Razer Leviathan V2 Pro Review

Verdict

The Razer Leviathan V2 Professional is a powerful soundbar and subwoofer combo, designed particularly for players who need 3D audio results with out the necessity for added audio system – though most will discover higher worth utilizing a headset as a substitute. 

Introduction

Encompass sound programs are championed for offering a cinema-like audio expertise in your lounge. Sadly, it’s tougher to have a encompass sound setup in your desktop gaming PC.

The Razer Leviathan V2 Professional soundbar and subwoofer package deal intention to unravel this downside, utilizing intelligent beamforming and head-tracking know-how to recreate the impact of encompass sound while not having further audio system to take action. This offers room-filling 3D audio for supported PC video games, rising the immersion tenfold. 

Does this sound too good to be true? I’ve spent a couple of weeks with the Razer Leviathan V2 Professional to try it out for myself, and you may learn my impressions and verdict beneath.

Design 

• Each soundbar and subwoofer included
• Want to take a seat near digital camera for 3D impact
• RGB lighting appears nice

The Razer Leviathan V2 Professional is available in two elements: a soundbar that sits in entrance of your monitor or TV, and a subwoofer designed to take a seat on the ground beneath your desk. 

The soundbar is slightly too massive for my liking, stretching out to 600mm which is roughly the identical width as my 32-inch gaming monitor. It’s additionally tall at 113.7mm, though luckily wasn’t so massive that it blocked off of my monitor’s display. 

Nonetheless, it’s a big soundbar which may be troublesome to accommodate, particularly for those who already end up working out of desk house. Equally, I do recognize that it will be troublesome for Razer to make it smaller because it homes 5x 2-inch full-range drivers, in addition to the front-facing digital camera to make the beamforming methods attainable. 

Regardless of its massive dimension, the Razer Leviathan V2 Professional is a pleasant trying system. A speaker grille runs edge to edge on the entrance, with a Razer brand slapped bang within the center. 

On the highest you’ll discover easy-to-reach buttons that can be utilized to pick out an equaliser, audio mode, supply and Chroma lighting. There’s additionally a giant quantity dial within the centre, which additionally doubles up as the facility button when pushed down. I actually appreciated having these bodily buttons on the speaker fairly than having to make use of software program to tweak the whole lot, though I might recognize a bundled distant too given the value. 

On the backside of the soundbar you’ll discover a row of RGB lights that shine down in your desk, brilliant sufficient that the colors are seen even in properly lit rooms. Better of all, the color of the lighting can sync up with different Razer peripherals, biking by way of colors in unison with my Razer keyboard and mouse for a satisfying glow-up impact. 

Across the again of the Razer Leviathan V2 Professional soundbar you’ll discover port connections for energy, the subwoofer, 3.5mm for headsets and USB-C for PC – the latter of which connects to your PC through a USB-A connection.

Connecting to your PC through USB could also be problematic for these already working out of free ports, and the shortage of HDMI and optical inputs additionally guidelines out a direct connection to a sensible TV.

The Razer Leviathan V2 Professional can even join through Bluetooth, permitting me to play Spotify tunes by way of my smartphone. What’s extra, you’re in a position to swap between the Bluetooth and wired mode immediately through a button on the highest. I personally didn’t discover myself switching to the Bluetooth mode all that usually, nevertheless it’s nonetheless a welcome added function.

The subwoofer can also be a beast in terms of dimension, with a size of 260mm, top of 295mm and depth of 260mm. Because it’s designed to take a seat on the ground, you don’t want to fret about it taking on precious desk house, however I nonetheless discovered it troublesome to regulate to because it took up house the place I’d normally relaxation my legs. 

The subwoofer appears like a giant black field, with far much less fashionable design parts than the soundbar. On the rear there’s an influence port, in addition to a connection to hyperlink up with the soundbar. The entire required cables are included within the field. 

Options 

• Immersive 3D audio sounds implausible
• Can wrestle with busy scenes
• Able to stereo playback for music

The Razer Leviathan V2 Professional soundbar has a novel expertise of having the ability to produce 3D sound with out the necessity for extra audio system dotted across the room. It sounds too good to be true, nevertheless it actually does work. 

That is attainable thanks to 2 parts: Razer’s head-tracking digital camera nestled within the entrance of the soundbar and the AI-powered beamforming know-how provided by start-up firm Audioscenic.

Razer recommends that you simply sit between 0.3 and 1.5 metres away from this digital camera for an optimum expertise. This guidelines out utilizing the soundbar with a TV in a lounge, so is simply actually worthwhile in tandem with a desktop PC. With my very own desktop setup, the digital camera solely ever struggled to detect my head in a darkish room. In such occasions, the inexperienced lighting on the entrance of the soundbar alerted me to the issue. 

When your head’s in view of the digital camera, the beamforming know-how will monitor its place after which ship beams of sound to your left and proper ears to duplicate the impact of 3D audio. It’s surprisingly correct and isn’t too far off the standard of my actual Sonos encompass system. 

When enjoying an open-world sport akin to Cyberpunk 2077, I can hear the assorted metropolis sounds coming from a number of instructions, be it the siren of a police automobile, chatter of passer-bys or the roaring gunshots proper forward of me. 

This isn’t simply nice for enhancing the immersion of those digital worlds, nevertheless it additionally has a sensible use case. When enjoying multiplayer shooters, I may detect the placement of rival gamers through sound alone. It’s not fairly as correct or outlined as carrying high quality headset, nevertheless it feels much more liberating to learn from 3D audio with out something clogging up my ears. 

The Razer Leviathan V2 Professional labored nice for Horizon Zero Daybreak for probably the most half nevertheless it was on this sport the place I began to recognise the constraints of the 3D know-how.

The Leviathan V2 Professional struggled when tasked with producing a big number of sounds concurrently. Throughout a couple of fight encounters, with the chaotic melody of monster roars, thundering metallic footsteps and the zapping laser beams, the soundbar’s audio turned harsh and unsightly. That’s to be anticipated, as a single soundbar isn’t going to be able to producing so many alternative sounds successfully in comparison with a setup with a number of audio system. 

Because of the nature of the beamforming know-how, it’s not attainable for multiple particular person to learn from the 3D audio impact concurrently. This as soon as once more hammers throughout the purpose that the Razer Leviathan V2 Professional is designed particularly for desktop gaming, and isn’t a good selection for the lounge. 

That stated, Razer does neatly supply up a number of audio modes, one in every of which turns off the 3D results and makes the Leviathan V2 Professional extra like a standard soundbar with room-filling audio. The opposite audio modes embody stereo (finest for music), digital headset (for binaural audio sources) and digital audio system (multi-channel audio sources). 

The 3D button on the highest of the speaker means that you can flick between these totally different audio modes immediately, making it very straightforward to search out the very best profile for every supply. 

This helps the Leviathan V2 Professional shine for content material outdoors of gaming. I watched Spider-Man: Homecoming with the speaker, and located the 3D impact to provide Vulture’s rocket thrusters extra depth, and the motion sequences extra cinematic. Any movie that helps 5.1 encompass sound ought to see a 3D enhancement, and there’s loads of this ilk on Netflix and Disney Plus. 

The 3D audio wasn’t fairly so helpful for music playback through the likes of Spotify, with the 3D impact usually restricted to a stereo format. That stated, it was nonetheless good to expertise the bi-lateral results of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody with out donning a pair of headphones. 

Sound high quality

• Sounds nice for gaming
• Booming bass might be distracting
• Restricted excessive frequency

The 3D audio is undoubtedly the primary cause why you’d contemplate shopping for the Razer Leviathan V2 Professional, however the audio high quality continues to be an essential consideration. I used to be impressed with the efficiency right here, though the bass might be accused of being overimposing. 

The Leviathan V2 Professional performs finest in gaming. There’s lots sufficient element for extra refined sounds such because the crackling of a campfire and rustling of tall grass in Horizon Zero Daybreak. However most spectacular of all was the thwack of the bass, with the booming footsteps of a Tallneck robotic inflicting my room to shudder. 

The roaring judder of a machine gun and thunderous blast of a grenade each sound wonderful when enjoying CyberPunk 2077, whereas dialogue is splendidly detailed so I by no means needed to resort to studying the subtitles. 

Nevertheless, when listening to a wide range of songs on Spotify, it quickly grew to become obvious that there was an imbalance, with the bass typically dominating the forefront. When enjoying Ardour Pit’s Take a Stroll, the bass was so sturdy that it felt as if the monitor was hammering in opposition to my wall, detracting from the vocals and instrumentals. I used to be in a position to tweak the depth of the bass through Razer’s software program on my PC, however the bass remained distracting even when turned all the way down to 0 within the equaliser. 

The Razer Leviathan V2 Professional additionally performs poorly in terms of excessive frequencies. The excessive notes of Olivia Rodrigo’s Vampire sound skinny and subdued, with the piano notes taking a backseat to the beat of the drum. The speaker fails to ship a balanced efficiency, with the identical monitor sounding way more dynamic on my Sonos Beam soundbar. 

There’s rationalization for this too, because the spec sheet suggests there aren’t any tweeters contained in the Razer Leviathan V2 Professional, regardless of that includes within the non-Professional variants. Plainly Razer has been compelled to sacrifice the tweeter drivers to create space for that beamforming know-how. 

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