The Razer Leviathan V2 Soundbar Impressions
I’ve been gaming with headsets for at least the past decade. I’ve got a decent, albeit old, surround sound system, but I rarely turn it on. I’ve truly become a headset guy who loves to crank the volume without annoying the entire house. When the opportunity surfaced to check out Razer’s new Leviathan V2 soundbar for PC gaming, I jumped at the chance. There was no way the Leviathan could beat the audio experience you get from a pair of headphones, right? Wrong!
I was dead wrong. This soundbar kicks ass. It booms, fills the room, blasts clear rich sounds, and exceeded all my expectations.
Granted, it’s not all rainbows and unicorns for Razer’s slick new soundbar. While the price of $249.99usd (at the time of writing) is reasonable, it won’t work with most TVs. Well, it didn’t work on any of my household 1080 and 4K tubes. The lack of an optical and 3.5mm input is a bummer. While you do get some flexibility with a low latency Bluetooth connection, this isn’t exactly a versatile soundbar.
That being said, Razer’s Leviathan does exactly what it promises, by delivering incredible sound for PC gaming. You can connect to your Nintendo Switch via Bluetooth, but I don’t imagine many will be picking up the soundbar for use with their Switch. Make no mistake, the Leviathan was built for PC gaming, but I have been using it to listen to music and YouTube videos, so it is useful outside of PC gaming.
Out of the box, the setup and connectivity is smooth. Within a matter of minutes, I had the subwoofer and speaker hooked up. The soundbar is connected to my PC via USB audio output and the subwoofer is plugged right into the soundbar. It would have been nice if the subwoofer was wireless, but at that price point, I fully expected a wire connection. No surprises here.
The compact soundbar fits nicely on my desk, without any clutter. Once I downloaded Razer Synapse software for my PC, and the Razer audio and the Chroma RGB apps, I was ready to go.
The 2 full-range drivers, 2 tweeters, 2 passive radiators, and a down-firing subwoofer deliver fabulous clear sounds. The audio is crisp, with clear treble, rich lows, and the bass packs a punch. While I love the bass, I do wish I could adjust the bass on the actual subwoofer itself. Instead, you have to tinker with the audio settings on the app or software. Not that I really needed to tinker all that much at all.
That booming bass is thanks in large part to the THX Spatial Audio support, activated via Razer Synapse. It delivers amazing rich sound and the clarity is something that really impressed me. When playing shooters, explosions came alive and you could hear enemy footsteps as they approached. It makes the games feel much more immersive and alive.
The customizable RGB lighting on the bar itself looks pretty sweet. It’s not over the top or tacky at all. It is subtle and didn’t distract me while gaming. The lights are located just below the soundbar and I was able to control the lights with not only Synapse but the Chroma RGB app via Bluetooth connectivity. If you love customizing that RGB lighting, Razer’s got you covered.
The build quality is equally stellar. The soundbar and subwoofer maintain that level of superb-looking tech we’ve come to expect from Razer. They look amazing on my desk, especially lit up. The soundbar is shorter than other soundbars I’ve used over the years, but it’s thicker. The subwoofer is a cube shape and sits firmly on my floor.
A neat little feature is that I could angle the soundbar by replacing the rubber feet so that it angles more towards my head. It makes a difference and just makes you feel that much more in the game.
Razer Leviathan V2 soundbar shattered all my expectations. While the lack of 3.5mm and Optical inputs limits your ability to use it with most TVs, the Leviathan V2 is about as good as it gets for PC gamers looking for that 7.1 surround sound experience out of a box. It’s a sexy little speaker system equipped with the slick RGB lighting that’ll leave PC gamers grinning. For the price, it’s an audio experience you won’t be disappointed with.
***The product was provided to COGconnected for the purpose of this article***