Sometimes it’s difficult to justify a soundbar over the best computer speakers. They might fit underneath your monitor all snug, but they only blast sound straight ahead, which can be a pain if you fidget in your gaming chair like I do or there’s more than one person sitting at the desk. The Razer Leviathan V2 Pro turns to AI for a solution with the world’s first soundbar that follows your face.
It’s not quite as compact as previous entries in the series being 20% chonkier than the non-Pro version at 600mm long, but you have to make room for the extra circuit boards and IR camera somehow. Using artificial intelligence, the “advanced head tracking” technology redirects the audio depending on where you are, so the sound should always hit that sweet spot. There are a lot of buzzwords to chomp on, from ‘enhanced spatial algorithms’ to ‘3D audio’, but the goal is to fill the room with a bigger soundstage and make you the centre of it no matter where you are.
This is the tip of the iceberg on the software side of things, as you can switch it off if you’re on your own or scroll through different modes depending on what you’re doing. THX Spatial Audio has a virtual headset mode that’s designed to work well with songs, while the virtual speakers option has 5.1 and 7.1 sources for movies.
Hardware-wise, it features five 2-inch drivers and a single 5.25-inch down-firing subwoofer to improve the bass. Between these six speakers, you can get up to 98dB, but we wouldn’t recommend it unless you want to make enemies of your neighbours or send an invitation to your local police.
You can connect almost anything to it via Bluetooth 5.0, the 3.5mm audio out for headphones and headsets, and the USB-C port to connect to your gaming PC. I say ‘almost’ for a reason, though, as there’s no line in for devices like the Razer Mixer. Razer says this design decision is due to intent, as mixers are streaming gadgets and no one wants to listen through speakers while they stream, but this discounts the versatility and multi-purpose nature of PCs – I was personally chatting through a mixer connected to my Creative Sound Blaster Katana V2 during the reveal.
It wouldn’t be Razer without Chroma RGB lighting, and the underside has 30 zones you can customise using Razer Synapse on your gaming PC or through Bluetooth using the Razer Audio app on smartphones. You can also adjust the EQs in either program.
As you can imagine, beamforming technology doesn’t come cheap, with prices starting at $399.99. It’ll be available exclusively on the Razer store in February, 2023, but might come to other vendors shortly after.