For years peripheral maker Razer has been pumping sound directly into our ears via gaming headsets. The Leviathan marks its first attempt at sharing that audio with the residue of the room, and a valiant first effort at that.

I've seen enough of premium speaker companies put out headsets, later all they're merely tiny speakers (gross oversimplification warning!), but rarely have I seen a company that's congenital a reputation for headsets make the transition to speakers. Acoustics are easier to main when only a single pair of ears is involved.

So it's daring of Razer, the mouse, keyboard, headset and incredibly skinny laptop maker, to branch out in this direction, peculiarly when the co-operative is a $200 blackness bar that makes noise. At that place are quite a lot of those on the market, in example y'all hadn't noticed. They're kind of a thing now.

Razer'south got its name going for it, having built up a reputation for quality audio devices, but the difference betwixt headsets and full-room speakers is the difference between making a squeamish dinner for your friends and running a eating place.

Permit'due south see what'south on the menu.

What It Is

The Razer Leviathan is a smallish 5.1 environs sound bar that comes packaged with a keyboard central-shaped downward facing subwoofer. The bar itself is simply effectually four inches high, making information technology as unobtrusive in front end of a PC monitor as information technology is on a television stand up.

Providing surround sound for gaming is one of its primary tasks, with both optical sound standard iii.5" audio jack inputs to handle modernistic game consoles and PCs. It'south also got support for Bluetooth v 4.0 aptX however, making information technology the perfect companion for a phone packed with tunes or, if you're feeling saucy, filling the room with the sounds of Angry Birds.

(Note: if you buy one of these and information technology looks like the motion-picture show above, you lot've broken it.)

What I Did With It

When the Leviathan first arrived I was in the living room, so that's where it went first, cruelly condemned to playing through an endless army of Caillou episodes. Every at present and and then I'd get to play some Titanfall or Telephone call of Duty: Advanced Warfare or watch a television show that wasn't annoying to everyone just iii-twelvemonth-olds. Sometimes we'd watch Peg + Cat.

That happy experiment over, I moved the Leviathan into the spot I'd originally envisioned it in: in front of my computer monitor, where it fit quite nicely without obscuring the screen. The unit of measurement comes with two pairs of feet to suit tilt bending, for the PC they recommend the highest, so the sound hits you right in the face up.

The picture above is not my desk, but information technology's a fair approximation of the desk and monitor of an boilerplate bearded person. If you lot desire the feel of sitting at my bodily desk, blow up this paradigm and obscure your monitor with empty Kickstart cans.

Gratis from Caillou, the Leviathan helped my PC watch endless horrible YouTube videos in-between bouts of Far Weep four and World of Warcraft.

I also connected my iPhone to the unit via Bluetooth and blasted some questionable music, And plain I was feeling saucy, every bit I played quite a few iPad games with the Leviathan handling audio duties. Considering the iPad'southward unfortunate speaker situation, it was an incredibly pleasant change.

What I Liked

Depression Contour: I've been looking for a sound bar for my PC for quite some time, e'er since I stopped trying to put speakers everywhere and bought a bar for the living room. I was just worried that whatever I wound up with would obscure my desktop, as my AOC monitor is pretty low to the desk-bound.

The Leviathan fits the space perfectly. Here, I'll snap a quick shot of how information technology lines upwardly with my monitor.

Can you meet that? No? See, that's why I don't accept pictures of my desk. It's a wreck. Just trust me, it's really prissy.

Good Looks: Not only is the Leviathan small (look kids, irony!), it'southward also quite lovely every bit black bars go. I was expecting the traditional black-and-green Razer motif, simply instead it'southward a tasteful argent logo facing the full general public, as if to say "I'm trying to be tasteful here." Razer's signature style is represented by indents on the top and bottom of the bar's middle, merely other than that the product's performance is the loudest thing in the room.

Precipitous and Powerful Sound: The Razer Leviathan has more than enough power to fill our ample livingroom (well, fifteen anxiety by 16 anxiety) with crisp, mildly deafening sound. The clarity of this sound bar at max volume is wondrous, the only rattle I experienced being the various loose things sitting atop my TV stand up threatening to wander off.

And if it'southward that powerful in the living room, imagine it beingness iii feet from your face while you're playing a PC game. I've even so to turn it up all the way while playing PC games because I'm worried about sound complaints from my neighbors. Still, fifty-fifty without setting the volume to "Eardrum Nemesis" the sound is so strong you can almost feel information technology.

Speaking of which...

The Subwoofer. Oh Lord, the Subwoofer. Where has this downward-facing bass demon been all my life?

The subwoofer included with the Razer Leviathan is a black monolith of full-range fury. When my desk shakes, it's this subwoofer what shakes it. I'grand not the sort of person who goes out of his way to ensure he feels his music and game audio, but if I'm going to feel it I want to feel actively driveling past it. This nondescript swain gets the job done. Razer could have called this the Leviathan Subwoofer with sound bar.

What I Didn't Like

Sleepy Time: After 20 minutes idle, the Leviathan shuts itself off. How considerate. How annoying.

It's not a trouble when the Leviathan is hooked up to a television, and virtually game consoles these days accept some sort of music playing at the carte du jour level (get with the program, Xbox One) to keep the audio bar alive.

My PC, on the other manus, frequently goes a good 20 minutes without making a peep, so when I become to spotter a video or commencement up a game, I've got no sound.

If all I had to exercise in this instance was hit the power push, that wouldn't be likewise much of a hassle, but the volume lowers automatically as well, so I've got to power it back on and pump upwardly the book to make all of the sounds work. Annoying.

Surround Sound-ish: The Leviathan uses Dolby Pro Logic 2 to catechumen standard audio signals into 5.i stereo environs sound. It works, certainly enough to offering a player an idea of where shots are coming from or which management the cougars are attacking from, but it's never quite all there.

It'south sort of like seeing something out of the corner of your heart. You know it's in that location, you can make out what it is, merely it never fully coalesces until you turn to confront it.

My Final Word

The Razer Leviathan 5.1 Channel Environs Audio Bar is Razer's first attempt at non-personal sound, and it has the power to please a neat many ears at once. That said, I experience the all-time place for this lovely slice of sound applied science is in front of a PC monitor.

The Leviathan's room-filling audio provided exactly the sort of power I was looking for in a speaker that sits just a few feet from my confront. Partnered with its subwoofer life-mate, its more sound than any PC gamer needs, which is exactly the sort of thing we want.