Corsair VIRTUOSO PRO Headphones Review

The Corsair VIRTUOSO PRO stand out from the rest of the Corsair lineup due to their open-back, wired design. They come in two color schemes; 'Carbon', which have a black frame and chrome accents, and 'White', which feature a white frame and chrome accents. The headband and earpads are made of memory foam and covered in a soft, plush cloth that gives them a premium look. The flexible boom mic is attached to the cable rather than the headphones. The L/R cables have different housings, so the mic will always be on your left side. They also come with a standard, mic-less 1/8" TRS cable if you prefer a more casual look.

These headphones have a comfortable fit that's well suited to longer gaming sessions. The memory foam headband and ear pads have a soft, cloth padding that feels pleasant on the skin. However, they fit tightly on the head, which can be a little uncomfortable if you wear glasses as the arms can press into the side of your head. The ear cup depth is also quite shallow, so your ears can brush up against the foam.

These headphones have a poor, very limited control scheme. There's a single switch on the cable that you can slide to mute and unmute the mic. However, there's no feedback to indicate when you're muted or unmuted.

Like most gaming headphones, they aren't designed with portability in mind. While the earcups can rotate to lie flat, they're bulky and won't easily fit in a bag or a coat pocket. However, their cable can be detached and stored separately, which helps you transport them without worrying about tangling the cable. They also have a good quality case that helps protect them while in transit.

These headphones come with a good quality hard case that can help protect them from falls or from getting crushed in your bag. They're molded to fit the headphones and feature a handy pouch for cable storage.

These headphones have a great build quality. They're made of a mixture of sturdy plastic, metal, and cloth that feels high quality. That said, their open-back design means that you must be cautious and keep the grilles away from water and dust, as these can easily penetrate the enclosure and damage the headphones.

Like most gaming headphones, the Corsair VIRTUOSO PRO are only reasonably stable. They lack the flexible ski-band headband design of the Corsair HS80 MAX WIRELESS and are likelier to slide around and fall off your head during moderate to intense head movements. Sharp tilts of the head and sudden movements will require you to re-adjust their fit.

• Corsair VIRTUOSO PRO headphones
• Case
• 1/8" TRS to split 1/8" TS cable (76")
• 1/8" TRRS to split 1/8" TS cable with boom microphone (76")
• Y-splitter cable (7")

The Corsair VIRTUOSO PRO have a warm sound profile, somewhat similar to the Drop + Sennheiser/EPOS PC38X. Due to their open-back design, they can't reproduce the kind of low, rumbly sub-bass that brings life to explosions, but the over-emphasized high-bass helps bring out footstep sounds. The relatively neutral mid-range adds detail to both in-game dialogue and the voices of your teammates. However, a dip in the low and mid-treble causes instruments and sibilants to lose clarity. Unfortunately, they aren't compatible with Corsair's iCUE software, which provides customization features for many of the manufacturer's other gaming headsets.

These headphones have great frequency response consistency. Due to their open-back design, they don't need a perfect seal to reproduce bass accurately and are consistent in their treble delivery, even if you have thick hair or glasses. As a result, it's relatively easy to achieve a consistent sound across multiple gaming sessions.

These headphones have decent bass accuracy. The low bass is under-emphasized, meaning low-frequency sound effects, like explosions, will lack rumble and excitement. While the boosted mid and high-bass helps to bring out footsteps, this can also cause mixes to sound a little muddy.

The mid-range accuracy is excellent. The response is very flat across the entire range, with only a slight dip in the high-mid. As a result, in-game dialogue sounds detailed and present, but there's a slight loss of clarity in the upper harmonics of instruments. In games like The Last of Us Part 2, the guttural noises made by enemies like bloaters sound vivid and visceral, adding to the overall sense of dread.

The Corsair VIRTUOSO PRO's treble response is decent. There's a significant dip in the low treble that veils vocals and lead instruments. The mid-treble is uneven, partially dulling lower-frequency sibilants and making higher-frequency sibilants, like cymbals, sound airy and bright.

These headphones have decent peaks/dips performance and follow their sound profile well in certain regions. A wide peak in the mid and high-bass adds warmth and punch to audio, bringing out the sound of footsteps while also muddying the overall mix somewhat. Some unevenness in the low-treble reduces the presence of vocals and lead instruments, followed by a sharp peak between the mid-treble that makes higher-pitched sibilants sound piercing.

The imaging performance is outstanding. Imaging performance tends to vary between units, but a good imaging performance generally indicates a manufacturer's quality control and ergonomics. Other Corsair headphones we've tested have typically had solid imaging performance, so, unsurprisingly, our unit's group delay falls below the audibility threshold, and the L/R drivers are well-matched in amplitude and frequency response. There's a slight mismatch in phase response in the mids, but this isn't noticeable in real-life audio content. Overall, this results in accurate localization of objects (voices, instruments, video game effects) within the stereo field.

Thanks to these headphones' open-back design, the passive soundstage performance is great. This results in an open, wide-sounding stereo soundstage that allows you to accurately locate in-game audio cues within the stereo field, like footsteps.

The weighted harmonic distortion performance is great. There's a small peak in treble range at regular listening levels, but this can be hard to hear in real-life content, even with higher frequency sounds that are likely to be distorted, like the clink of metal on metal. Generally, all frequencies fall within good limits, resulting in clean audio reproduction.

These are the settings used to test these headphones. Our results are only valid when using them in this configuration.

The isolation performance is poor. Their open-back design offers almost no isolation against lower-frequency noises, like the rumble of a bus passing outside your window. They do a slightly better job of reducing higher-frequency noises, like the whir of PC fans, but these sounds will still be audible while you're gaming.

As with other open-back gaming headphones, they have poor leakage performance. Leakage is particularly audible in upper-mid and treble ranges and sounds thin. If you're gaming with other people in the room, they'll hear higher-frequency sounds like gunshots and teammate's voices, especially at higher volumes.

These headphones come with one 1/8" TRS cable and a 1/8" TRRS cable with a non-detachable boom mic. You can swap these out depending on your need to use the mic.

The flexible boom mic has impressive recording quality. Your voice sounds clear and full-bodied, and your teammates won't have problems understanding you.

The mic's noise handling performance is good. It does a great job of separating your voice from moderately noisy environments, so you'll be understandable even if your PC's fan is working hard to keep up with your gaming. Your vocal clarity will be preserved even with louder sounds, like a bus passing outside the window.

These headphones don't have any compatible software for added customization.

The Corsair VIRTUOSO PRO come with two cables: a 1/8" TRS cable and a 1/8" TRRS cable, which has a flexible boom mic attached. If you use the cable with the attached mic, it's worth noting that the L/R connector jacks are slightly different, so the mic will always be on your left side. There's also a Y-splitter cable provided that allows you to split the mic and headphone signals for use with PCs that don't feature a combo jack. Latency via the audio jack is negligible, so you'll have no issues with audio lagging behind your visuals.

These headphones have full audio and mic compatibility on PCs when using the 1/8" TRRS cable with the mic attached. You can also use the included 1/8" TRS cable if you don't need microphone support or if you're using a standalone mic.

These headphones have full audio and mic compatibility with PlayStation family consoles when using the 1/8" TRRS cable with the mic attached. You can also swap it out for the 1/8" TRS cable provided if you don't need microphone support or prefer a standalone mic.

The Corsair VIRTUOSO PRO have full audio and mic compatibility with Xbox family consoles when using the 1/8" TRRS cable with the mic attached. You can also use the included 1/8" TRS cable for audio only if you don't need microphone support or prefer a standalone mic.