Software

As many of you surely know, Corsair's peripherals are controlled through the Corsair Utility Engine (CUE), a powerful albeit somewhat confusing software package. The user experience isn't all too streamlined, and the interface definitely requires some getting used to. I caught myself discovering new features and options after revisiting CUE for the tenth or fifteenth time, which is less than ideal. The first thing you should do, right after starting CUE for the first time, is to click on the cogwheel on top of the interface to then select the "Show only connected devices" option. Before you do that, CUE will not only show you the settings of the peripheral you actually own, but also a couple of other peripherals Corsair sells, even though they aren't connected to your PC. I guess the idea is that you check out their settings, be impressed by the sheer number of options, and then get inspired to buy them. I have no idea if this works as a selling strategy, but I can confirm that it's annoying as hell until disabled. Only after the clutter of those "demo devices" is removed can you start actually going through the settings of your device—the Corsair HS70 Wireless in our case. The same menu where you activated the aforementioned setting is where you'll also be able to check out the battery's current status, initiate an automatic firmware upgrade, or enable or disable the voice prompts and auto-shutoff.


After clicking on the picture of the headset, you'll see its photo, two sliders, and a button. The first slider adjusts the microphone volume and the one next to it controls the volume of microphone sidetone (better known as microphone monitoring). Here, you'll determine how loud the sounds picked up by the microphone are inside the headphones. If you're wondering why you'd want that in the first place, the explanation is simple enough: hearing yourself talking (with no delay) will prevent you from shouting or sounding nasal. I found it best with the microphone sidetone slider at around the middle. The button under the sliders switches between stereo and 7.1 Surround Sound mode.


Select "EQ Presets" on the left side of the CUE UI and you'll be able to activate and deactivate various factory sound profiles (actually system-wide equalizer settings) or create your own. The headset can switch between five of them, so if you want to add and use custom ones, you'll have to deactivate one of the existing ones by simply clicking on the "switch" next to its name. I'm not a huge fan of any of the factory profiles and strongly urge you to stick with "Pure Direct", which is a completely flat one. "Movie Theater" adds bass and pushes the midrange forward in order for dialogue to be louder. "FPS Competition" puts an even stronger emphasis on the midrange and should make it easier for you to hear enemy movement, but it alters the naturality of the sound in the process. "Clear Chat" boosts the 1–4 kHz range, which makes voices louder and easier to hear. I had no trouble understanding my teammates or in-game characters without it. Finally, "Bass Boost" turns everything into a proper mess—the bass becomes boomy and the mids get a massive boost too, which is very unpleasant to the ear. Avoid it at all costs. You can apply all of your settings globally, but can also tie them to a certain game if that's something you find useful. If you click on the big button in the upper-left corner of the CUE UI, you'll end up in the profile setup section of the software. Here, you can add new profiles, link them to desired games, add custom profile icons and background images, copy and delete them, arrange them by folders, and so on.

The Corsair Utility Engine in its newest iteration still makes a similar impression as its predecessors—it's a powerful piece of software, but not the most streamlined one. A couple of simple UI tweaks could make it much more intuitive. Good news is that it gets updated often, so chances are it will become more and more polished as time goes on.