The way the Sirus is connected to the PC is up to the user. It can be plugged into the 5.1 audio connections of a PC, or it can perform as a USB audio device. The Windows audio device manager instantly recognizes the Sirus once it’s hooked up. It comes with a software that is, unfortunately, very primitive; it features only volume controls for sound and voice and a pre-mix selection for games and music. Without installing the application or even a driver, we were able to make calls with MSN Messenger. Skype, however, said it recognized the Sirus and even performed test calls with success, but once we tried a conference call to our gaming buddies, the microphone kept mute. So we really had to install the Sirus applications and driver to solve the problem – Skype was to blame (it is a rather quirky software), but it made it clear that it’s better to install both driver and application to make the headset be recognized by all audio programs.

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Figure 7: The application

Due to the application being unfriendly, we missed the fact that there is indeed a more advanced menu: you just have to click on the microphone and speakers icons to open up an equalizer, a bass booster and even environment effects. Unfortunately, this feature was so well hidden that took an email from Cooler Master for us to notice it.

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Figure 8: Additional features