Razer, WHY are you like this??? - Razer Barracuda Pro
ShortCircuit
·ShortCircuit
·2023-05-05
·
2,300 words · ~11 min read
0:00
Ooh, a Barracuda.
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No, no, no, no, no, no.
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Razer's back with another one
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of their hostile fish headphones.
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This time it's named Barracuda.
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I do have history with Razer.
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I bought their 7.1 Megalodon headset
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that used military grade sound simulation
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to get 7.1 surround sound.
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And it blew 14 year old me's noggin.
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Let's look at the box for a second.
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So one thing that I've always found
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kind of funny about Razer
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is that they've always seemed like a marketing company
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that decided to make technology,
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which is why like every single thing they have
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is just like, it's branded to the tits.
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Like we have THX, Achromatic Audio Amplifier.
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We have Razer Triforce BioCellulose 50 millimeter drivers.
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Triforce?
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Razer Smart Switch Dual Wireless.
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So basically what Smart Switch Dual Wireless is,
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is that you should be able to switch
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between 2.4 gigahertz,
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two gigahertz or Bluetooth.
1:00
That's cool.
1:01
It just doesn't need a brand name.
1:03
You know, it just,
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it doesn't have to be called Razer TM Smart Switch.
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Just call it Smart Switching or whatever.
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So this is the flagship
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of Razer's whole Barracuda family refresh.
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They have the Barracuda X,
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which is the lowest tier at 100 US.
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Barracuda at 160.
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It's weird to have Barracuda X be cheaper, but whatever.
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And then the Barracuda Pros all the way up at 250 big ones,
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which,
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I know you're pushing into some pretty ambitious territory
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at that price.
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They do have hybrid ANC,
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which is good because I feel like if you're going,
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if you're a wireless headphone
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and you're anywhere in the $200 range and you don't,
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even probably $150 range are up and you don't have ANC,
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it's unacceptable now because like you just should have it.
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It's kind of not that hard to do.
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It's not, it's hard to do really well,
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but it's an easy feature to add.
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I like the classy presentation though.
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One thing that's kind of a disappointment
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is that this is a, this is big.
2:00
Here's my laptop.
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I know, but the banana is a less useful.
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Can I?
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Whoa!
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What the?
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So for context, in your backpack full of bananas,
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it's going to take up a lot of space from your bananas
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because that's three and then like we're too tall.
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So that's one, two, three, that's two,
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that's six whole bananas worth of volume.
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That's insane.
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Lttstore.com.
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In here we have a USB to a, USB-A to USB-C,
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a graded cable with cable tie.
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What's the point of these?
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I hate this.
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I hate this.
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Oh, I just get tired of this.
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They sell them with like graphics cards and HDMI cables.
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Maybe they're really, really helpful for shipping.
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I find them annoying.
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This is another extension cable for USB-A.
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Quite a lot of reach, but that's great.
2:50
Yeah, because if you're going to use these
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plugged in with your computer,
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this might not be quite long enough
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if you're trying to reach all the way around
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to the back of it.
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This probably will be.
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That's everything that's in here.
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Ooh, there's a little, there's a little guy.
3:01
Oh, this is there.
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Wireless USB-C adapter.
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You can use this with your Android phone.
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This would be for when you're using the smart switch.
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So instead of using Bluetooth,
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you can use their smart switch
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to use their high speed 2.4 gigahertz connection.
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So like what you-
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Or on your laptop.
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Or on your laptop, or on your PlayStation.
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PC PlayStation, it says.
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It says right there.
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What about Xbox?
3:24
Ah, get Xbox.
3:27
So here are the headphones.
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I like the way they look.
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I know Razer's known for being
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pretty gaudy and very aggressive with their branding.
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These are pretty subdued.
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I do actually like the green accents.
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Build quality is, it is all plastic.
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It's neither here nor there when it comes to headphones.
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You can get more expensive headphones
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that are also all plastic.
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You can get cheaper headphones with metal.
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We got our power button.
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This is like a volume control wheel.
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We have our mute switch for the microphone.
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Is there no boom microphone with this?
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I guess not, we didn't see one.
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And then this is, I believe their smart switch button,
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which is on the left ear cup.
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These, are these on?
4:08
Oh, now they're on.
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They weren't on.
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So they actually have really good ceiling.
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I took them off thinking that maybe the ANC was on,
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but these actually have a really good seal.
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I can barely hear anything.
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This headband doesn't, it seems a little,
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the curve's a little harsh.
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It felt a little weird on the top of my head.
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Sometimes I was just getting used to stuff.
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These are very soft in their leatherette.
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These aren't, they're fake leather.
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They're pleather and memory foam.
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It's a lot of empty space.
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It's pretty soft memory foam.
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I'm not very impressed so far for $250.
4:39
Let's power these on.
4:40
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4:41
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4:43
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4:59
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5:01
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5:09
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5:12
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5:16
Let's connect it.
5:17
This is the worst.
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Do you see why?
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Look at my choice.
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You're blocking other ports.
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Yeah, that sucks.
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You could use yet another dongle
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or you would just use this, I guess.
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But like, it's nice having your adapter,
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but sometimes, you know, you go and you're like,
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you're in between a game.
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You just got downed and you go,
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oh, you know what?
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I'd like a little sneaky snack.
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And you just get up and leave your headphones on
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so you haven't missed anything.
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It's sticky, sometimes you get hungry playing your games.
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So these have hybrid ANC,
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which use both feed forward and feed back ANC.
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Basically it listens to both the,
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what you're hearing on the outside,
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as well as what it's hearing on the inside
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to get a more accurate representation of the audio
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that's surrounding you.
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This is the same kind of tech that Apple uses in AirPods Pros.
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And it's kind of the gold standard for ANC at the moment.
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So they have three modes.
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They have ANC off, ambient, which is a listen through mode,
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and they have ANC on.
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I appreciate that because ANC can shift the sound
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of what you're listening to.
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And I don't wanna have to choose between ambient mode
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and ANC, like some headphones do that.
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I just, sometimes I just want the ANC off.
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So press to turn, you just press this button on the right,
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the quick switch button to turn it on and off.
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That sounds really,
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bad.
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That sounds really atrocious.
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I'm gonna turn the ANC off.
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Literally the ANC just killed it.
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The ANC just like made it sound just so much worse.
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It's literally,
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it's literally canceling out its own bass response.
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Like it's like the ANC just makes it sound like a tinny mess.
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It sounds like you're listening to like a phone speaker.
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Yeah, so that's good to know
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that the feed forward is working.
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It's just blocking off my, the sound I want to hear.
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I, okay, I can't be dunking on them too hard
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because I do have to,
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have to download their software
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to assess anything that they make.
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Oh, and if you couldn't,
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if you couldn't tell that I wasn't stoked
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about having to use software,
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I'm not stoked about having to use software.
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Oh, this is so annoying because what you do is that
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they give you a list of like,
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here's all the things you can download
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or to install from the Synapse software.
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There's five things.
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And if you don't select one of the things,
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an ad pops up asking you to install it.
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I don't want game booster, system booster and game rewards.
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I don't want Razer Cortex.
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I want Synapse and THX.
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I want THX spatial audio.
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Razer, Razer, what are you doing?
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The issue is that they try hard at the wrong things.
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They try really hard to maintain this great image.
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And then they have mediocre software,
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annoying implementation, lackluster hardware.
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And like, they still haven't really resolved their issues
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with reliability and longevity on their peripherals.
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It sucks because I think that what Razer does
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a lot of the time is cool,
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but it feels like they just do it
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to put another label on the box.
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It's taking a really, really long time to download.
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Oh, it's updating the headset.
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Yeah, so we spent about 15 minutes just waiting around
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for the headphones to update.
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And it said, factory reset, powered off.
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And now it's telling me to unplug
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and then replug the wireless dongle.
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But here's what doesn't make sense.
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Why did I waste all that time waiting
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for it to wirelessly transmit when I have a cable?
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This is USB-C and for the headphones.
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It could have happened so much faster.
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My dongle's been updated.
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Oh, we're still installing Razer Synapse.
8:41
Still installing Razer Synapse.
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We're only at the top.
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We're only at 20%.
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Oh!
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Wait, only 20%?
8:47
We updated the headphones.
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They couldn't do it at the same time?
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No, of course not.
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It's Razer.
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It's not supposed to be good.
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It's supposed to be cool.
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We'll see if the update's fixed any of those ANC issues
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I said where it was canceling out its own audio.
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It seems like the AC sounds a little bit less aggressive
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and is having less of an effect on my music.
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Yeah, so either the update fixed the problem
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because the ANC is not cutting out the bottom end
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nearly as badly.
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I do kind of want to just like traffic noises
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because I want to get some better
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because it's kind of quiet down here.
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I want to get some better semblance of how good the ANC is.
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And so we're just going to blast traffic noise.
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Ambient is working as intended.
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Let's go to ANC.
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It's not amazing.
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It's not incredible, but it's not terrible either.
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When you have the music playing,
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it cancels out noise well enough.
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Sign in with my Razer ID.
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Could I just end this painful existence instead?
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I have to log in to use THX Spatial.
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Razer, it's so frustrating.
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It doesn't, I don't need an account
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to use headphones with my computer.
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Stop telling me to sign up for stuff.
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Hello there, you're currently using a guest account
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where all settings are anonymous to us
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by using our software.
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Yeah, that's the point.
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This is the fifth time they've asked me
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to log into my account
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and I'm just trying to open the software.
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Just waiting for DM Eternal to load up.
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Again, the ANC, I don't know.
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It is through this wireless thing.
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The ANC is like, maybe it's something that can be fixed
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in Windows, maybe it's another setting,
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but the fact that it's like a gaming headset
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is having such a profoundly bad experience
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on a PC platform is really disappointing.
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I play with a pair of AKG K7XXs,
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which are open-backed headphones
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that have a really, really good soundstage.
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These are not doing anything special to me.
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Doom has a pretty decent audio engine,
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like for spatial audio.
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I usually like testing it with stuff like Left 4 Dead
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because I always loved the positional audio in that game.
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It's not special.
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These aren't special.
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Razer has done it again.
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They've released a product
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that's too expensive and pretty bad.
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Razer, I wanted to love you.
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I continue to want to love you,
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but you continue to be,
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yeah, you continue to be you.
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Like, if they don't start focusing
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on delivering quality products,
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then I do think that they're actually
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just gonna fall out of favor
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and no one's gonna ever care about them.
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If you're spending $250 on headphones,
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you deserve better than this.
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Don't buy these.
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Thanks for watching this video.
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If you're thinking, hey,
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I want some mediocre sound quality.
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Well, how about you save your money
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and spend 1 6th the price
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on like some Nord Buds or something.
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You can check out my coverage of the OnePlus Nord Buds
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just down here-ish in the video ending boxes.
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The ShortCircuit box, yeah.