understand that the center ring shares grounding. Only the tip is for active microphone use. We made this mistake by assuming left-right was fused and upon plugging it into our sound card we were grounding out.

Testing your audio connectors for DIY

Plug in a patch cable into your female connector and go through each of the solder-able leads with a multi-meter to ensure everything is going to the right pins before plugging it into your computer. This step alone will save you a lot of time, money, and headaches.

Exclusions.

The diagram above only represents the most common audio formats of the 3 and 4-pin connector and does not include the following:

• Nokia, and Lenovo mobile connectors – ground and mic are reversed on the 4-pin adapter.
• Raspberry Pi, CHIP, Zune, AppleTV – pin 4 is a composite video and not a microphone.
• Certain camera microphones allow for stereo recording such as the Olympus ME51S condenser mic. In this case, left and right are no longer fused but are operating as independent channels.

The microphone problem.

Your browser does not support the audio element. Continue onward.

Recording device: PC with an Audigy Rx5 sound card. Microphone record levels at 100 percent with no amplification.

Microphone: Corsair Void Pro headset which retails at 69 (USD)

Download or play in your own external player: Opus and OGG audio files are available to download. WAV audio file is available as well.

Replacement time.

Since we’ve already re-cabled this headset why not fix that terrible microphone that’s in the corsair headset? I mean just listen to that fidelity! It sounds like what you would expect from a McDonald’s drive-through speaker for God’s sake. Audio fidelity out of your headset is important because you don’t want to be “That guy” in a chat room where everyone thinks you purchased some 5 headset from Walmart and… Wait… These Corsair headsets sell for almost 70 (USD)! My Koss CS-100 headset which is at 15 (USD) has a better microphone fidelity than these! Once again corsair seems to let their accounting department control the end-product of their headset instead of letting the sound engineering team do their job. As a gamer, your 70 is going off to pure marketing hype and not into the actual product!

But this is a blog that helps people! We’re going to help you by trying to fix the problem. We know that the microphones in the majority of devices such as cel-phones, PC microphones, and headsets are what is known as “Capacitive Electret Microphones.” This style of the microphone is popular because thanks to the miracles of semiconductors you can make these things incredibly tiny, unlike the old days of condenser microphones.

Before even cracking open that part of our headset we took some quick measurements of the microphone part and determined that it should fit a 6mm by 5mm capacitive electret microphone. Ho-Boy were we wrong about but. But we’ll get to the sizing issue in a moment.

According to the eBay auction, these are 6mm x 5mm Capacitive Electret Microphone Pickup 48-66DB Sensitivity with the bag having several LT-1611080846 and the manufacturer of HCY engraved on the sides of each of these microphones. This makes it a little difficult to believe what China has given us considering there’s no paperwork for the model of the microphone given. Or even any tests on how well it handles frequency and overmodulation. The good news is at 1.80 (USD) for four of them we couldn’t go wrong! Or could we? Could we have bought something that sounds WORSE than what we already have?

Soldering the cabling on was a breeze and we were easily able to determine which is ground since the PCB traces on the microphone go off to the base. Since Capacitive Electric microphones have their internal components used for communication there’s no need to add a complicated pre-filter circuit. Instead, you simply solder the right connectors and plug it into the PC, and off we go!

Disassembly of the microphone.

The plastic on the Corsair void is a lot like a clamshell. There are two posts that thread into the main plastics at the bottom. So to get access to the speaker inside we’re going to have to pry the clam-shell apart. Initially, I did this with a 0.11-inch metal shim and pried on one side of the clamshell. This was a bad mistake. So our advice to people doing this repair slowly works one side apart. then work the other side apart. Take your time doing this or else-

You will end up breaking the tabs like what is pictured above. We pried too hard on the back of the headset which freed the posts but snaped the ones in front. now, this isn’t the end of the world as we could extract that post after and glue it down. But it’s good that we break it so you don’t have to!

Once the clam-shell is separated away from the frame we can then pop the microphone out from its plastic housing. When you first get it you’ll see that the microphone is encased in a rubber-like material to prevent shock. Now there’s no way to get the microphone out of this housing. The only choice for us at this stage is simply clipping the rubber housing away to expose our electret microphone. You can use your multimeter set to continuity to verify this but in our headset we had red being the signal of the speaker and copper being the ground of the speaker. If you are getting cracking in the microphone when you move it around. Now would be a good time to replace the cabling harness by threading a new set of wires. Since ours is good and we want to be super-nice about it we simply used our soldering iron to tap against this microphone to desolder it. The microphone fell out very easily!

When we do a side-by-side comparison between the two microphones. The OEM Corsair Void microphone on the right and the one we got from eBay on the left. Ours is massive!! Initially, we were worried about this until we took a good look at the casing and realized that very much like the speaker housing of the Corsair Void that the Microphone housing was also very roomy in size. So much so that a 5mm difference in diameter meant nothing as adding the rubber onto the 3mm microphone made it 5mm.

Here’s also the backside of our eBay microphone on the left and the Corsair OEM microphone on the right. We wanted to show you a good picture of both without any of the wirings added. The Corsair has marked a “-” on it showing ground. Where our eBay China HCY microphone simply had leads going off to the edge of the microphone indicating ground.

Next, we’re going to make room for our eBay China HCY microphone as its height is 6mm which is almost double what the old microphone is with its plastic housing. We used our soldering iron to melt away the plastics a little but you can use a file if you so choose. You’ll note that there’s still plenty of plastic on the frame allowing us to fit the microphone into place and even giving us room to space to which we used double-sided VHB tape to keep the microphone in place on the frame to put the clamshell covering back.

Finally, we solder the new eBay China HCY microphone using the existing wiring housing. we took some extra care to clip away any excess solder which could get in our way during re-assembly.

Much to our surprise and after stripping away some of the internal plastics on the clamshells the microphone fits inside perfectly. We decided that we wanted zero obstructions coming between our mouth-hole and the microphone so we widened that pin-hole enough. You may wish to slowly file this outward as when we did it we were in a bit of a rush and over-exposed some of the sidewall of the microphone. However, it isn’t a big deal as it sits inside perfectly.

The test results.

Your browser does not support the audio element. Continue onward.

Recording device: Audigy Rx 5 PCI-e sound card.

Microphone: HCY LT-1611080846 6mm x 5mm Capacitive Electret Microphone from china.

Download or play in your own external player: Opus and OGG audio files are available to download. WAV audio file is available as well.

Holy fuck. These sound amazing! They are almost on par with my condenser microphones except when you hear “C”s and “S”s they static out a little bit. But it’s generations better than the microphone built into the corsair headset. The audio is a little on the bass side by who the hell cares! Let’s get this bad boy into my corsair headset! The sound didn’t change at all when placing it in the corsair plastics. So to this end, we consider it a giant mission success on the microphone front. We installed a bigger superior microphone into our headset that will not piss off my friends on discord!

It’s a win all around except for Corsair which decided they were going to cheap out on EVERYTHING!

Final thoughts:

All of the repairs were successful we’re personally happy with what was accomplished. But this is the point where I’m going to illustrate a few things about what Corsair has done here.

Corsair on all of their Void series goes out of their way to illustrate to us that they are a “Surround Sound” headset. The picture above is probably the most honest box I’ve seen them do which isn’t saying a whole lot. It describes the Void as :

Hybrid stereo gaming headset with Dolby 7.1 USB adapter. – Corsair box as advertised above.

How does this USB dongle supposed to achieve 7.1 surround sound if you don’t mind me asking? Because we’re not seeing it!

You can’t just throw around “7.1 Surround” and not show us that an audio interface or adapter can indeed control 7 independently driven mid-range speakers and a sub-woofer. Even if the audio chip inside can certifiably handle 7.1 surrounds on its white paper specs you can’t turn around and cripple the chip while saying

Yup! It does 7.1 Surround! Buy it you stupid gamer!

50mm headphone speaker driver inside the Corsair headsets.

The reason why people want surround sound is because of a thing called “Dynamic Range.” Where each speaker can handle mid’s, high’s, and low’s independently giving a richer sound instead of all audio being compressed into 2-channels where the speaker goes through a balancing act as to what to accent. Corsair used wordplay to effectively fool the gaming community into thinking they’re getting a product that truly does surround sound while legally protecting their ass from fraud by starting their sentence by saying “Hybrid Headset.” Using the term incredibly loose in the meaning that “Yes, it’s a hybrid headset. Because it has a microphone built-in”

This headset made us far angrier at Corsair than our mouse failing after a year. Because they are playing the ugly game the third-party China knock-off companies are doing by saying you are official but when we start taking it apart it turns out to be a giant lie filled with low-performing parts that break easily. When it comes to headsets. Fuck Razer, fuck Corsair, keep the money in your. and spend your hard-earned money on a knock-off product from Alibaba like a RedDragon headset as you will probably achieve the same effect as you would buying any of the leading brand name companies’ headphones.

Or better yet! Buy a headphone from a respectable audio company and get a condenser microphone. All of your friends on discord will love you for your audio fidelity and you will have a better experience with quality headphones than buying ones from a company that flat-out lies to you. Good luck repairing your headphones. Keep them out of the landfills everyone.

Until next time, that’s all server has to say.

New Corsair Void Pro headsets come in wired, wireless, and RGB flavours

Ah, RGB lighting, the tech equivalent of putting makeup on a pig. Somewhere in video game history, someone decided that putting a radioactive rainbow glow on everything would make it cooler. You know, kind of like an explosion in a neon sign factory, but less tasteful.

And now, for some reason, Corsair have put RBG lighting into a gaming headset. I often worry that my ears just don’t luminesce enough, and I’m sure you all do too.

But it’s not all bad. The Corsair Void Pro headsets look rather swish, and you can get them in both RGB and non-RGB lit variants. And the RBG lighting, as pointless as it may be, is actually rather neatly done here, with just a gentle glow from the Corsair ‘sails’ logo on the outside.

But more important than the glow-in-the-dark frippery are the headsets themselves, so what’s on offer with the new Corsair Void Pro?

Void Pro Wireless Special Edition – £129.99

The Void Pro Wireless SE is the top of the Corsair Void Pro tree, and in addition to 2.4GHz wireless connectivity, 7.1 surround sound, and that all-important RGB lighting, it comes in a natty yellow colour. Like a wasp, or the Fiat Cinquecento from The Inbetweeners. Except cooler, obviously.

Void Pro RGB Wireless – £109.99

The Void Pro RGB Wireless is basically the same as the Special Edition – complete with wireless connectivity, surround sound, and the shiny, shiny lights – but instead of yellow, it comes in white or ‘carbon’. Which is, you know, grey by any other name. Looks slick, though!

Void Pro RGB USB – £94.99

The Void Pro RGB USB is exactly the same as the Void Pro RGB Wireless – including both white and ‘carbon’ colour variants – except that it’s not wireless. It uses USB connectivity instead, which does mean you’ll be tethered within a few feet of your PC; also, it’ll never run out of charge.

Void Pro Surround – £84.99

The Void Pro Surround is the base model in the range, but you could argue it offers the best value, because not only is it the cheapest with the same technical spec as the others, you’re not paying a premium for any of that light-up nonsense or yellow plastic. It’s also a mixed connectivity device, with a choice of USB or 3.5mm stereo connectivity, meaning you can use it with other devices too. It also comes in a neat red colour, in addition to the ‘carbon’ design; there’s no white on offer here.

The Corsair Void Pro headsets are available to purchase now from the Corsair website, though, at the time of writing, they all appear to be out of stock, on the UK site at least. Maybe you’ll fare better in your region!