Corsair Blog

The control panel for the Vengeance 2000 Wireless 7.1 Gaming Headset is clean and simple, with everything on one control surface. Here's a quick walk-through of what it does.

Surround Bypass

The bypass button is blue when it's selected.

The large button labelled "Bypass" at the upper left takes its name and functionality from pro audio gear. When lit, the surround sound functionality is disabled, and the Vengeance 2000 operates as a standard stereo headset.

Surround

The surround configuration panel at the lower right allows you to select from three simulated environment sizes.

Room simulation is important; it's the key to realistic positional audio. It's accomplished by adding very subtle amounts of echo, delay and reverb to the audio signal to fool your brain into thinking that you're listening to audio in a real environment — that is, from speakers in a room. Without this processing, audio can have that "in your head" effect that can lead to what's commonly known as ear fatigue.

Equalizer

Adding a new EQ profile is easy.

The Vengeance 2000: has a nicely tuned response curve that delivers a pleasing amount of bass in its default state. It also has the dynamic range to support a lot of headroom for equalization.

We've provided several presets for various gaming genres to get you started. You can save your own by clicking the + button after you've adjusted the equalization to your liking. Then, enter the name for your new profile in the pop-up, and it will be added to the pull-down list for easy selection.

Select a profile and click the minus button, and you'll get a pop-up confirming that you'd like to remove the currently selected profile.

More on the presets that come with the software:

Default contains no equalization — all the sliders are set to 0 dB.

When we launched our audio products a few years ago, we added some team members with extensive background in professional audio and high-end home audio. That's why we have the Audiophile 1, Audiophile 1+, Audiophile 2, and Audiophile 2+ presets — something you might not expect to find on a gaming headset. Audiophile 1 and Audiophile 1+ have a slightly brighter and "open" sound image, and Audiophile 2 and Audiophile 2+ have a warmer and more "mellow" sound image. Audiophile 1/1+ are well-suited for critical listening, and make it slightly easier to pick out the details on good audio recordings, like the key clicks on a saxophone.

FPS Gaming and MMO Gaming are similar. FPS has slightly higher bass and high-end responses, while the MMO preset has a small increase in the mid-range. The FPS preset is optimized for enjoying all those explosions and ambient sounds, while maintaining the positional audio that's essential for situational awareness and knowing where your enemies are. The MMO preset's mid-range boost helps with clarity when communicating with your teammates.

Movies Mod-X helps restore the theatrical experience when watching films. Film audio is typically mastered to an equalization curve called the "X Curve," which is optimized to make the audio sound great when you're sitting in a theatre — that is, a large room with the speakers far away. If the audio isn't remastered when the film's released on disc and for downloading, it won't sound as good as it can. Selecting Mod-X addresses this.

The Reference EQ preset "flattens" the output of the headset, so that if you were to look at the frequency response on test equipment, it would be closer to a flat line. It's a good starting point for making further EQ adjustments to suit your tastes.

Headphone Volume and Microphone Level

The sliders on the left do what you'd expect: adjust the headphone volume and microphone level. They map to the volume and microphone level controls built in to Windows. The volume controller on the headset has the same functionality.

And that's it — nice and simple. As always, if you have any questions, you can get in touch with us on our forums.