The new Razer Leviathan V2 Pro soundbar was just announced at CES 2023, promising an AI-powered head-tracking beamforming audio solution for the desktop. It all sounds pretty techno-forward, but thankfully I’ve had the chance to try it out at home over the past few weeks to see if it’s the real deal.
In case you didn’t know, beamforming is pointing a signal at something to improve its strength and quality. Beamforming has many uses when it comes to wireless signals, not just audio, and that’s what Razer is using in the new Leviathan V2 Pro. It transmits audio signals directly to the user’s ears via network computing.
To do this, the Leviathan V2 Pro comes with a small infrared sensor array in the center of the unit. This data is fired through neural network processors to sense where you are, and more specifically where your ears are, to better create spatial audio. That data is “destroyed immediately” and never transferred to your PC or the cloud. Razer says so (opens in new tab).
The soundbar contains five 2-inch speakers, operated with different interference patterns to keep users in the audio sweet spot, and there’s a subwoofer that plugs into the back and rests on the floor.
So is this worth it? I’ll be writing a full review of this product soon, but I was pretty impressed with how seamlessly the audio shifts as you move your head around your desk. , the voice will be directed at you. If you move left, the voice will fire at you. If you move right, the audio will shoot at you.
you get the idea.
Onboard has several modes that work best in different scenarios. THX Spatial Virtual Headset and THX Spatial Audio Virtual Speakers.
I really like the THX Spatial Virtual Headset mode for listening to music. It offers the aforementioned beamforming effect, but mostly for his 2:1 listening experience in simple stereo.
However, virtual speakers are a little more complicated as they attempt to replicate a surround sound speaker setup without the hardware. I’m usually pretty skeptical about this kind of functionality. Because I don’t think the loss in audio quality is worth the positional audio gain, but I have to admit that Leviathan’s virtual speakers are pretty impressive. I ran it and the stereo audio was much louder than the standard stereo output. The quality loss isn’t bad either, but the rear is a bit smaller left to right. You definitely don’t want to listen to music with this mode enabled, but I’ve found this useful in gaming.
First impressions were quite good.I thought you’d blow me away $400 (opens in new tab)That’s $150 more than the Razer Leviathan V2. (opens in new tab) We reviewed earlier this year, not to mention a pair of regular computer speakers (opens in new tab)This leads me to my biggest concern so far. It’s a neat feature, but not absolutely necessary.
I’d like to do some more testing with this soundbar before I draw any conclusions. looking forward to.
