Belly up to the sound bar

The Leviathan from Razer is a compact sound-bar system that really produces a big sound and floor-shaking bass.

It’s so compact that you can place it on your desk between your computer keyboard and monitor to play games in 5.1 immersive virtual surround.

Or you can put it under your mounted LCD TV to enjoy watching movies with the same surround-sound environment.

The hardware is a 2.1 system that uses Dolby Virtual Speakers technology to deliver 5.1 virtual surround sound. It kicks out 30 watts (15x2 RMS watts) and the passive subwoofer adds 30 watts of RMS.

The sound bar is made of four expertly tuned drivers to deliver clear highs and middles – two 2.5-inch full-range drivers and two 0.74-inch tweeter drivers. You have impedance of eight ohms and a support frequency range of 180Hz to 20KHz.

The subwoofer responsible for the deep bass comprises a 5.25-inch full-range driver with eight ohms impedance and frequency response from 20Hz to 180Hz.

The Leviathan is ready for a Bluetooth connection, optical input and 3.5mm stereo input, so it can be used for music and movies as well as games. The latter two channels are in the back.

Unfortunately there’s no remote control or any phone app to use with it. You need to press buttons on the top panel and read the LED display on the panel to check the current status. But the buttons are straightforward – power, volume, input selection, Bluetooth pairing, Dolby processing toggle switch and equaliser pre-sets. There are three pre-set equaliser settings – games, music and movies.

NFC technology assists Bluetooth link-ups without having to search for Bluetooth manually. I tested the Leviathan with my Samsung Galaxy S3 phone and the NFC established the link with the sound bar.

The Leviathan can only be connected to one BT device at a time, but it stores profiles of up to four devices and reconnects automatically to the last playback device used.

I ran some music through my Bluetooth-linked smartphone and it got really loud, deluging a pretty big living room. The bass was deep and powerful enough for rock music. The bass drum on AC/DC’s latest album, “Rock or Bust”, shook the floor.

I also linked to my TrueVisions HD satellite receiver using an optical cable and watched movies on the HD channels like HBO HD. I activated the Dolby Digital sound option on the receiver for the sound bar to decode and that went smoothly. The dialogue was loud and clear and front sound effects were great.

I didn’t feel the sound enveloping me, apparently because the room was too large. If you sit near the bar or use it in a small room, the immersive sound effect can be achieved. That said, any explosion going off in your action movie is likely to feel like the real thing.

The Razer Leviathan has a suggested retail price of Bt8,190.

 

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