Sound Quality

The Corsair HS80 RGB Wireless is equipped with a pair of 50-millimeter dynamic drivers. Its maximum sound resolution in wireless mode is 24-bit/48 kHz, reaching up to 24-bit/96 kHz in USB mode. You can switch between these two modes by pressing the power button on the left ear cup. I didn't see much point in using the headset in USB mode because it's significantly quieter and definitely not resolving enough to let you experience and appreciate the difference between 24-bit/48 kHz and 24-bit/96 kHz audio files.

In wireless mode, the HS80 RGB Wireless has a wide volume range, and it can play so loud it could probably cause hearing damage—not that I maxed it out for long enough to verify. I found its sound performance much more suitable for music, movies, and casual gaming than for multiplayer shooters. Tonally, it is slightly dark, with a big, meaty, hard-hitting bass, but somewhat recessed lower and upper mid-range. The higher frequencies aren't exactly sparkling either, so extreme detail retrieval isn't something this headset bothers itself with. If anything, it sounds compact, intimate, and quite energetic, which I found pleasant in a wide variety of music genres, as well as atmosphere-heavy games, such as adventures and RPGs.


When it came to multiplayer shooters, the HS80 RGB Wireless didn't do it for me. While it still sounded punchy and exciting, it lacked the finesse needed for accurate target retrieval. You'll definitely hear approaching enemies, and get a general sense of their location, but once they come very close—they enter your building, for example—you'll have a hard time keeping track of their movement. This caused many unnecessary deaths in such battle royale games as Apex Legends and Warzone.

To what extent is this going to affect you? That depends solely on how serious you are about your multiplayer gaming sessions. If you're not in the competitive mindset or don't play multiplayer shooters at all, chances are you'll be completely satisfied with the sound performance of the Corsair HS80 RGB Wireless. For the hardcore FPS crowd, I'd suggest looking elsewhere.


Either way, there's a way to open up the sound presentation of the HS80 RGB Wireless to a certain extent. Dive into iCUE's Equalizer section, create a custom profile, and play around with the mids and highs. The setting pictured above worked well for me. Aim to add around 1–2 dB in the 1 kHz band, 2–3 dB in the 2 and 4 kHz bands, and around 3–4 dB in the 8 and 16 kHz bands. The sound will become more detailed in the process too, as you're effectively adding a bit of content that the built-in speaker drivers inherently lack with their factory tuning. Be careful not to overdo it in the equalizer because the acoustic signature of the HS80 RGB Wireless will quickly lose its solid naturality.

Dolby Atmos

The Corsair HS80 RGB Wireless carries an official Dolby Atmos license, which means you don't have to pay the usual $15 fee to use it. Just to be clear, you can use Dolby Atmos with any set of headphones, but only for 30 days for free before you have to decide if you want to pay for it or not. This is a Windows-specific feature—using Dolby Atmos on other platforms is not possible.

Dolby Atmos is quite possibly the most advanced and best surround sound technology currently available. Its key difference to traditional 5.1 and 7.1 surround sound systems, both physical and virtual, is that it offers object-based audio, meaning, each object has matching metadata that tells the system where in the sound field to position that individual sound. One other key difference is that Dolby Atmos distributes sound not only around you but also above you. In speaker systems, this is achieved by adding in-ceiling or special upward-firing "Atmos" speakers. Of course, adding speaker drivers isn't possible with headphones, but you can still experience a part of the Dolby Atmos magic assuming certain conditions are met.


First and foremost, you have to visit the Microsoft Store and install the Dolby Access app. This app will instantly recognize the Corsair HS80 RGB Wireless headset. If it doesn't, just visit the "Products" tab and initialize it.


In the "Home" tab, you can browse and watch/listen to various Dolby Atmos samples. The most impressive ones are found in the "Dolby Demo Content" section, so do give those a try. I especially recommend the clips called Leaf and Amaze.


The "Settings" tab is where you'll spend most of your time. Here, you can pick between various types of content (Game, Movie, Music, Voice) or play with a 10-band equalizer, with or without surround sound. This is where you'll decide if you'll use Dolby Atmos or stereo mode. The Game profile has an additional Performance Mode toggle, which aims to improve the weakest aspect of the HS80 RGB Wireless—its spatial awareness capabilities.

The second important ingredient for a true Dolby Atmos experience is content. It needs to be supported within a game as its engine has to have the object-based audio information baked in. A complete list of games that support Dolby Atmos can be found on Dolby's official website.

When you play an Atmos-capable game, the Corsair HS80 RGB Wireless offers one of the best surround sound experiences I ever heard. The system manages to keep everything good about the sound of this headset without introducing any echo, reverb, or artificiality, and it adds a deep level of immersion. You get a sense that someone picked you up and dropped you inside a game world, and that sounds are coming from a sphere surrounding your head instead of a flat plane. Atmos behaves in a refined and meaningful way. If you, for example, hear something that sounds like it's positioned behind your left shoulder, then that's exactly where the object making that sound will be. You can get a rough sense of what I'm trying to describe by checking out this Dolby Atmos demo. Warzone is one of the Atmos-supported games I've played both in stereo and Dolby Atmos mode. The experience was completely different, not only in terms of immersion, but also when it came to my ability to hear my enemies, figure out their movement, and engage them fully prepared.

In games with no Dolby Atmos support, the surround sound experience is unimpressive. The sound does become wider, but it's not nearly as immersive without the object-based information, which is why you'll want to stick to stereo mode in those games.