Razer thought this was a good idea??
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,815 words · ~9 min read
0:00
believe me when i say i've seen a lot of stupid products from ones that obviously
0:05
can't live up to their lofty claims to ones that are just plain bad ideas to
0:10
begin with and most of the time i don't even bother trying this stuff out but
0:15
when a company with as much clout as razer brings a new headset to market
0:21
one that claims to vibrate your head
0:25
with intelligent haptic technology
0:29
well there's just no way that i can not try
0:33
it but here's the most surprising thing of all these
0:37
might somehow even at two hundred dollars be
0:42
worth a fair shake
0:54
mack weldon wants you to be more comfortable so if you don't love your
0:57
first pair of underwear you can keep it and get a full refund with their try on
1:01
guarantee use code tech tips and get 20 off at the link below
1:06
when razer's nari ultimate headset arrived i was pretty skeptical actually
1:11
i was skeptical before it arrived i mean first i disagreed with their premise
1:16
that sound is just as important to sight
1:19
when you're in game it is possible to play csgo without
1:24
sound it is not possible to play without
1:27
a monitor then i mean i wasn't sure that i even
1:31
wanted a rumble pack strapped to my head and besides i mean technically speaking
1:36
don't all headphones vibrate isn't that
1:39
just how speakers work
1:42
okay so the difference here is that on top of having regular 50 millimeter
1:48
dynamic drivers which do in fact vibrate to make sound the nari ultimates are
1:53
also outfitted with a pair one in each
1:56
cup of l5 haptic drivers from lowfelt
2:00
who you may remember from such memorable products as the baselit wearable
2:05
subwoofer like speakers the haptic drivers
2:08
articulate according to the signal coming over the speaker cable but unlike
2:13
speakers which move a diaphragm to create sound energy these use actuators
2:18
that move back and forth turning electrical energy into mechanical energy
2:23
okay that's pretty similar but it's like bigger so
2:27
yes it is kind of like a rumble pack on your head but it's a very different kind
2:33
of rumble than what you get from a controller so unlike a controller rumble
2:38
which has only very coarse control like
2:42
that the developer actually has to specifically program into their game
2:46
like well you crash into a wall
2:49
the nari ultimates implementation requires no software support at all and
2:54
responds in real time over a frequency range of 20 to 200 hertz which actually
3:01
conveniently overlaps with the headphone driver's own frequency response so in
3:06
other words the headphones are not relying on the haptic drivers for the
3:12
user's low frequency sensation they're just
3:15
augmenting it with them so
3:19
how does it sound or feel
3:23
well depending on the application these can actually have a surprisingly
3:28
impactful pardon the pun positive effect that is similar to the
3:32
sensation of standing near a kick drum or next to a large floor standing
3:37
speaker at a concert and feeling the air move over you in time with the music as
3:42
you listen obviously it doesn't move over you but the point is you can feel it so we
3:47
tested the nari ultimates with games music and movies and the main takeaway
3:52
for those of you who won't make it any further into the video than this is that
3:56
if the content has consistent low tones
3:59
explosions gunfire pounding bass
4:03
these will make the content more engrossing
4:07
and immersive so you can actually use razer's synapse
4:10
software to not just toggle the haptics which razer is branding as hyper sense
4:16
on and off but also adjust the intensity
4:19
through a nine step range in shooter games which are probably the
4:23
best use of these puppies so far james had hyper sense cranked up to 10
4:28
loving every second of it as for me i preferred more in the range of eight but
4:33
i still had it cranked up pretty high and it's honestly it's really cool
4:37
weapons feel more physical like more powerful and more immediate explosions
4:43
feel way more epic and like i didn't like i put them on and i was like yeah
4:48
my head's vibrating but i didn't realize
4:51
how much cooler it was until i switched the haptics off and
4:56
heard how utterly neutered the games felt without it like like it was like
5:00
kind of sad similarly hypersense adds a lot of
5:04
impact to action scenes in movies or just about any movie trailer
5:08
in the world there were however lots of times during
5:13
our testing when hypersense was either ineffectual or
5:17
downright distracting it adds almost nothing for example to starcraft 2 where
5:22
battles are more intermittent and not all of the units make noises that have
5:27
low tones and in movies or youtube videos it can end up registering false
5:32
positives while men are talking this is a regular drill and then the other two
5:36
are impacts okay just compensating
5:40
or from sounds like footsteps resulting in just kind of an annoying muddy rumble
5:46
as for music i never thought i'd hear myself say this
5:49
about a razer audio product sarcasm detected but music is the experience
5:54
that is the least consistent across the board for the nari ultimates
5:58
if you're into classical the haptics are seldom used if at all and then with
6:03
metal the low tones are often so complex
6:06
and intermittent that hypersense is distracting and then even with genres
6:11
where it definitely enhances things like hip-hop and electronic music the effect
6:16
can vary so much between songs that within a single playlist you'll probably
6:21
find yourself wanting to go back to synapse to tweak the knobs far more
6:26
often than you'd like an opportunity that you'll only have by
6:29
the way if you happen to be using them on a pc because while your profile is
6:36
saved on device and while the nari ultimates with their 2.4 gigahertz
6:40
dongle and included combo cable do work both wirelessly and with a wire pc
6:45
playstation nintendo switch and more you can only adjust hyper sense using
6:52
the desktop software so you're going to have to set it and
6:56
forget it something that's easy to deal with if you just play games
7:00
but less easy to deal with if you expect to use your nari ultimates for listening
7:05
to music or listening to music while you play games while you're out and about
7:10
with your phone for example so we think most console or mobile
7:15
gamers will end up having to choose between setting high percents lower and
7:20
having a more subtle effect than they'd like or setting it too high and
7:24
sometimes having to deal with too strong an effect and this is a problem that
7:28
could have been easily avoided if they had just put a hypersense control wheel
7:32
right on the device but they didn't which is a total drag for console gamers
7:38
and a shame because otherwise the industrial design and controls are
7:41
pretty good so the nari ultimates use a self-adjusting suspension style design
7:46
with big swiveling ear cups that are comfortable over long periods the plush
7:50
leather ear cushions are infused with this cooling gel that's supposed to keep
7:53
them cool and they have cutouts to make them more comfortable to wear with
7:56
glasses though in our experience each of these features only
8:00
kind of works the mic which is flexible and retracts
8:04
into the ear cup is serviceable but not fantastic though i am a fan of the
8:09
helpful yet non-intrusive red light that indicates it's been muted which brings
8:13
us to the onboard buttons so you can mute the mic with a button on the back
8:17
of the ear cup where you will also find wheels for volume as well as game versus
8:21
voice level adjustment you'll find a handy slot to keep the dongle and a
8:26
micro usb port really you guys
8:29
that's pretty weak especially since using hypersense and razer chroma RGB
8:34
can train the battery in about eight to ten hours and making matters worse it
8:38
takes quite a while to charge up enough that the vibrating feature can be
8:42
activated again for 200 a fast charging usb type-c port that
8:47
lets me spend more time using these wireless headphones as wireless
8:52
headphones doesn't seem unreasonable
8:55
so are they worth the money
8:59
well it's complicated for the right person the hyper sense
9:03
haptic feedback which i was certain was going to be a silly stupid
9:07
gimmick that no one could possibly want is absolutely worth the extra 50 bucks
9:13
over the nari non-ultimate which are the same headset but without high percentage
9:18
as for whether the regular nari is worth 150 dollars
9:21
well that's a little tougher because you can get much better sound for the same price
9:27
and probably with better less plasticky overall build quality so that makes it
9:32
really hard for me to recommend these
9:35
but then they're also an utterly unique gaming experience that is worth trying
9:40
for yourself something that can't be said about a lot of these kind of
9:46
feature gaming peripherals so
9:49
good work razer i guess
9:53
is there someone in your life who asks questions like how do refrigerators work
9:57
or how do i solve this puzzle or maybe even what is quantum computing if so i've got
10:03
just the thing for you you can spread the love of science to your loved ones
10:06
by gifting them brilliant it's really cool because it's such a fun way to
10:10
nurture curiosity build confidence and develop problem-solving skills that are
10:14
crucial to school job interviews their career basically
10:18
just life brilliant thought-provoking content
10:21
breaks up complexities into bite-sized understandable chunks that can lead them
10:25
from curiosity to mastery and the first 200 people that go to brilliant.org
10:31
Linus tech tips we're going to have that linked below are going to get 20 off
10:34
their annual subscription for themselves or as a gift to help a loved one finish
10:40
their day a little bit smarter than they started
10:43
so thanks for watching guys if you dislike this video you can hit that button but if you liked it hit like get
10:46
subscribed or maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description
10:50
also down there is our merch store which has cool shirts like this one and our community forum which you should totally
10:54
join you should go join it you should go join the forum