Corsair Hs50 Stereo Gaming Headset Review

They kept the same straightforward over-ear gaming design, without any LEDs or RGB lighting, since they are completely passive.

Corsair HS50 Stereo Gaming Headset Review: Just Good Enough

The Corsair HS50 is totally functional for gaming and works on a wide variety of platforms, but it doesn’t do much to distinguish itself. The Corsair HS50 is totally functional for gaming and works on a wide variety of platforms, but it doesn’t do much to distinguish itself. Even the most unremarkable mouse, keyboard or headset usually has one thing — even if it’s just a tiny bell or whistle — that sets it apart from the scads of competitors on the market. It’s an entry-level gaming headset with a detachable mic, just like similar models from HyperX, Turtle Beach and Astro.

The mic audio is clearer than you might expect, given the headset’s price, and it’s compatible with just about every gaming platform out there. It’s mainly available as PC headset in the all-black “Carbon” color scheme, but Corsair also makes a PS4 model with blue accents. The only touch of aestheticism is the honeycomb patterns on the outside of the ear cups, which make them a little more breathable, as well as an elegant little Corsair logo. Corsair claims that you can wear the HS50 for hours on end without feeling any discomfort around the ears, and I didn’t encounter any evidence to the contrary.

It connects via a 3.5-mm audio jack, so you can use it for a PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, smartphone or any other device with an adapter that isn’t too far from your head. It might not be fair to ask those things of a $50 headset, but unless you’re dying for a boom mic, you can get a $50 pair of regular old headphones with much better audio range.

You could play online games or hop on Skype conversations without issue, but I wouldn’t use it to record a podcast. While listening to tracks from Flogging Molly, Old Crow Medicine Show, The Rolling Stones and G. F. Handel, I found the same complaint in every genre: a lack of clear distinction between the bass and treble ranges.

Best Gaming Headset Under $50

The Corsair HS50 Pro proves you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg to get a quality gaming headset that delivers impressive audio, a comfortable fit, and a durable build that’ll last several years. Corsair HS50 Pro Gaming Headset amazon.com $49.99 $39.98 (20% off) SHOP NOW Great build quality for a budget pick Audio cable doesn’t detach

Budget gaming headsets feature mostly plastic bodies and mediocre sound quality, but not the Corsair HS50 Pro.

It’s a budget-friendly pick with a metal construction that both looks and feels more premium than the similarly priced HyperX Cloud Stinger headset.

We were able to hear footsteps in the distance while playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and found dialogue in Kingdom Hearts III to be crisp and clear. Its well-rounded audio, sharp looks, and premium construction make it stand out from competing budget headsets.

Corsair HS50 gaming headset review: Excellent for gaming

A few weeks ago, on my quest for quality gaming headphones available in India, the Corsair HS50 stereo headset grabbed my attention. But in the end, it all seems par for the size, though I am not so sure if everyone prefers such big-sized audio straps on their head all the time while playing games. I feel the size is more or less at par with the likes of other gaming headphones such as HyperX Cloud Core, Sennheiser GSP 300 and Logitech G433 7.1. I found Corsair HS50 comfortable during my prolonged CS:GO and Call of Duty LAN sessions, courtesy of memory foam and adjustable earcups.

Gaming sessions aside, walking around wearing it or while lying on the bed, listening to songs or answering phone calls was quite inconvenient. Although gaming audio is superb, they are not ideally suited for regular use like listening to music, watching movies etc.

Design-wise, Corsair HS50 is made up of good-quality material, offers memory foam and adjustable ear cups for added comfort.

Corsair HS50 Stereo Gaming Headset review

It’s a straightforward stereo headset, built for pumping your ear holes full of shotgun blasts and thumping tunes, as well as keeping you in sync with your squad via its unidirectional noise-cancelling microphone. In fact, it’s pretty similar to the slightly pricier Astro A10 headset , which we recently reviewed – but in nearly every respect, the Corsair HS50 goes one notch better.

While the very solid Astro A10 came off as a simplified, utilitarian devolution from the company’s pricier efforts, Corsair’s headset punches a couple notches above its weight class in both polish and build quality. Faux leather encases the memory foam cups, which gently squish against your head without applying too much pressure, and then immediately shift back into their proper form when removed. You see more of a premium touch with the large metal arches that connect the cups to the headband, while also allowing the flexibility to fit on all types of heads. The HS50 also keeps its inputs on that cup: it has a small volume dial, along with a handy on-off toggle button for muting the microphone.

The pulsing electronic tunes delivered both precise highs and solid – although not booming – bass tones, with nice differentiation between them. Likewise, the heavy boing of a well-timed jump, the thump of the ball bouncing and the explosive defeat of being destroyed by another car all rang true and clear.

Moving over to Star Wars Battlefront II, the pew-pew of my TIE Fighter’s laser blasts resonated vividly around my ears amidst the thundering propulsion. It shines in nearly every respect, starting with the durable, premium-feeling build, which has a nicely understated appeal and comes off as a pricier device.

And once you pop it on your dome and plug in, the HS50 keeps outshining its price tag thanks to full, immersive sound and strong microphone performance.

Corsair HS50 Review

They kept the same straightforward over-ear gaming design, without any LEDs or RGB lighting, since they are completely passive.

Corsair HS50 Stereo Gaming Headset Review: Just Good Enough

The Corsair HS50 is totally functional for gaming and works on a wide variety of platforms, but it doesn’t do much to distinguish itself. The Corsair HS50 is totally functional for gaming and works on a wide variety of platforms, but it doesn’t do much to distinguish itself. Even the most unremarkable mouse, keyboard or headset usually has one thing — even if it’s just a tiny bell or whistle — that sets it apart from the scads of competitors on the market. It’s an entry-level gaming headset with a detachable mic, just like similar models from HyperX, Turtle Beach and Astro. The mic audio is clearer than you might expect, given the headset’s price, and it’s compatible with just about every gaming platform out there. It’s mainly available as PC headset in the all-black “Carbon” color scheme, but Corsair also makes a PS4 model with blue accents.

The only touch of aestheticism is the honeycomb patterns on the outside of the ear cups, which make them a little more breathable, as well as an elegant little Corsair logo. Corsair claims that you can wear the HS50 for hours on end without feeling any discomfort around the ears, and I didn’t encounter any evidence to the contrary.

It connects via a 3.5-mm audio jack, so you can use it for a PC, PS4, Xbox One, Switch, smartphone or any other device with an adapter that isn’t too far from your head. It might not be fair to ask those things of a $50 headset, but unless you’re dying for a boom mic, you can get a $50 pair of regular old headphones with much better audio range. You could play online games or hop on Skype conversations without issue, but I wouldn’t use it to record a podcast. While listening to tracks from Flogging Molly, Old Crow Medicine Show, The Rolling Stones and G. F. Handel, I found the same complaint in every genre: a lack of clear distinction between the bass and treble ranges.

Corsair HS50 Pro Review

Right off the bat, we noticed that the HS50 Pro is definitely not the headset for you if you have a larger than average or a particularly petite head, as it doesn’t expand or contract all that much. Overall, this meant most people only found it acceptable to wear this headset for a few hours, unless their head circumference was the perfect match. The ear cups are covered in the same leatherette fabric but the padding feels slightly softer.

Our scores are based on how other player’s voices sound, how the HS50 Pro did in our audio benchmarking and positional tests, how soundtracks and music came across, and how well this headset did at filtering out background noise.

This mirrored our results in the positional test, with our judges able to accurately locate the origin of an in-game sound the bulk of the tie. Music sounded fine through this headset, though it definitely paled in comparison to the top models in our minds.

We though the mic on the Corsair HS50 Pro made our voice sound like it was coming from a distance for other players. Our next set of assessments for the HS50 Pro evaluated and compared how well its microphone did at picking up our voices and if it is effective at filtering out other background noises.

It also has the benefit of filtering out most external background noises but unfortunately will pick up just about any side conversation unless it’s happening more than 15′ away from you.

Our last metric rated and compared how convenient the HS50 Pro is to use by looking at if the mic is detachable, if it has a sidetone, the length of the cable, and the onboard controls.

This headset is one of the cheaper options, making it a good budget buy, but we found similarly inexpensive models that we would recommend over this one.

Corsair HS50 Stereo headset review

The premium manufacturer, bringing the high end to its customers has diversified outwards with an ever-growing PC gaming market, and rightly so. Today, we’re greeted with a cornucopia of plastics and soft-touch finishes, RGB lights, and a more affordable arsenal designed to appeal to a wider audience. The faux leather headband, with stitching painstakingly etched into its design, the smooth metal brackets holding the memory-foam ear cups in place, and the overall feel and finish is second to none. Originally a design taken from QPad’s QH-90 headsets, the biggest advantage that Kingston’s ear huggers have is the fact they come packing a far wider frequency response (at 15 Hz-25 KHz) than Corsair’s HS50.

Now your typical human, can usually only hear from 20 Hz-20 KHz, which tends to mean most manufacturers, aim for that as the sweet spot when designing their audio drivers on a budget. By reducing the frequency of which your driver operates (which coincidentally saves cash), it has the effect of muffling the audio’s resonance, or cutting off the highest peaks and lowest lows.

Ultimately, Corsair’s HS50 headset is a nice return to form, for a company we’d feared had gone far too deep down into that rabbit hole of RGB illuminated fun times. The audio quality isn’t quite on par with Kingston’s Clouds just yet, but it’s a step right in the direction, and if it’s any inclination of where Corsair’s peripherals are going in the future, consider us on board.

Corsair HS50 Stereo Gaming Headset Review

The headband offers a fairly large degree of adjustment, and includes a small but appreciated detail: a numbered gauge on the internal bar of the headband that lets you know exactly where you like the height adjustment set.Having reviewed a bunch of budget headsets recently, I weighed each with an audio cable attached to see how they all compared. The Corsair HS50 along with the HyperX Cloud Stinger and the Roccat Cross feature the larger, 50mm drivers, and the different in audio punch can be heard, which I’ll cover more in-depth in the next section.There’s a few extras in the box. The splitter cable connects to the end of the headset’s long, 6-foot audio cable for use with PCs that have separate headphone and mic jacks.To test the Corsair HS50, I played some games with it on a PC and an Xbox One, and then connected it to an iPhone to test how it handled music playback.With Battlefield on a PC, the Corsair HS50 delivered powerful audio. Strong lows were evident with rumbling tanks and heavy artillery exploding, mids were clear with dialogue easy to understand, and highs were crisp with rifle fire popping. The arena and game noises in NBA 2K17 sounded clear and lifelike, and Battlefront allowed the headset to show of its dynamic sound with powerful low frequencies standing out from the clear mids and highs.In the end, it was really hard to tell the difference in performance between the Corsair HS50 and the HyperX Cloud Stinger, which both sit at the top of the budget headset pack. Both were outstanding in PC and console gaming, but the Cloud Stinger offered slightly more dynamic sound with mobile music playback.Finally, I tested the mic by making a voice recording.

Best Gaming Headset Under $50

The Corsair HS50 Pro proves you don’t have to spend an arm and a leg to get a quality gaming headset that delivers impressive audio, a comfortable fit, and a durable build that’ll last several years. Corsair HS50 Pro Gaming Headset amazon.com $49.99 $39.98 (20% off) SHOP NOW Great build quality for a budget pick Audio cable doesn’t detach Budget gaming headsets feature mostly plastic bodies and mediocre sound quality, but not the Corsair HS50 Pro. It’s a budget-friendly pick with a metal construction that both looks and feels more premium than the similarly priced HyperX Cloud Stinger headset.

We were able to hear footsteps in the distance while playing PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and found dialogue in Kingdom Hearts III to be crisp and clear. Its well-rounded audio, sharp looks, and premium construction make it stand out from competing budget headsets.

Corsair HS50 Stereo Gaming Headset Review

The moment I start looking for a headset, I usually bypass anything less than $100, because the typical pricepoint that equates a high level of performance with an outstanding in-game experience is at least $100. Corsair has done some great work in appealing to a gamer with not-so-deep pockets that still yearns for a high-quality sound experience. At $49.99 shipped in there different colors, the HS50 STEREO is sure to find itself under many Christmas trees with the recipients being thrilled at the experience theyll have and the giver being excited about the price.

The memory foam on the headband really held up well to a 5+ hour binge-gaming session with no hints at becoming uncomfortable or causing pain.

This is a huge deal, because the last thing I want to do is have to stop gameplay due to my headset ruining the experience. The memory foam cushion on the headband protects from a lot of pressure and really does a great job of spreading the weight evenly and making it very easy to keep playing for long periods of time.

The soft, memory foam covered ear cups fully and comfortably cover around the ear with a soft, leather feel; the pressure was the right balance of tightness and comfort, ensuring that you get a truly enjoyable, long-lasting, comfy gaming spree without feeling like your head is in a vice. It completely changes the gaming experience from a few people talking in your ear to being fully immersed into whatever action is on-screen. It was very easy to move and the stability of that placement meant that I wasnt constantly tinkering with it: it was set it and forget it.

The beauty here is versatility: the microphone is fully detachable, which means I can not only use the HS50 STEREO to enhance social gaming through the PSN, but I can also be the Lone Gamer and remove the mic and use the headset strictly for the audio experience.

At the $49.99 price point, there really is no better headset to grab this holiday season and you can sleep easy knowing that is is backed by a 2-year warranty. Not only will you stretch your gift dollars even farther, but the gaming experience is deeply enhanced the outstanding quality sound put out by this headset.