CorsairHS80 MAX Wireless Multiplatform Gaming Headset with Bluetooth – Dolby Atmos – Broadcast Quality Microphone – iCUE Compatible – PC, Mac, PS5, PS4, Mobile – White

The media could not be loaded. Bought 3 earcups to test them out against the stock one for the Corsair HS80 Max. Recommend watching the video since that will give you a good idea of what these look/feel like in your hands. But warning, I have used only the stock earcups for a prolonged gaming session. The rest of the cups are based on initial perception.I have a round but oblong head. This IS important for glasses-wearers, as explained later. For fitment, note if they compress on the top of your ears where your glasses sit. If you don't have glasses, then fitment is less important, and more about the headset clamping itself.Footstep audio baseline used from some Apex Legends Yotube video audio test "footstep at 0:04". I replayed the beginning ti second 0:07 to see if I can hear the footstep, how loud it was, and how clear it was. This is with Dolby Access and Sound ID tuned to my liking. Audio equalization was not changed for any of the earcups. The stock earcups are used as a baseline.[STOCK]Material: pelt, coarse fabricFoam type: low density foamGlasses scratchiness: loud, annoyingPersonal fitment: tight on topNoise blockage: ~50%Notes: The headset likes to apply pressure to the top of my head. The glasses are forced into my skin, feeling a tiny slight pain after 5 seconds of having them on. But this does not hinder long sessions, had these on for 6+ hours, no problem. Footstep audio is used as a baseline for this headset, so no marks. Fabric looks ugly, and is annoying. But zero felt sweat in 68°F temp. Foam is a hair off from reforming immediately.[WC FREEZE]Price: $24.95Material: leather outside, hex fabric face sideFoam type: medium densityGlasses scratchiness: light, normalPersonal fitment: too tight on topNoise blockage: ~80% on perfect sealNotes:Build quality seems the best on these. However, they don't properly seal on my head, leaving the slightest gap at bottom. This is probably due to how thick these things are. Keep in mind these are the thickest of the bunch, like, too thick. Due to the heavy rigidity, I don't think these will *properly* fit most heads. But this helps heavily with blocking out background sound, despite improper seal. I found in my audio test video for footsteps I had to turn up the volume by 10-20% to hear what I was listening for. Not like that is a problem, since each headset has different normal volume levels. In reality, you will never notice it unless you looked for it. This volume difference is probably due to the lack of seal on my head, or how much farther your ears actually are to the drivers. Foam almost immediately reforms after squishing. Not quite "memory foam", but still good quality medium density foam.[Soulwit]Price: $17.95Material: leather outside, high thread fabric face sideFoam type: low densityGlasses scratchiness: light, normalPersonal fitment: evenNoise blockage: ~55%Notes:Good build quality. These are the thinnest of the bunch. Too me, is a good comparison to the stock Epos H6pro which is where I came from. Light cups with some sound passthrough. With glasses, these gave no initial discomfort. Footstep audio was about on par with stock earcups. Foam immediately reforms after pressing. Not memory foam in the slightest. Just a nice piece of normal foam. SIDENOTE: These also came with a dropper so you can put single water droplets to "cool the foam". Don't think this is necessary, since the material touching your skin is still fabric. Still nice to have I suppose.[Chinesium Offbrand "Thicker Upgrade Quality Earpads"]Price: $17.99Material: hex fabricFoam type: memory foamGlasses scratchiness: medium, loudPersonal fitment: almost even, goodNoise blockage: ~75%Notes:These will prolly make you sweat the most due to how dense the foam is to trap the heat, but the fabric material is airy. The build quality honestly isn't bad. If you prefer a little mush to your head, don't like the sweat on outside leather, and don't wear glasses, I'd say these are better than the WC if you're worried about fitment and noise blockage. Just keep in mind it is bulky. On the head, it squishes easily making your ears closer to the drivers naturally. Foam is legitimately memory foam you are used to. Yet it feels like not much foam was used at all, as it really doesn't fill the space inside the fabric.[PERSONAL PICK]When I look for headphones, I like open backs, something with a good stock microphone, and angular design. The reason I chose this closed back headset was because it just looked so good, and doubled down on mic performance like the H6pros. The H6pros are a gold standard, as they have a great mic, amazing sound, open and closed designs, and replaceable cables and mic pieces. This headset is slightly worse, but all wireless headsets are. That is the trade off.Coming from open backs, I like background noice so I can hear my voice more naturally. And due to the fitment and feel with my glasses, the Soulwit takes the cake. These being the slimmest and lightest of them, it's no-brainer. And somehow even with the performance, fit, and style, these manage to be the cheapest for me. Second only to what came with the headset.If I were to pick something to block outside sound fully, it really is a gamble between the WC and the offbrand earcup. At that point, it comes down to whether or not you have glasses. The WC have tightness near the top, but are quiet with glasses. The offbrand cups have great even fitment, but are scratchy, almost as bad as the stock fabric.This is why I would just double down on Soulwit for glasses users. The noise blockage is still a little better than the stock earcups, and you get the best of both worlds feel wise.[CLOSING]If I were you, I would just buy all three like I did and try them to see what you like. Then return the other pairs to Amazon for free and get your refund.

I was thrown at first by the sound quality on these. My experience off the bat, using these with a desktop PC, was that it felt very muffled, like everything I heard was recorded in a room padded wall to wall in thick carpet. I did find two things that helped considerably, however, and with all those settled, I've ended up quite fond of this headset actually!#1: It comes with a free license for Dolby Atmos software, which seems to do some equalization and 7.1 sound simulation for audio on one's computer. I highly recommend taking advantage of this. This software can be bought standalone but it's not needed if used with just these headphones, and the sound quality subjectively seemed to improve considerably once set to the Movie or Music presets.#2: A gimmick feature also available is the "Sound ID" equalizer you can set up in Corsair iCue. You may want to set up Atmos first so it's factored into what you hear. This basically administers a hearing test of sorts for further refining the sound. I was a little more undecided on this but after a lot of comparison I did ultimately like it just a little more with this enabled.And with both of those set up, the sound quality was vastly better than out of the box.The battery life is impressive. I use these all day and still only have to recharge every few days of use (even with the silly lighting effects that you can't see while wearing them turned on), which doesn't take much time at all. They also connect via a small WiFi dongle that than bluetooth. This easily reaches the advertised range, even through walls, and in my experience even had better range than the proprietary "Slipstream" dongle used for the regular non-Max HS80, which struggled to reach an adjacent room. They're comfortable for me now that the initial acclimation and breaking-in period is done with, but the strap really only lets you clumsily adjust how high they sit on the ears. One big caveat: I use a large standalone microphone for recording audio, so I have not used the mic on the headset consistently. I have heard, secondhand, some reports that it's not as good as the microphone on the regular HS80 model. It's definitely lower quality than a standalone mic by a long shot, so the usability of that is something you may want to consider, although it's at least intelligible. In general though, for pure wireless audio not dependent on Bluetooth and some of the nightmare scenarios managing that can be in Windows 11, I'm really quite happy with it.