The Corsair Virtuoso Wireless SE is the most expensive and luxurious gaming headset in the company's history, Its build quality is excellent, as are its overall aesthetics. Corsair decided to go with aluminium as the prominent build material, which resulted in a headset that feels indestructible and looks like a pair of hi-fi headphones. Then, there's the battery life. With the silly RGB lighting system turned off, the Virtuoso RGB Wireless lasts for over 25 hours on a single charge, which means an average gamer won't have to recharge the battery more than once per week. I'm also a big fan of the Sleep Mode feature, which uses the built-in accelerometer to detect movement and decide when to put the headset to sleep, and it wakes it up as soon as you pick it up.

As for the sound quality, it varies from very good to excellent depending on what you connect the headset to. As long as you're using your PC as the source, which means you can use the iCUE software driver to manually adjust the equalizer, you'll be able to make the Virtuoso RGB Wireless SE sound rich and lively. Without an equalizer, it sounds mellow and at times slightly dull. Not everyone will mind that or even care about it, but when we're discussing a $209/€209 gaming headset, every detail is worth dissecting.

It also comes with a good microphone—actually, one of the better ones in the wireless gaming headset department—but the microphone is also its biggest problem. You see, Corsair also released the "regular" Virtuoso RGB Wireless (reviewed here), which comes with a significantly better, more natural-sounding microphone, while at the same time costing $30/€30 less.

Sure, there are some other differences between these two headsets: the SE version has aluminium covering the sides of the ear cups, while the "regular" version uses plastic, and the SE version comes with a carrying pouch. However, that just doesn't make up for the difference in microphone quality. If you're into RGB effects, you should also be aware that the LEDs are much brighter and richer in color on the "regular" Virtuoso.

With all of that in mind, while the Virtuoso RGB Wireless SE is without a doubt a very good gaming headset, it's simply not worth buying over the less expensive Virtuoso RGB Wireless.