When you drop a couple hundred bucks on a top-end headset these days, you can pretty safely assume that you're getting something that will at least be very good, if not excellent. When you drop your budget into the sub-$50 range, though, you can end up with something that isn't even worth the cost of the RGB LEDs you can pull out of it. So it's with an especially critical eye and ear that I dove into Corsair's HS50 gaming headset. This pair of cans just hit the market for $50 on the dot.

The HS50 Stereo Gaming Headset is a simple affair. It doesn't get much simpler, in fact, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. This is Corsair's least expensive gaming headset yet, and has the feature set to match. As its name already suggests, the HS50 is a sweet-and-simple stereo deal without any of those aforementioned RGB LEDs, onboard EQ settings, or any extra dongles to simulate surround sound. On the headset, you'll find a volume wheel and a button to mute the microphone. In the box are a detachable mic and a Y-adapter to plug the default 4-pole connector into dedicated headphone and microphone jacks on a desktop PC.