Corsair HS65 Wireless review

The Corsair HS65 Wireless is a variant of last year’s HS65 Surround—a straightforward, if a little humdrum, gaming headset. This new version feels just about exactly the same to wear and use as its predecessor, only now it features a wireless USB dongle and Bluetooth support. Is that enough to warrant a purchase?

Editor’s note: this is the first version of the article. Updates will follow as the market changes.

The Corsair HS65 Wireless is a pretty standard-feeling wireless gaming headset. It’s a black pair of headphones with a microphone attached, with hinges that let the ear cups rotate to lay flat. If you’ve used a recent Corsair HS gaming headset, you’ll find this one pretty familiar. There’s not that much to it, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

The headset features a plastic headband that clamps down a little tightly for my taste, but that also means it fits very securely. The memory foam ear pads are covered in leatherette on the sides, and a soft elastic fabric on the parts that touch your face. It’s pretty comfortable, at least for a while. After three or four hours, I definitely start to get a bit of a tension headache.

The Corsair HS65 Wireless features a fairly limited array of on-ear controls. There’s no multi-function button, even really any functions that need explaining. There’s a power button, a Bluetooth pairing button, a volume dial, and the microphone mutes when you flip it up. That’s all there is to it.

The Corsair HS65 Wireless features integration with Corsair’s iCUE companion app, and while there aren’t a ton of bells and whistles, it might still be worth installing, if only for firmware updates. The app offers a 10-band EQ for personalizing the HS65 Wireless’ sound profile, as well as EQ presets for different kinds of activities. You can also adjust microphone volume and side tone. Past that, iCue offers two more distinct features.

First there’s NVIDIA broadcast, a suite of microphone options geared towards cleaning up or removing background noise from your microphone audio while you livestream. The features are only available if your PC has an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 graphics or higher—I have a 1070, so I can’t use it.

Then there’s SoundID, which is meant to build a personalized audio profile based on your tastes. When you first open the SoundID menu, it will play a series sounds, and build an EQ profile based on which ones you prefer (it functions like a short AB test). Once the test is over, you can toggle it whenever you like. When SoundID is in use, you can’t use the iCUE equalizer settings.

The Corsair HS65 Wireless primarily connects using a 2.4GHz wireless USB-A dongle, like most wireless gaming headsets. This gives you a steady, virtually lag-free connection on platforms like PC and PlayStation 5. The headset also supports Bluetooth connections, using Bluetooth 5.2, with support for the SBC and AAC audio codecs. You can connect using the dongle and Bluetooth simultaneously, but the headset can’t play audio from both source simultaneously. HS65 Wireless charges using a USB-C cord, but it can’t make an audio connection over it, so there’s no wired option.

Corsair claims the HS65 Wireless can last for up to 24 hours of playback time, but in our testing we found it well exceeds that. Over a period of sustained, real music output peaking at 75dB (SPL), the HS65 Wireless lasted 35 hours, 2 minutes. Battery performance like this is definitely above average for a gaming headset, but not even close to the very best on the market. You can definitely get a week’s worth of gaming out of this before needing to charge.

The Corsair HS65 Wireless doesn’t feature active noise cancelling, so your main protection from outside interruption is the headset’s passive isolation performance. Thankfully, isolation is decent, with high end noises reduced by up to 40dB between 6kHz and 10kHz. Attenuation like this means that the typical noise of home, like talking roommates or blaring TV, shouldn’t be too big an issue when you’re listening to music or playing games.

The Corsair HS65 Wireless has a sound profile that’s pretty typical of gaming headsets, with one added wrinkle. The gaming headset features a pretty intense level of added emphasis in the low end, and the high end roll off differs depending on whether you’re connected via USB wireless or Bluetooth. Beyond 8kHz, sound output drops precipitously from around 5dB above our in-house target to inaudible levels when using USB wireless—if you’re connected using Bluetooth it sticks closer to our target in that region.

Minimizing latency over a 2.4GHz connection often involves a compromise, and high frequency output gets sacrificed. It’s hardly unique to this product but it’s something to be aware of. This means when using the USB dongle, you lose some of the sound at the very top of the audible spectrum.

With music, a frequency response like this can make high range sounds like the crash of cymbals come through a lot less distinctly. Listening to a rock song like Right Way Back by Crown Lands, the kick drum and the reverberant part of the tom drum hits really come through prominently. Conversely, the hi-hat almost blends into the track and the attack sounds of the guitar are barely audible. It’s not until I make EQ adjustments in iCue that I even notice them.

Playing games, this kind of sound profile is a lot less problematic. In-game sound mixes generally aren’t as layered as a typical music production. Playing a game like Dredge, the orchestral backing track comes through clearly, without overshadowing any in-game sound, and directional cues indicating things like the approach of water spouts or eldritch horrors approaching from the depths of the ocean come through clearly.

The Corsair HS65 Wireless features a Discord-certified microphone geared toward delivering clear chat audio when you’re gaming with friends. On paper and in ideal conditions, the microphone sounds pretty good for a gaming headset. However, I definitely ran into issues during the review period with its noise gating. Some of that is down to PC settings getting in the way, but Corsair HS65 Wireless needs a little monkeying around with on Discord before it sounds exactly how you like it, certification be damned. If you’re using a device that doesn’t already have microphone settings to change or affect how your mic sounds, your voice will come through clearly.

Corsair HS65 Wireless microphone demo (Ideal conditions):

If you’re already hooked into iCUE with a bunch of other gaming peripherals, and you want a wireless gaming headset to round out your collection, it might be worthy considering the Corsair HS65 Wireless. However, very little about this headset is exceptional, or even notable. The microphone is okay. The sound needs a little equalizing. The clamping force is a little a much.

Basically, there’s nothing about the HS65 Wireless that’s terribly problematic, but you could also do a lot better without spending much more money.

If you want something a little more comfortable, the Logitech G733 Wireless often goes on sale for around the same price as the HS65 Wireless. It lacks Bluetooth support, but it has similar battery performance, better sound, and a much more comfortable suspension frame. You can get it for $119.99 at Amazon.

For the person who wants more features and options than the HS65 Wireless offers, the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7 Wireless is a little more expensive ($179.99 at Amazon), but it’s super comfortable and features the much more comprehensive software experience of the SteelSeries Sonar app. Plus it supports simultaneous audio playback over Bluetooth and USB wireless connections.