Corsair HS55 Stereo

Corsair HS55 Stereo: Two minute review

The Corsair HS55 Stereo gaming headset is a good wired gaming headset for the price. It lacks the visual flair of other gaming headsets, but it is a solid, no-frills device that provides a clear audio response through its 50mm Neodymium drivers. 

The headset microphone has an omni-directional polar pattern allowing for excellent voice capture. The headset audio and microphone tested very well in a variety of uses from online games (like Counter-Strike) to voice chat (such as Zoom), making it very versatile.  

Corsair paid plenty of attention to the build of the headset. It’s one of the most comfortable wired headsets we’ve tried and it’s constructed from high quality material so it’s plenty durable. The ear pads combine memory foam with leatherette material, and sit securely over the user’s ears without being noticeably tight.

The HS55 Stereo comes complete with an adapter/headphone splitter dividing a “3 ring” balanced audio/mic signal (which is the standard on modern gaming headsets) into two separate audio/speaker and microphone 3.5mm input jacks meant for use on older computers, which is something we definitely appreciate.

All in all, the Corsair HS55 Stereo is one of the best PC gaming headsets in this price range, but its price is still on the high side, so you might find an equally good competitor at a lower price.

Corsair HS55 Stereo: Price and availability

The ear cups of a Corsair HS55 Stereo.

(Image credit: Future)
  • How much is it? MSRP is $59 /£49 /AU$89
  • When can you get it? The Corsair HS55 Stereo is available now.
  • Where can you buy it? You can get it in the US, UK, and Australia

The Corsair HS55 Stereo gaming headset is available now on the Corsair website and other mainstream retailers. It’s a fantastic headset in a very competitive field, and the main issue with the price is that there are other stereo gaming headsets that offer comparable performance and features for a lighter price tag. 

Plus, if you’re willing to spend a little more money, you can get a headset that offers haptics or even surround sound, such as the Corsair HS60 Surround gaming headset which retails for on the Corsair website for just a bit more money.

So it’s not that the Corsair HS55 Stereo is overpriced, per se, but you really have to want the quality of the headset more than the affordability. If you’re looking for the cheapest gaming headset in this class, it likely won’t be the HS55 Stereo.

Corsair HS55 Stereo: Design 

A Corsair HS55 Stereo on a table

(Image credit: Future)
  • Outstanding comfort
  • Adjustable mic

The Corsair HS55 Stereo gaming headset features a redesigned lightweight frame reinforced through the use of durable material in its construction. Memory foam pads and leatherette covering material attach to the ear cans and provide comfort to the user throughout many hours of gaming. 

The omni-directional microphone is attached to a flexible boom arm on the left ear cup, and the boom arm lifts up and pulls down for use, which also mutes and unmutes the mic, respectively. The microphone isn’t detachable, though.

The cable measures about six feet long, which is enough for most people to comfortably use. Anybody fragging their friends online will have plenty of freedom to move around. There aren’t any wireless options on the headset, so this is strictly a wired affair.

Corsair HS55 Stereo: Features

A Corsair HS55 Stereo

(Image credit: Future)
  • Volume control of headset is made simple to use
  •  Headset splitter/adapter enables the HS55 to work on older computers easily 

In addition to the flexible microphone boom arm, the left ear cup has an onboard volume wheel on the rear that lets users to make quick adjustments without having to put down their controller. 

The microphone has an omni-directional polar pattern with a solid frequency response, and while the microphone is omni-directional, the placement of the microphone’s capsule on the boom arm faces the microphone toward the user so it doesn’t pick up too much extraneous noise (like keystrokes).  

Corsair HS55 Stereo Key Specs

Drivers: Custom 50mm Neodymium
Mic Polar Patterns: Omni-directional
Compatibility: Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android, PS5, PS4, XBox series X|S, XBox One, Nintendo Switch
Weight: 273 grams
Cord Length: Approx. 6 feet
Color: Carbon or White/Grey

The headset comes with an adapter/headphone splitter dividing a 3 ring audio mic signal (which is the standard on modern gaming headsets) into two separate audio/speaker and mic signals, which makes it compatible with older machines that have separate ports for headphones and microphones.

This adapter gives the Corsair HS55 Stereo the flexibility to be used on older machines, which is not something you can say about a lot of modern headsets. This is not much of an issue since most gamers won’t be gaming on an old Compaq desktop, but it’s a pleasant surprise to see that Corsair made the extra effort here.

Corsair HS65 Surround: Performance

A Corsair HS55 Stereo

(Image credit: Future)
  • Audio drivers deliver fantastic audio quality
  • Strong bass response, maybe a little too strong
  • Awesome mic performance

Featuring 50mm Neodymium audio drivers with a frequency response of 20hz to 20khz, the average gaming user will seriously appreciate the sound on the Corsair HS55 Stereo gaming headset.

Those 50mm Neodymium audio drivers really do make games come alive, with every explosion or hit having a real robust sound. If there’s any criticism that we have with the performance of the Corsair HS55 Stereo, it is that the bass response can be a little strong. You might not hear it in your Discord or Facetime chat, but the problem is most notable with casual listening. 

Songs and movies that normally sound great might sound out of balance since the audio drivers are pushing the low end harder than normal. This might be great for gaming, but the bass in Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” was more accentuated so that the bass seemed as noticeable as the vocals. 

Considering that there’s no way to adjust the EQ settings on the headset itself, you’re left with music that sounds slightly out of balance unless you run it through a third party equalizer. Obviously, this particular criticism is a matter of taste. If you’re blasting Future’s “Puffin on Zootiez” or Kendrick Lamar’s “N95” (where the bass is meant to be boosted), the HS55 Stereo sounds absolutely amazing.

The performance of video conferencing and voice chat using apps like Discord, Zoom, Teams, or Facetime is outstanding, and while Corsair isn’t promoting the HS55 Stereo as a video conferencing solution, colleagues and friends will hear you loud and clear.

So while the Corsair HS55 Stereo is a bit on the pricier side, it delivers outstanding performance across the spectrum, so it’s definitely worth giving a look if price isn’t your biggest concern.

Should you buy a Corsair HS55 Stereo?

A Corsair HS55 Stereo

(Image credit: Future)

Buy it if…

Don’t buy if…

Also consider

  • First reviewed May 2022

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Opera’s in-built VPN just got a major upgrade – but you’ll have to pay for it

Opera has announced that the premium version of its in-built browser VPN has exited beta testing and is now widely available.

Launched last month, Opera VPN Pro is billed as a device-wide VPN that provides users with additional security and privacy protection for their Android smartphone.

Although the service comes at a cost, Opera says it can shield up to six Android devices at once and benefits from advanced encryption technologies. New versions for iOS and desktop platforms are also in the works.

Opera VPN Pro

After becoming the first major browser to include a free built-in VPN five years ago, Opera is now stepping up the quality of the protections on offer.

Just like the free VPN, Opera VPN Pro is a no-log service, but it also offers access to more than 3,000 private network servers in over 30 virtual locations worldwide. This allows users to stream videos, download files and browse the web securely when connected to public Wi-Fi.

Unlike the free version, Opera’s premium VPN shields the entire device (as opposed to just browser activity) and can also be run in a data-saving mode so that users don’t go over the limits of their mobile phone plans.

In normal circumstances, the new service will cost between $1.99/£1.59 and $5.99/£4.89 per month, depending on the duration of the subscription. But for a limited time, it’s available for slightly less.

There is also a seven-day free trial period for new users to test out the service as well as a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Stefan Stjernelund, Product Manager at Opera, provided further insight on the company’s decision to launch a premium VPN service in a press release, saying:

“We at Opera have always been focusing on ensuring users’ privacy by constantly introducing free built-in advanced features aimed at protecting users when they are surfing the web.”

“Recently, we were spotting the increasing interest in trusted entire-device protection based on our users’ requests. That’s why launching a trusted VPN Pro solution was a logical further step for Opera.”

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Cruise into the danger zone with Microsoft Flight Simulator’s free Top Gun DLC

Microsoft Flight Simulator is getting a free Top Gun expansion to help all us flight sim nerds do our best Maverick impressions. 

The DLC was teased in a trailer on Wednesday, complete with the film’s iconic soaring 80s guitar riff, but doesn’t give much more detail than that. Presumably, this means you can fly the F-18 Super Hornet from the film, but we can’t confirm the kind of plane from the trailer. We’ll have to wait for the expansion to download before confirming that.

While Microsoft Flight Simulator is a PC staple, you can get it on Xbox Series X|S with an Xbox Game Pass subscription. Remember, however, that the game itself is absolutely massive, so be prepared to wait a minute for it to download, as we’re sure the highway to the danger zone is going to have a bit of a traffic jam this week.

A fighter jet soaring down a river valley in Microsoft Flight Simulator

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Analysis: A movie tie-in we’d actually play? Yes, please

Our Axel Metz absolutely fell over himself with praise in his Top Gun: Maverick review, declaring that the new film was “superior to its predecessor in almost every conceivable way.”

The film follows up on the 1986 original and is steeped in the kind of nostalgia-inducing homage that is sure to rekindle every grown adult’s Maverick fantasies that they had as a kid, so we’re sure that the new expansion will be a big hit. The trailer’s stunning visuals show the player landing on an aircraft carrier and soaring over a river valley, so we’re all pretty much hooked from the get-go.

The fact that it’s a free expansion to boot? You literally can’t go wrong here. Whether you have it on Game Pass, Steam, or PC download, now’s the time to get that monster download started.

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This ransomware looks to make the world a better place

A yet unknown threat actor wants to be the Robin Hood of the cyber-era, albeit with a twist. Instead of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, this group forces the poor to give directly to the rich – by holding their precious data hostage until they do.

Cybersecurity researchers from CloudSEK recently discovered a ransomware strain named “GoodWill” that still infects companies, but instead of asking for payment, it’s asking for acts of goodwill against those less fortunate, all of which need to be documented and presented both publicly, and to the threat actor itself.

Share your thoughts on Cybersecurity and get a free copy of the Hacker’s Manual 2022. Help us find how businesses are preparing for the post-Covid world and the implications of these activities on their cybersecurity plans. Enter your email at the end of this survey to get the bookazine, worth $10.99/£10.99.

Helping the poor

Once a company gets infected with GoodWill, it needs to do three things:

  • Provide homeless people found on the side of the road with new clothes and warm blankets. The victim must also document the act with photos and videos, add them to the photo frame provided by the attackers, and then share on their social media (Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp). Screenshots of those posts, together with the links, need to be sent back to the attackers, in order to receive the second assignment:
  • Buy food for poor children. In the evening, five poor kids need to be taken down to their favorite fast food restaurant and allowed to order whatever they can. The steps for this task are the same – document, post online, share with the attackers. Finally, step number three:
  • Go to the nearest hospital and pay for someone’s treatment.

After all these things, the victims need to write a “beautiful article” about their deeds, and discuss how suffering an attack at the hands of GoodWill turned them into kind human beings. Once the threat actor verifies all was done as requested, the victims will receive the decryption key. 

The researchers seemingly tracked the attackers to India, and although it cannot be absolutely certain, suspects this is the same malware group that operates the HiddenTear ransomware.

Via: Neowin

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Become Maverick in Microsoft Flight Simulator’s free Top Gun expansion

Just the name alone should give you goosebumps: Microsoft has a free Top Gun: Maverick expansion for Flight Simulator, and it’s available now.

Microsoft released a trailer of the new expansion on Wednesday, which starts kicking in the 80’s nostalgia as soon as the opening bars of the original Top Gun theme begin to play. (Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn’t licensed Kenny Loggins’ “Danger Zone” for the trailer,” but Spotify is just a click or two away.)

Microsoft doesn’t say anything about what you can or can’t do as far as the expansion is concerned, but we can assume the plane you’ll fly is an F-18 Super Hornet, based upon what we know about the movie itself. (Sorry, we can’t confirm whether or not the plane in the trailer is an F-18 or not.) What we can say is that there’s an aircraft carrier that it appears that you can land and take off from…and at the very end, is that a shot in a Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird from space?

Top Gun Maverick Flight Simulator

Remember, Flight Simulator is part of Microsoft’s killer Xbox Game Pass subscription, which can be picked up for cheap if you follow our advice. The new expansion is available for all of the platforms that Flight Simulator runs on, though, including the PC, Xbox, and Steam. Remember, Flight Simulator‘s file siz is huuuuuuuuge, which is why that’s its fantastic that it’s also available to play via Xbox cloud streaming.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that you’ll be able to engage other pilots with air-to-air missiles or guns. And that, naturally, suggests another question: Does Microsoft have a military combat simulator in the works? It certainly has all the pieces in place, including one of the legendary combat aircraft of the U.S. military.

We’ve embedded the trailer below.

Gaming

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Meet Project Stealth, a new initiative by PC powerhouses to hide all visible cables

Any PC builder knows that internal wiring can be a hassle. Between power supply rails, SATA cables, cooling fans, and any number of other parts, you might spend just as much time organizing your cables and wires as you do actually assembling all your parts. Gigabyte has a solution to that in its : a system that puts each and every wire in the build on the back side of the case. This makes the main area optimized for airflow — not to mention drop-dead gorgeous and utterly clean. Gigabyte partnered with to make this radical reimagining of the ATX standard a reality.

Gordon Ung got his lucky hands on this design over on the PCWorld YouTube channel. In the video you can see Gigabyte’s meticulous design work: every single motherboard connection, plus power rails for the GPU and case fans, has been carefully routed to the rear of the motherboard and out of sight. Even the CMOS battery is mounted in the rear.

And that’s a cool trick, but the really impressive bit is that there’s no proprietary technology at play here. The case mounting board has extra room in the cutouts, but it still mounts a standard ATX motherboard. The connections on the Project Stealth motherboard itself are just carefully placed so that the power and data connections are soldered through to the rear instead of the front. Someone with a soldering board and a steady hand could do more or less the same thing.

With every small connection on the rear and carefully labeled, wiring is a snap, and the results speak for themselves. Could we see this kind of ultra-clean design on consumer motherboards and cases in the future? We can but hope. Wallace Santos, CEO of Maingear, and Kevin Shieh, Product Marketing Manager at Gigabyte, recently joined our Full Nerd podcast to discuss how Project Stealth came to be, and their ambitions for the initiative—including a desire to see other PC hardware makers like Asus and MSI support the new design. You can see that interview in its entirety below:

For more geeky deep dives into the newest and coolest PC hardware, be sure to subscribe to the .

Desktop PCs

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Google Cloud taps AMD to bring confidential computing to VMs

Google Cloud a collaboration with AMD that will see it release Confidential Computing for its latest EN2D and C2D Virtual Machines (VMs).

The first product in Google Cloud’s Confidential Computing portfolio is Confidential VM, a type of compute engine VM which Google says helps ensure that your data and applications stay private and encrypted  while in use.

The latest virtual machines are powered by 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors, and Google Cloud says it worked closely with the AMD Cloud Solution engineering team to ensure that the VM’s memory encryption doesn’t interfere with workload performance.

What is this useful for?

Google recommends N2D VMs for both general-purpose workloads and workloads that require larger virtual machine sizes and memory ratios.

This includes general-purpose workloads that require a balance of compute and memory, like web applications and databases.

Confidential N2D and C2D VMs with 3rd Gen AMD EPYC processors are set to cost the same price as the previous generation of Confidential N2D VMs

In addition, the cloud hosting giant was also able to announce that Confidential Computing is being rolled out in us-central1 (Iowa), asia-southeast1 (Singapore), us-east1 (South Carolina), us-east4 (North Virginia), asia-east1 (Taiwan), and europe-west4 (Netherlands). 

How to get started?

If you already use Confidential N2D machines or are just getting started, you can use the latest hardware by simply selecting “AMD Milan or later” as the CPU platform.

To create a Confidential C2D VM, choose the C2D option when creating a new VM and check the box under “Confidential VM service” in the Google Cloud Console.

“We believe the future of computing will increasingly shift to private, encrypted services where users can be confident that their data is not being exposed to cloud providers or their own insiders,” said Joanna Young, Product Manager at Confidential Computing. 

“Confidential Computing helps make this future possible by keeping data encrypted in memory, and elsewhere outside the CPU, while it is being processed – all without needing any code changes to applications.”

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