Software

The Corsair Virtuoso MAX Wireless is controlled through the iCUE software driver. The sheer number of options still makes iCUE one of the more challenging peripheral software drivers to use, but it at least appears to eat up fewer system resources than before; it was staying below 200 MB on the memory front during my testing.


On the Home screen, you'll see two items related to the Virtuoso MAX Wireless: the headset itself, and the wireless receiver. To quickly access their settings, simply hover the mouse over their icons and wait for a moment until the configuration menus appear.


Clicking on the receiver takes you to a page where you can reinitiate pairing with the provided Wi-Fi dongle. If you click the cogwheel icon above it, you'll access the firmware update menu. However, manual checks aren't necessary, as you'll receive automatic firmware update notifications.


After selecting the headset, you'll first land in the Lighting Effects menu, where you can customize its RGB colors and effects. The glowing rings on both ear cups are divided into three individually controllable zones. There are several preset lighting profiles to choose from, including Watercolor, Watercolor Spectrum, Color Pulse, Color Shift, Color Wave, Rain, Rainbow, Rainbow Wave, and Spiral Rainbow. Additionally, a few custom profiles such as Static Color, Solid, and Gradient are available, along with various Lighting Link profiles that synchronize RGB effects across Corsair gaming peripherals. To turn off the RGB effects, you'll need to navigate to the Device Settings menu and lower the LED brightness to zero.


The Key Assignments menu allows you to map various device-related or system functions to the customizable button on the right ear cup. Custom macros are also supported, offering virtually limitless functionality to suit your needs. Personally, I assigned it to toggle between EQ profiles - specifically switching between the Pure Direct and FPS Competition profiles, depending on the game I was playing. Interestingly, Corsair also offers a paid Voicemod integration, an AI-powered voice changer, for those interested in experimenting with their voice - provided they're willing to pay for it.


The NVIDIA menu offers NVIDIA Broadcast integration. It's an AI-powered noise and room echo filtering technology, which is applied to outgoing audio. It can only be used if your system is equipped with an NVIDIA RTX-series graphics card.


The Equalizer menu provides access to microphone controls, including gain and sidetone, as well as various system-wide EQ presets and the option to create custom ones. The equalizer features a 10-band adjustment range with a ±12 dB scale, and it includes an option to link neighboring sliders for smoother frequency response adjustments.


The SoundID Personalization menu is where you can create and toggle a personalized sound profile. More on that in the sound quality section of the review.


The Device Settings menu provides access to various headset options. Here, you can check for firmware updates, adjust the auto-shutoff timer, disable the microphone LED when active, toggle voice prompts on or off, boost the microphone, switch between active noise cancellation and Transparency mode - disable both - and control the brightness of the RGB lighting system. Why this last option isn't included in the Lighting Effects menu remains a mystery.