- Excellent sturdy Build quality
- Crystal clear sound with some great base
- Powerful.
- Superb carrying case
Cons:
FULL REVIEW
The saying “all good things come in small packages” normally runs out the room screaming and promptly jumps off the balcony when dealing with portable speakers. The term “great sound quality” follows suit, and hot on it’s heels are a lot of discarded AAA batteries. Enter the Razer Ferox, to save the party, primed and ready to boogie bringing along with it a large bottle of “extremely sexy” and a pack of “game changing”.
Razer is a name generally synonymous with cutting edge gaming peripherals, mostly named after an assorted menagerie of serpentes and squamates. Nevertheless, they do make some of the most criminally cool looking products that gamers swear by. Razer is known for outlandish designs, phenomenal ergonomics and long lasting build quality, which is absent in most products. Now they’re throwing their scaley glove across the smug faces of Phillips, Bose and other high-end portable speaker manufacturers with the Razer Ferox.
It’s easy to second guess and overlook the Ferox’s packaging on store shelves, on account of the small packaging. Yet, that small box houses one of the best portable speakers in the market today. Neatly packed in the box are the speaker units which are essentially just cylinders and tucked alongside is a really good quality carrying case with the assorted wires a bunch of Razer logo stickers and the manuals.
At first glance both cylinders look, well, simple, but so was the monolith from 2010 a Space Odyssey. Each cylinder are broad at the base, and narrowing towards the top. The outside plastics are smooth and feels tough, there is certain reassuring weight to the cylinders. There’s not even a hit of cheap plastic anywhere. Each of the satellites are small enough to fit into the palm of your hand, and yet the tech inside is quite astounding. The Ferox’s are packing a 360 degree omnidirectional speaker array, with a 30mm neodymium magnets capable of producing a 150 to 20 khz sound. Under that is a rechargeable battery, that can be charged through USB.
The wiring setup is simple and won’t take more than a few seconds to link it up. The cable to the speakers contain your output 35mm jack, and a USB for charging. Once setup, tap the top of the cylinders and the top extends revealing the speaker mesh, all very sci-fi. This also acts as a power switch, which is indicated by a blue ring of light at the base. Again, orgasmically sci-fi looking, like one of those plasma grenades.
Now, here's where the 360 degree omnidirectional sound comes in the picture. While most speakers point in the direction of the person, so that the output is directed in that direction. In terms of most portable speakers, whose applications are mostly for the person on the go. What happens in situations where the music has to be heard by many people. Let’s say watching a movie with a few friends, or sharing a video presentation. What about those people out of the cone of output of normal speakers. In which case you have to point both satellites in different directions to disperse the sound. In the case of the Ferox’s speakers, it pumps out sound in all directions evenly dispersing output everywhere. So, the sound is heard by all present, and yet you get the benefits of dual channel audio.
360 degree omnidirectional sound is as good as a blade of grass in a stampede of elephants, if the sound quality isn't good. Fortunately for the Ferox, the sound quality is quite excellent. Capable of producing some very crisp, toned, undigital like treble and mids, making movie dialogues, musical lyrics really pop out. The bass is a bit lacking and sort of distresses when playing loud hiphop music with deep beats. The way the cylinders handle the bass is that it tosses it around in the resonance chamber in the center, then regurgitates it out in whooses of sound, which sort of a mini subwoofer speaker. Which allows the Ferox’s to attain higher volumes without much cracking. However as the volume increases, the base remains unshattered, but the treble sort of soars to a scream. So if you want to go to higher volumes, lowering the treble is advised, as the base remains a constant. Movies sound great, a bit flat at the whooshes and crashes. However, the debris tinkling after an explosion, and the little nuances, come through with ear pleasing beauty. Especially when you see the size of the source of the sound.
The Ferox, gave us a constant playing battery life of between 11-12 hours roughly. Which is excellent - on standby the battery life just goes on. It makes this a perfect pair of speakers to carry with you anywhere. The carry bag that Razer gives you free is smaller than most bathroom cases you pack along, and its got proper protection on the insides in case you drop the case. Both cylinders can fit snug into the housings and there’s a place for your wiring.
The Ferox is the perfect speaker system to take while you travel. Excellent form factor, sound as well as the no nonsense, business like styling. The major gripe is possibly the Rs,3999 price point, which is tad on the expensive side. Especially since the original US price is around 60$, so possibly after tax etc. would come to still less than whats the asking price. Again, it’s a minor gripe when you consider the build quality, size and the state-of-the-art tech that’s packed into this. The Ferox is definitely, highly recommended.
