CORSAIR H35 HEADPHONES
Affordable cans with surprisingly little compromise.
There’s always something. When you dip down below $100 in the headset market, you know you’re going to be making compromises somewhere. Perhaps it’ll be comfort, or sound quality, or features and functionality – there’s always something. The trick for manufacturers operating at this price point is effectively disguising what that something is, so that when it eventually reveals itself, you don’t mind much.
So it goes with Corsair’s new HS35 headset, which takes a lot of design cues from the company’s HS50 and HS70 cans, but keeps the outlay under $100. And it just happens that this one’s especially good at playing down the inevitable compromises the pricing requires.
Starting with build quality, well sure, it’s not encrusted with precious gemstones or elaborate RGB lighting arrays – and it’s all the better for it. A mix of smart, understated black construction materials and finishes creates an overall look that speaks of a more expensive product, and while beauty is in the eye of the headset holder, we actually prefer this combo of matte and gloss plastic to the mesh finishes on the HS50 and HS70.
Rather than straying into the more experimental headband designs of Audio-Technica or SteelSeries, this HS35 is built around a lightweight aluminum band and padded with more than enough memory foam to keep the top of your head comfortable over longer sessions. There are memory foam pads around the earcups, too, but these feel less generous and – if you’ll excuse the parlance – squidgy than the headband. That’s not a big deal for the vast majority of users, but if you have bigger ears, you might find the chamber’s slightly too shallow for you, and may experience some rubbing on the antihelix of your ear. And you thought the kids in the schoolyard calling you Dumbo was the worst of it.
Tipping the scales at 336g, this is among the lightest headsets on the market at the moment, so comfort shouldn’t be an issue on all but the very biggest or most unusually shaped heads. Certainly, it remained barely noticeable on this tester’s cranium for threehour stints at a time, and that’s a big one for the plus column. A 3.5mm cable connects the HS35 to your PC, which means there’s no scope for tinkering within Corsair’s useful and largely unobtrusive CUE software. We can live without that at this price, but it’s something to note if you’re used to creating custom EQ profiles or switching between presets depending on whether you’re gaming or listening to your favorite drill remixes of classic kids’ TV themes.
And that leads us on to sound quality, which brings a lot of bass to the party, thanks to those 50mm drivers, but ultimately compromises on overall clarity and warmth as a result. This isn’t a massive deal, and shouldn’t be taken to mean that games and those aforementioned drill bangers don’t still sound great when they’re being fed through the HS35. What it does mean is there’s a slightly artificial sound to these cans that’s more pronounced as you raise the volume, a bit like the digital “ring” you get from DTS: Headphone X in digital surround-compatible headsets.
We’re seriously impressed with the build quality for the price, and wearing a headset you can forget is even on your head is a boon you’d pay three times this price for after a few hours wearing an uncomfortable model.