This is the comparison between Corsair Virtuoso RGB SE and HyperX Cloud Orbit S headsets. Both the headsets has the big price difference which is about $100. Both the headsets has some positive and negative points. So, check out which is the best headset for you.

Introduction

Corsair Virtuoso RGB SE

This is just basically the most recent iteration of the void lineup but the void lineup is really Corsair’s mainstream and kind of value focused gaming headset line. This headset has the stylish finished design and pretty good comfort.

HyperX Cloud Orbit S

This headset is something very expensive but this one comes as wired. This is the one of the disappointment things. But, this has many hidden features into it but I don’t think that it’s all features that made this much worth.

Design

Corsair Virtuoso RGB SE

The difference is immediately recognizable in the materials Corsair has used with the Virtuoso SE, all metal and leather. A carry case is included to protect that metal finish when you slip it into your suitcase or backpack. The extra accessories comes with the headphone is all custom made for the Virtuoso SE to match the fit and finish. The microphone is metal, it has a knurled grips and chamfered edges for a classy Sheen, there’s no plastic. The USB wireless receiver has the same knurled grip to match that style, the USB type-c cable also has that grip. The charging end is Type C, so that’s great for all you people who have modern smartphones using type C. The 3.5 millimeter cable matches as well with that same knurled style.

HyperX Cloud Orbit S

It is a wired headset that comes with a braided USB cable, a USB C connection and a USB A connection on the other end. It also comes with a USB CT USBC cable and a 3.5mm cable as well which means it can connect to all sorts of things from ps4, Nintendo switch, mobile phones, and your PC. However, obviously it is capable of working on console as well with that USB connection. It is interesting that a $300 headset isn’t Wireless which is a shame. The Cloud Orbit S by comparison with the Corsair Virtuoso is only support 50,000 Hertz instead of the high res 96 converters.

Comfort

Corsair Virtuoso RGB SE

It’s actually quite comfortable, it’s fairly heavy. It came out at 389 grams with the microphone attached. It makes it the heavy gaming headset but Corsair has put that way to good use, of course, it’s all metal. So, it’s going to be heavier than the plastic headsets that most gaming manufacturers power putting out these days. If you want metal you’re gonna pay for that in terms of weight that means everything is solid as a rock. The hinges don’t squeak, the headband feels very secure. When it’s on your head, you feel the mass but you also feel the security of a headset that isn’t moving and it isn’t pivoting and creaking while you’re moving around.

Another thing going in its favor is that the ear cups are fairly narrow. Some headsets like the Logitech G935 have really wide ear cups and you feel that as you move your head around during gaming, there’s that inertia that’s further away from the center of gravity that means you kind of feel that swinging around far from your ears. This is a lot closer to your head, I really like that quite a bit.

Now, one odd thing about the Virtuoso SE is that it’s completely symmetrical. Sometimes, when I pick it up and I wouldn’t know which was the left and which was the right ear cup.

HyperX Cloud Orbit S

I find it very comfortable. It has the lovely deep plush ear cups. They’re very deep, they have a memory foam cushioning and you may have a leather outer. They sit very nicely on the ear and also do a fantastic job of blocking out external noise. They don’t block out all external noises because this is not an active noise canceling headset, I can hear sound from a PC and other noise.

I really think the build quality in this headset is excellent. it’s very nice and comfortable. There’s a nice rubberized finish to it, it looks like very nice robust screw finishing, metal finish headband ,and rubberized top padded headband.

Features

Corsair Virtuoso RGB SE

At the lighting effects in the software, You’re a little bit limited in that you just have those two lights on either side and and they’re not that bright. So, I found that some of the effects just weren’t that useful like rainbow or rain and some of the others. I just didn’t think they were that interesting with just one light on either side of the headset. So, instead I went with color shift which made the most of the single color on each headset and just shifting between two different colors. You can also adjust the brightness to save battery power.

In the EQ presets, I’ve found the best was actually movie theater bass boost which made it pretty boomy. Clear chat made it quite thin that would not be for gaming. Also, fps is there and then pure direct is just your flat equalizer.

Now, there were three usability issues, the first is the battery gauge. All you get is a small blinking light on the bottom of the ear cup, it’s green for good, yellow for getting low and red for near dead. I think they must have some technical limitation on transmitting battery information to the software, I hope they can get over that eventually and implement a battery gauge in percentage.

The second issue, I did have disconnects of the headset when I woke my computer from sleep. I often had to pull the USB receiver out of the PC and plug it back in for the headset to be recognized by the PC. I never had disconnects while using it but I did have that just disconnect problem a number of times when waking the system up from sleep.

Now, the third issue was kind of a design issue. It has to do with the placement of the USB port on the back of his headset. If you want to use this wired for instance to experience the highest bitrate sound, the USB cord has to be used and the problem is it actually faces the back. So, when you put it on, the cord tends to strike your neck or shoulder, it would be a whole lot better if that cord came out straight or forward out of the headset. Although you can listen to music at a higher bitrate using a USB connection, it’s going to be pretty uncomfortable having that cord constantly hitting you on the side of your neck or shoulder.

HyperX Cloud Orbit S

I have discovered that actually there are some interesting hidden features to it. However, I found that the various buttons on this headset have hidden features to them. So, in the volume wheel, if you press and hold a switches between various modes that include two Channel Audio which is 7.1 virtual surround sound and high res. Now on PC when you switch to high res mode, it kicks in to 96 kilohertz 24-bit audio and actually seems to deliver a high res audio which is very impressive. Now that goes along with the 100 mill planar magnetic drivers. You can remove the ear cups and you can see those drivers and see the size of the things. There’s a very premium design to them.

The 3D audio experience also works on mobile and that’s why these have a battery built into them. So, they’ve got 10 hour battery life. They’re not Wireless and they’re not Bluetooth which is a disappointment at this price point, especially when you look at Steelseries Arctis Pro wireless or the Astra A50 or the Corsair Virtuoso, all headsets that are cheaper headsets but still had premium quality devices that offer wireless or Bluetooth connectivity options. Unfortunately, the HyperX Cloud Ortbit S doesn’t do that, it is a wide device but it does mean that the batteries can supply the power you need to use that 3D audio technology when you’re not on PC and you’re not plugged in that way if you’re using a 3.5 l jack or a device that won’t be giving off enough power. So, you can use it on console or switch or your phone.

Another thing I notice is the braided cable as a roadie cable. However, the problem with this one and the design of the head headband on the way it sits the audio cable sits. It’s sitting on clothing and it rubs on your clothes and you can hear it in the ear cup. I found the solution for this problem and that is you can just swap the braided cable for a non braided one means get a rubber cable instead and that you won’t have that problem as much.

Microphone

Corsair Virtuoso RGB SE

The microphone attaches to the headset with a custom adapter and it’s easily repositionable. The on/off switch is actually a wireless and wired switch that’s a little confusing. The microphone has a built-in on/off switch, so it’s shines a red when it’s off and green when it’s on.

I really like this microphone because it has call side tone. So, you can hear you voice. Being a corsair product, it’s compatible with Corsair’s IQ software, you can turn stereo on and off, microphone on and then side tone which is your mic monitor, I like to dial in just a little bit of mic monitor so I can hear myself through the headset.

In terms of the microphone quality, I was let down a little bit only because I thought Corsair’s void elite was so good and that was only $100 headset. This has a big mic but it’s a little bit too boomy, I thought it was to boo me for voice and it’s not tuned correctly for it for the human voice.

HyperX Cloud Orbit S

If you’re wondering why the quality of the microphone audio isn’t great then you will note the problem. Now, I thought there was a problem with the microphone when I first got it. If you listen carefully, you will hear a hum as an electronic hum from the microphone. There’s one sound setting somewhere that you can go to that doesn’t do it, some of the technology is causing some sort of electronic feedback and I’ve tried various USB ports and other things, so it’s weird and it’s annoying because there’s is feedback on the microphone that doesn’t exist on any other microphone. It actually does a pretty good job of delivering a good quality recording for your voice but unfortunately is ruined by an electronic hum.

You can also remove this microphone and because it’s got a 3.5 mm jack and a USB C connection means you could plug it into your phone and take it out of a house. From an audio point of view, it does a really good job.

Sound Performance

Corsair Virtuoso RGB SE

The most important thing is the sound and in that regard, it’s a little bit of a mixed bag. I thought musically it wasn’t quite up to par, I didn’t love its musicality and it felt a little compressed. Even though it had specs to beat other gaming headsets, I just didn’t think it sounded his musical as other gaming headsets I’ve tried. It just didn’t have the sound-stage, it felt a little thin. However, in gaming it sounded great particularly when running in stereo rather than in surround. I thought its surrounding was a little bit weak, it isn’t top-notch, it’s not DTS or Dolby level quality.

Now, in terms of stereo it was fantastic. The drumbeat of machine guns in battlefield 5 sounded much deeper and much more realistic than even the Logitech G935 which I like a lot. Even though I didn’t love the surround implementation, I still got a really good sense of the surroundings in a game because of the realism of the sound coming through the ear cups.

HyperX Cloud Orbit S

This headset sounds fantastic. It sounds fantastic and it has a really good range of audio and a very good level of bass and a very wide ranging sound whether you’re watching films, listening to music, or playing games. It also does a good job on a variety of devices, so for example, listening to music on the phone using USB C to USB C connection, the audio quality is still brilliant and on PC where it really shines and other uses obviously it does well too. However, I was very impressed with that and also very impressed with the quality of the 7.1 surround sound.

Now, another thing that the HyperX cloud orbit s has for it, it has the waves and X3D head tracking built into it. So, it has this technology inside it that uses 3D movement of your head and tracks that movement and translates it into the audio. It changes the sounds that you hear when you’re looking at the screen depending on where you’re looking at and translates that into in-game audio as well. So, your looking positions affects the way the audio works and this is a new way of changing the audio positioning. As well as having that standard virtual 7.1 surround sound gives you the all-encompassing surround of where direction was coming from positional audio. You have that 3D audio that affects when you move your head and you can see in action in the software that comes with it as well.

Although you don’t need that software because it’s all built in. There is a fixed button, you can press and hold the 3D button underneath and that switches between various modes that include auto manual, you can automatically Center it so there’s a center setting and you can turn it off if it’s not working properly. Whether it’s on or off, you still get a really good surround sound experience.

I was really surprised they’ve sort of hidden away the 96 kilohertz, I wonder whether the drivers themselves don’t actually support 96 kilos but the headset tricks windows into thinking it does. If you press and hold to the volume wheels, you could switch between stereo and 7.1 in high res. On a high res, it automatically switches in Windows to 96 kilohertz which I found very surprising and it delivers a fantastic sound. For audio, music, gaming, just really probably one of the best headsets I’ve tried. These drivers are large, capable, rich drivers deliver a really rich sound and a really great positional audio. It does a fantastic job.

Conclusion

Corsair Virtuoso RGB SE

When I first took it out of the box I was thinking this is gonna be perfect but after that I found that the audio quality was only average for a high-end headset, it wasn’t above average. The microphone quality was a little bit disappointing given the size of the microphone and I also thought there were some usability issues that showed that Corsair has some fine tuning to do. I think Corsair has done a lot to raise the bar when it comes to styling but they’ve got a little bit of fine-tuning to do to perfect their audio quality and the overall experience of using the Virtuoso.

HyperX Cloud Orbit S

This probably delivers better audio. It has a much closer tighter fit to the head, it blocks out a lot more external noise with these deep plush ear cups. It’s comfortable to wear all day long. If you have the money to splash and you want a wired headset that does a fantastic job. It has a really interesting design in terms of that 3D head tracking technology.

[i2pc pros_icon=”icon icon-plus-thick” cons_icon=”icon icon-minus-thick” show_title=”true” title=”Corsair Virtuoso RGB SE” show_button=”false” pros_title=”Pros” cons_title=”Cons” ][i2pros]Grown-up looks
Powerful hi-res audio
Immaculate presentation
Great battery life[/i2pros][i2cons]Wireless range depends on house construction
Headband digs in a bit over time
Slightly heavy reverb[/i2cons][/i2pc]

[i2pc pros_icon=”icon icon-plus-thick” cons_icon=”icon icon-minus-thick” show_title=”true” title=”HyperX Cloud Orbit S” show_button=”false” pros_title=”Pros” cons_title=”Cons” ][i2pros]Incredibly clear sound
3D head tracking is very accurate
Nice, comfortable build
Supports 3.5mm, USB-A, and USB-C connections[/i2pros][i2cons]Expensive for a wired headset
Software can be tough to figure out[/i2cons][/i2pc]

Buy Corsair Virtuoso RGB SE

Buy HyperX Cloud Orbit S