Razer Leviathan 5.1 Speaker Review
Overview
As some of you may know one of my favourite products to review here at pcG is Headsets, and that’s because I’ve always been interesting in Audio and I’m (I guess!) an aspiring audiophile. But today I’m not looking at another headset, I’m looking and for the first time, at PC Speakers! And not any old speaker setup either but one created from the masters of the Gaming peripheral, Razer.
This then is the Razer Leviathan
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‘The Razer Leviathan 5.1 Channel Surround Sound Bar easily fits under any desktop monitor or living room console setup. Versatile enough to be repositioned constantly in any situation, this sound bar features cutting-edge Dolby® technology, superior sound drivers, and a dedicated subwoofer, projecting rich sounds that recreate epic in-game battle scenes or just streaming your favorite tunes from your smartphone.’ |
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The Razer Leviathan comes in a large (and heavy) cardboard box, with a rather useful carry handle on the top. On the front of the box we can see a large image of the sound-bar and the subwoofer accompanied by the following highlighted features:
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The left side of the box details the package contents as well as the Leviathan’s technical specifications (see Specifications/Features below) and hardware requirements.
The right side of the box has the statement ‘One Sound Bar to Rule Them All’ along with a nice exploded technical drawing of the sound-bar. There’s also a few images depicting the Leviathan’s main uses: GAMING, MOVIES & MUSIC.
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On opening the large box we are presented by a document promoting ‘The Cult of Razer’ and signed (not personally) by Min-Liang Tan (Co-Founder, CEO and Creative Director).
Delving deeper into this box of tricks we can see that the Leviathan is well packaged and nicely presented. In the top of the box there’s the sound-bar at the back covered by an installation guide and at the front there’s another box of accessories. Beneath this we find the main subwoofer unit itself, big isn’t it! 😉
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Once out of the box we can see that we have three main components; the subwoofer unit, the sound-bar (nicely protected by its fabric sleeve) and a small box of accessories. Within the accessories box we find an Important Product Information Guide, optional feet for the sound-bar, mains plug and the obligatory Razer stickers.
At the time of review the Razer Leviathan is retailing for approximately £170 on Amazon
Specifications/Features
courtesy of Razer
FEATURES
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SOUND BAR SPECIFICATIONS |
SUBWOOFER SPECIFICATIONS
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CONNECTION METHODS
* Additional details available here
First Impressions
First impressions are something along the lines wow and damn that sub looks cool. All of the components also feature that high level of build quality and design that so many of Razer’s products exude. I rather like the simplicity of the whole thing too, there’s only two main components and there’s not even too much wiring (always a blessing). Let’s take a tour now, starting with that sound-bar first.
With the cover’s off (so to speak), we get to lake a look at the Leviathan’s sound-bar for the first time, and on face value it’s a simple yet elegant deign. The bar is approximately (as it’s difficult to measure as it’s all angular!) 50cm long, 6.5cm deep and 9.5cm high (without feet, 11.5cm with). It houses four Drivers in total; two Full Range 63mm Drivers, left and right of centre and two 19mm Tweeter Drivers (far left & right) giving a Frequency Response 180Hz – 20KHz. The overall output of the sound-bar is rated at 30W (15W x 2RMS). In the centre of the sound-bar there’s a silver Razer logo, that (somewhat disappointingly) doesn’t illuminate…
Centrally, at the top front edge of the sound-bar wind find the main power button and a set of controls comprising of seven buttons. The main power button lights green (obviously) when powered on and hidden beneath the black plastic are various green indicators allowing you so see the Leviathan’s current settings. These illuminate for around five seconds an then go out leaving just the power indicator on when in use. The controls from left to right are: Source (Optical/Aux/Bluetooth), Bluetooth, Dolby Surround (On/Off), Mute, Mode (Gaming/Music/Movie) and finally volume controls. At the top right of the bar there’s a ‘Tap Here’ sticker, using this (simply touch the area with your device) you can connect to the Leviathan via NFC.
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Looking at the back of the Razer Leviathan’s sound-bar we can see that the bar can be wall mounted, courtesy of the two screw mounts on the side. In the centre we have the main product details label, below which is the sound-bar’s main I/O panel.
The panel comprises of (left to right); sub output, power input, optical input, auxiliary input and finally a service blanking plate.
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Looking at the underside of the Leviathan’s sound-bar we can see very little other then the two holes/sockets on the left and right. These allow you to fit the optional feet that are also supplied. There are three options, short one at a 15 degree angle for general use or the larger ones that can be used either at 18 degrees for PC or at zero degrees for Console/TV use.
These feet are just a push fit and are very tight, once in position they are even more difficult to get back out (so choose wisely!). As you can see from the images below I have fitted the 18 degree ones for desktop PC use.
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Now we turn our attention to that black monolithic subwoofer, and damn good it look too! From the outside (so to speak!) there’s not much to talk about other than the sub’s physical dimensions are as follows (25.5cm(W) x 23cm(H) x 25.5cm(D)).
Flipping the sub upside down so we can take a look at the base (or is that bass! 😉 ) allows us to see a little more; what we can see is the passive, downward firing 5.25″/133mm Driver and its associated bass port to the right. The subwoofer has a Frequency Response of 20Hz – 180Hz and a total power output of 30W RMS. Also in each corner we have a nice rubber tipped foot raising the sub off of the surface by approximately 20mm. Also notice the attached 2m cable that connects directly to the back of the Leviathan’s sound-bar. What is a little disappointing (Razer) is that this cable is a custom cable with a custom plug, meaning that you’re not going to be able to extend it should you need to!
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Overall everything that I have seen so far looks very good and the Razer Leviathan is already promising much. Let’s get it hooked up and see what it sounds like shall we…
Hardware Installation
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Connecting up the Leviathan to your PC is simple enough, but first you have to decide whether you’re going to supply your input via Analogue (Aux) or via Optical (SPDIF). As our test sound card (Creative Sound Blaster Zx
Once this has been done simply connect the power to the back of the sound-bar (DC IN), connect the 1.5m Optical cable to the back of the sound bar (OPTICAL IN), and connect up to your PC. Finally connect the subwoofer’s attached cable to the back of the sound-bar (SUB OUT), BUT, be careful as the connector seems to fit either way and it shouldn’t! Looking at the back of the sound-bar connect the plug with the silver clip facing down, otherwise you may end up damaging the clip…
GAMES/BENCHMARKS USED IN TESTING:
- Survarium (BETA)
- Dying Light
- Battlefield 4
- StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty
- Metro Last Light (benchmark)
- Unigine Heaven (benchmark)
- Unigine Valley (benchmark)
Hardware Performance
As I know from testing a lot of headsets over the years gone by that testing audio (of any nature) is a very subjective matter, but what we have hear (haha!) is what I think about the sound and audio quality of the Razer Leviathan while Gaming.
With the Leviathan fired up I was at first a little disappointed as there were no illuminating green Razer logos anywhere! After the initial disappiontment wore off (after about 5 seconds!) I set the Window’s Control Panel Sound output to the Sound Blaster’s SPDIF-Out setting, set the Leviathan’s Input to Optical (Opt), set the Mode to Game (noticing that Dolby 5.1 Surround was automatically turned on) and I dialled in 50% volume. I was now ready to Game! 🙂
The first Game I tried was Survarium (BETA) (now in open Beta BTW), at first I found that everything sounded pretty much as I expected with general sound quality being good, with a undertone of bass. But the volume was a little low, and I wanted more! I dialled the volume up on the Leviathan’s sound-bar and now the Game really started to come to life! Overall sound seemed much improved, with the virtual surround actually providing good direction (it’s great to have that sound right in front of you, not literally but physically!). Gunfire was elevated to a whole new level, in fact for one of the first times ever gunfire was actually a little scary! It would appear then that the Leviathan like to be driven hard…
After a quick 15 minute round of Survarium I was keen to sample more and a Game that I’ve not played in a while started to call my name, that Game was Battlefield 4. Surely after 2 years of fixing the game it should play well by now! The good news is that it does, but I digress; the better news is that via the Razer Leviathan it sounds bloody (sorry felt the need to swear!) awesome! If you want immersion then the Leviathan is where it’s at, at one point when a large explosion went off close to my position I found myself blown into my neighbours garden! Seriously it doesn’t get any more immersive than that! 😉
Trying to be sensible for a moment though (but still with a huge grin on my face), there’s no doubt that the Razer Leviathan is one of those feel good products. Just crank it up (Game, Movie or Music) and you will smile! And after you’re smiled for a while you’ll probably realise that your ears are bleeding and or the walls of the house are crumbling! Hold on I was trying to be serious, sorry…
The bass produced by that passive, downward firing 5.25″ subwoofer is staggering and yes it is a bit overpowering but this is Gaming not Mozart! And to be fair the sound-bar copes well, helped by the fact it’s right in front of you of course. The 4 Drivers (x2 full range and x2 tweeters), deliver good accurate, crisp sound although some of that crispness is lost in the Dolby surround mode. Stereo imaging is also helped by the location of the sound-bar and the positioning of the tweeters at either side, providing good positional (left/right) awareness in FPS.
There’s plenty of volume on offer too (jokes about bleeding ears and crumbling walls you may take with a pinch…), but seriously guys this thing is LOUD! But of course that’s not the be all and end all of audio (although it helps!), the overall package is impressive; awesome bass, good midrange and great highs, wrapped up in a well built, good looking package, that’s truly designed with Gaming in mind. My hat’s off to you Razer, I wasn’t expecting it to be this good…
Final Thoughts
With my serious head on, I’d say buy the Razer Leviathan
The Razer Leviathan came to pcG in a large heavy box, with the contents within well packaged and nicely presented. On opening the box we find the sound-bar hidden away in a fabric bag while the monolithic subwoofer nestles in the bottom of the box. Once out of the box it was easy to warm to the Leviathan’s simplistic, yet elegant looks. Both of the main items also appear to be extremely well made and of a high quality, as one has come to expect from Razer.
Setting up the Razer Leviathan was simple enough with just a power cable, subwoofer cable (be careful when fitting, see main review) and a source cable (Analogue or Optical) to plugin. Here at pcG we opted to pair the Leviathan with a Creative Sound Blaster Zx
WOW! I was thinking the Leviathan was likely to be good and kick ass, so to speak, but I wasn’t quite prepared to be blown into another room! Yes the bass is that good, in fact it might be too good (don’t be silly James you can never have too much bass!). That downward firing 5.25″ sub really can deliver and luckily the sound-bar can too! With the sound-bar under the monitor it really adds to the immersion in game, you feel like your being shot as you want to dodge those bullets right in front of you, with the added thud of the sub, Games like Battlefield 4 and to a lesser extent Survarium begin to feel far more really, and dare I say a little scarier too!
Overall the sound produced by the Razer Levaithan is amazing, it may not be the best when it comes to precise control and or the best audio signature, but it sure as hell can deliver in Game. Razer states on the box ‘ONE SOUND BAR TO RULE THEM ALL’, and they may well be right.
The only issue with the Leviathan is likely to become the neighbours, this assumes that your playing alone of course, as cranking this setup up, not only puts you right in the zone, it’s likely to do the same to anyone else in the vicinity! And of course the price (at £170 at the time of review) is not cheap, but to be honest I just don’t care; I want one and you’ll want one too! Trust me… 😉
Verdict
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Where possible we always use Amazon’s price for Value… |
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Many thanks to Razer for providing this sample for review
