 This is a new product or rather a new product category from Corsair This is from their gaming audio series which until now didn't exist It's the HS1 which I'm going to go ahead and guess stands for a headset one It is their first headset and it is a USB gaming headset Corsair is of course a gaming oriented company So it stands to reason they would want a gaming headset. You can see actually here on the front It's got a little Dolby logo here with a headphone on it So that's to indicate that it does feature Dolby headphone technology So you can enjoy multi-channel games and movies in a way that ordinary stereo headsets can't match that means that this does support 7.1 virtual surround so even though it only has two speakers it uses the built-in digital decoder to Actually convert your USB port to the audio chip built in and then take that digital signal and turn it into an analog Output for your ears. Okay, let's talk a little bit about some of the other points while we open up the box Because that is what I do. I unbox products and since headsets are a bit of a passion of mine I'm actually going to test this one out and I will let you know what I think I'll either do it via Annotations over top of this unboxing or I will do a separate review video But I've tinkered around with most of the gaming headsets from the key Gaming peripheral companies and I'm very interested to see how this one stacks up especially because it's the first one That's actually a dedicated USB headset that I have had a look at I mean, I've used some of the steel series ones that are analog headsets with little USB adapters But yeah, never one that's just purely USB So it has massive 50 millimeter drivers Which is competitive with some of the other high-end headsets on the market right now and it is built for comfort And I can already tell you that based on the construction of it right here Um, I think that's pretty much all I wanted to say about what is on the box So why don't we go ahead and get started removing it from the packaging? So first of all at the back Because it's a digital product and it uses USB I'm gonna go ahead and assume there's a driver CD in here. Stop. Do not return this product to the store Contact Corsair support. Please disable your antivirus software Huh? There you go. Disable your antivirus software while you install the product and then we enable it Apparently their software can be accidentally detected as a virus. So here's a quick start guide shows you how to put a disk in your computer Shows you how to use the volume controls and whatnot. Wow, that was it. That was the whole thing Awesome using the software. Okay allows you to enable and configure Dolby headphone and Dolby Pro logic 2x All right. Well, that's pretty much it. Oh did I mention throw this away and download the latest from the Corsair website mind you this product So new there probably aren't any driver updates yet So it may actually be safe to use an included driver disk for the first time ever on Linus Tech Tips Okay, wow, they're quite heavy which I guess is both good and bad because heavy Usually to me anyway indicates You know some actual materials went into the construction But on the other hand a heavy headset is you know There's a fine line because you don't want a headset that weighs like 30 pounds either that would get tiring fast I'm still trying to figure out this box because a professional unboxer So, yeah the battery ran out I know this is a common occurrence on my blog anyway, like I was saying Though I am a professional unboxer. I'm having quite a bit of difficulty with this box because It doesn't appear to come away come away come apart in any straightforward manner and that's making Unboxing it a bit of a challenge. So as far as I can tell there's a little door here Okay, so from there I'm supposed to maybe pull out these cables and then what? Then what indeed maybe this comes off no don't want to force it Okay, well I'm gonna do something so I'm doing something I rarely do and I'm just Completely destroying the box here. There seem to be some perforations for you to more easily destroy it but Even really that helpful. It's a very strange box design never seen one quite like it So here we are. This is the HS1 from Corsair the first thing I want you to notice about it and Because it's the first thing I notice about it is look how puffy the headband is It's actually it's actually okay. Not only very thick here. You want to come in a little bit closer Don't use the zoom. It's better not to use that Not only is it very thick but it's very thick Not only is it very thick but you can see there's kind of a very very soft foam Like no matter how lightly I press on this it easily gives way and it's quite deep as well So the hard part of the headband is actually quite deep inside there and it feels like that would be very comfortable for extended Gaming periods up at the top is also puffy. Although that I can't imagine would have any effect on on comfort All right. Let's have a look at the design of the headphones themselves. You can see they do fold up So that would be helpful if you're packing them up to take to a LAN or for some other reason packing them up. They do swivel So they swivel this way Okay, so that will give you some flexibility If your head is shaped kind of like this or like this or like this, right? You know if your head's shaped like this then you'll also be able to wear the HS1 quite comfortably indeed These these hinges right here look very robust so you can see the construction in them there They are plastic but you can see they use quite thick plastic pieces in their construction I really can't imagine you'd have much success breaking these even if you tried There are many metal elements to these as well, which would explain the considerable weight to them So this is metal. This is metal this piece right here Hard to say because it's quite cold So it's cold, but it sounds like plastic so I'm not really sure I'm like 99% sure these are metal though, okay Let me just see so okay, you can see you've got a boom mic right here So it goes all the way down this way and It's adjustable Okay, so it's not the first time I've seen a design like that But you can tuck it up out of the way just like that. All right, and he uses one Cord okay, so it's a lot more convenient than some headsets that do use one cord to each earphone And then but rather it has one cord and then it goes up through the head piece and then down to the other ear All right, so what I'm gonna go ahead and put these on and then we can see what kind of a fashion statement they are Well, those are really comfy actually those are nice. So you've got some adjustments in here So if you have kind of a taller head why you can see they're actually very adjustable So even if I had that much more Like that much more of a tall head I'd be able to wear these quite comfortably and so yeah, I mean I'm gonna adjust them to more like Smaller head size right there so you can see I've gone ahead and adjusted that out a little bit and The ear cups are absolutely huge So I don't know if you can compare it to the size of my ears here But it fits over very comfortably even with my earrings on Hanging down below my ear so it doesn't put any pressure on the earrings which is actually kind of a nice thing Based on how much I can hear outside. They're fairly open Although it's hard to say a hundred percent for sure because I don't know if I saw any notes on the box But whether these aren't open or a closed headset Aha, they're noise isolating. Okay, so they're they're gonna call these closed But I can tell you one thing is that the closed headphones I've used in the past that have been more effective at isolating noise Don't use a foam earpiece But they usually use like a fake leather like a pleathery material and that will cause it to isolate the sound a little bit better Although one advantage you do get from like a hybrid design where it's using a closed ear cup But then you've got a little bit of sound leakage here is that you will actually be able to hear people who are talking to you In the same room a little bit better Although you will get a little bit more sound leakage out from the headphones to the people around you So they'll be able to hear what you're listening to which should be fine as long as it's nothing too Outlandish, okay, so you can see that's where the mic sits. So it's a very comfortable distance from my mouth anyway, and What's nice about it sitting off to the side like this is that when I breathe out when I talk it's not going to Have air brushing past the mic and create that whooshing noise So it should pick up the sound really well because of the distance to my mouth But the fact that it's not sitting right in front of it means that it should be a more clear sound So we'll have a look at the cord itself. It's a braided Covered sleeved cord very very nice very tangle resistant I mean you probably can't even tie this in a knot if you try to I mean maybe you could but It would come out quite easily even if you try to tie this in a knot Quite easily even if you did that so that's pretty good design feature and then here we have a mute button Audio control these are nice big buttons So they should be fairly easy to find should you be concerned about how to find them and then last but not least There we go the the unique feature of these headphones is that they are entirely USB powered entirely USB driven So what that means is that you don't even need a sound card to use this headset So that means if you have like a laptop with crummy sound and let's face it most laptops have crummy onboard sound Then this is a perfect solution because you can go ahead and plug it into a USB port and all the sound processing is done Up here, so thank you for checking out my unboxing of the HS1 once I have a chance to play around with them a little bit I will let you know my impressions and don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips