Closer Examination

In terms of design and overall build quality, the Corsair HS70 Wireless is a direct copy of its cheaper sibling, the $50 HS50, sans the wire. It's a simple, subtle, clean, and very likable design that's going to fit nicely into any game room.


The outer side of both ear cups is covered in a metal mesh that makes it seem like the HS70 Wireless sports an open-back design. That isn't the case, though. Like with most other gaming headsets on the market, the ear cups are completely sealed, which means you don't have to worry about the sound of your games, movies, or music leaking out. The passive noise isolation isn't as strong as with some other closed-back headsets—we'll get back to that in the audio performance section of this review.


The outer edge of the right ear cup contains a single button used to power the headset on or off. Everything else is located on the left ear cup.


The left ear cup contains a smooth volume knob, microphone mute button, and Micro-USB charging port. Charging the headset while simultaneously using it is entirely possible. If the microphone mute button is held for a couple of seconds instead of just pressed, it will activate or deactivate the microphone monitoring function (Corsair calls it "Microphone Sidetone"). It's a nice feature that reproduces the sounds picked up by the microphone inside the headphones with no perceivable delay. If closed-back headphones leave you with a feeling of pressure in your head or you tend to talk louder than needed because of the inability to hear your own voice, microphone monitoring will be of great help. It basically simulates the feeling of using an open-back pair of headphones, where you can hear your voice normally. It's great that Corsair made microphone monitoring so easy to toggle on and off because you definitely won't want to use it when listening to music since any sound sources surrounding you would interfere with the experience.


The Micro-USB charging port has a small LED next to it. It's going to light up to let you know that the headset is active. If it glows red, it means that the battery is getting low.


Finally, the left ear cup is also equipped with a plug for the detachable microphone. It's designed in a way that makes it impossible to turn the microphone the wrong way.


The microphone is surprisingly short, but that doesn't cause any issues with voice pickup. Its arm consists of a series of metal rings that make it easily bendable, while at the same time ensuring that it stays in the exact position it's adjusted to. The head isn't protected with a windscreen. It's designed in a way that makes it easy to figure out which part needs to point towards the mouth, and to "feel" its shape and proper position without looking. Thanks to that, I had no trouble readjusting it after taking the headset off and putting it on again.

Battery Life

Corsair claims that the built-in rechargeable battery is capable of providing up to 16 hours of wireless playback. In my tests, it was depleted after 13–14 hours, which is decent, but by no means spectacular.

The current status of the battery can be checked on within the Corsair Utility Engine software. When it gets low, you'll also get a "Battery Low" voice prompt whenever you turn the headset on, and the small LED, located next to the Micro-USB charging port, will rapidly blink red. If you're not using the Corsair Utility Engine software and the battery is low, you'll hear an annoying "beep" once per minute. The problem is that it starts at around 20% of remaining battery life and lasts until the battery runs out, which translates into 2–3 hours of constant beeping.

You don't have to stop using the headset once the battery runs out—you can simply plug in the Micro-USB charging cable and continue with your daily routine.

Wireless Performance

The wireless dongle/sound card is compact, no larger than an ordinary USB memory stick. It uses a 2.4 GHz WiFi connection to communicate with the headset. The specified range is 12 meters, which is more than enough to ensure a stable connection regardless of how far you're sitting from your monitor. You won't have as much freedom to move around your home and wirelessly listen to music or podcasts like you would with, say, the HyperX Cloud Flight, but you'll have no problem using the headset as long as you stay in the same room where the wireless dongle is located.