This review is of a Razer Leviathan Mini bluetooth speaker which was provided by Razer for review purposes. Reviewed at $179.99 (Amazon US) and £129.95 (Amazon UK).

Bigger is better. Bigger bigger bigger. BIGGER, BETTER, FASTER, HARDER, STRONGER! Go big or go home. The nuances around bigger being better permeate our society.

If you’ve followed some of my musings on the site, you may know I’m a fairly big guy. I’ve moaned about stuff that’s too small several times. Small cars, small cups, small mice, small plane seats. I also dislike small TV’s, small cinema screens and lots of other small stuff. Miniaturisation has done amazing things for technology over the years but the argument has always been that if you wanted the best, you need big.

Bigger GPU chips (GM200 here), bigger core counts (5960X), bigger case (CoolerMaster Cosmos 2), bigger motherboard even (EATX).

But that’s not right, some things got better as they got smaller right? Maybe you remember the huge old Sony Walkman (What’s the plural of a Walkman, Walkmen?) from the early days. What about the massive cell phones on their battery packs? Maybe the big CRT monitors and TV’s, 8 inch floppy disks or computers that took up entire rooms and were less powerful than the phone I had 5 years ago.

So despite the bigger is better adage, there’s clearly a mix. Now for someone like me who has been a bit of an audio geek in my time (although I wouldn’t say an “audiophile” since I was more into multi-channel sound home cinema), up until a few weeks ago I was of the unshakeable conviction that when it came to audio, bigger was better. More components, bigger speakers, more speakers, bigger wattage counts etc etc. If you wanted a better 3D positional audio experience? Absolutely no question, you needed a standard with more channels. We’ve gone from 1 to 2 then 4, 5.1, 7.1 and now you can even get 22.2 channel setups. The more speakers you have, the more you can make it sound like sound is coming from somewhere.

That was until I tried out OSSIC (check out my preview article of them here). Bigger was definitely better for a long time, but the trouble with bigger being better is that you reach a limit in terms of feasibility and cost. At some point in time, you need to work smarter, not harder and that’s what OSSIC did with their HRTF headphones and algos for 3D positional audio. All of a sudden I’m living in my own personal paradigm shift and don’t know what to make of it.

So although every fibre of my (previous) being tells me that the Razer Leviathan Mini is doomed to be an awful sounding piece of rubbish that Razer made the mistake of designing, building and slapping their logo on to, part of me is questioning whether it may actually be…

Just possibly…

Good?

Let’s find out.

Sound and Hearing Introduction

The Leviathan Mini has a pretty standard frequency response range covering from 50 Hz to 20 kHz. Most standard audio products concentrate on the 20 Hz to 20 kHz range as this is generally accepted as the average range of hearing that most humans have although this varies from person to person. Additionally, the range tends to start wider and reduce as we age. What you may see advertised as “high definition audio” is sound that will often include frequencies outside of the standard 20 – 20 range.

In ideal conditions, the range can increase, but being reasonable, very rarely will most of us use our audio gear in what could be considered “ideal conditions” (think commercial recording studios, sound testing labs etc).

Much of the “high definition audio” equipment which you’ll see advertised with ranges from single digit Hz to 40+ kHz (100 kHz for the $55,000 priced Sennheiser Orpheus headphones!) are all well and good, but generally you’ll find most companies tend to at a minimum split their focus from providing higher ranges to increasing the quality of the range that most people can hear.

Couple all of this with the fact that I still know a lot of people who listen to mp3’s on their phones with the phone supplied earbuds rather than any of the lossless audio formats and you may be wondering what the point of this high range equipment is.

On the off chance that you’re not aware of how much you lose in the conversion to mp3, I encourage you to go and check out this link:

http://theghostinthemp3.com

where you can hear a recording of the sound lost from the original test control song in the development of the mp3 standard. Hint, you lose a surprising amount of sound.

Back to the Leviathan Mini.

In the Box

Opening up Razer’s typically good packaging we find:

• The Leviathan Mini itself.
• Carrying pouch.
• Documentation/stickers.
• 2.5 A plug with US, EU and UK plug adaptors.
• USB to micro USB cable.
• 3.5mm jack cable.

Everything is nicely packed and it will be easy to put everything back in its original place which for some reason I like, despite the fact that I almost never do it. Pulling the Leviathan Mini itself out of the box I’m relatively surprised by the heft the little guy has. It’s not heavy, but for its size I expect it to weigh less than the 1.2 lbs or 550 g it is.

Other important specs:

• 54mm (L) x 185mm (W) x 55mm (H).
• It’s got a 2600 mAH rechargeable battery with a claimed life of up to 10 hours.
• Power is rated at 24W driven by two 12W neodymium 45mm magnets.
• Impedance is a miniscule 4 ohms.

There is also an omnidirectional microphone on top of the Leviathan Mini for taking calls as it’s obviously likely you’ll use this thing with your phone. It supports audio input over Bluetooth 4 with aptX which Razer claims gives “impressive CD-like audio quality”. We’ll have to see about that.

The impression out of the box is of a cleanly designed and nice looking piece. The volume and multi-function buttons on top look well placed and the Razer logo on the front is unobtrusive.

Turn it around and on the two ends are a couple of extra things. A small NFC logo on the left side while the right side has the power/bluetooth buttons, auxiliary input and micro USB slot to charge it with. The back is a clean grille, like the front but without the Razer logo.

The Leviathan Mini In Action

I’ll dive into my audio testing songs in a minute but first just want to see how easy it is to set this thing up. Powering up the Leviathan Mini by holding down the power button for a few seconds and it makes a whooshing noise to let you know it’s on. I turn on bluetooth on my phone and it can instantly see the Mini. It pairs up without a code. This is a first time setup thing, subsequent pairings will need to be done by holding down the bluetooth button for a few seconds (bleeping confirm sound when available and again when paired). Putting some music on at random and the initial results aren’t bad.

First review point to note, I’m surprised but this tiny thing actually has some bass in it. On with the proper review.

I use a standard control set for testing audio equipment. Although the Leviathan Mini is clearly aimed at gamers (it’s a Razer after all!) the likelihood of using this to game with I suspect is pretty low so I’ll stick to the standard audio samples I use.

Audio Test

First up is Tchaikovsky’s Symphony #6, Allegro Molto Vivace (opening few minutes of the third movement) as recreated by Herbert Von Karajan conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in 1964. This very quick, delicate and precise instrumental section I’ve found over the years has had the ability to show the muddiness and lack of precision of quite a few sets of expensive headphones and speakers.

The slightly bass heavy equipment which I tend to prefer often gets shown up when listening to this piece because it tends to lack the precision needed to give a decent rendition of the sound.

First surprise of the review, the Leviathan Mini actually sounds pretty good here and I’d expected it to fall over. Hard. Precision is reasonable and the quick and delicate instrumental piece starts the Razer speaker off on a decent footing. As the piece progresses, the bass drum accompaniment comes in and slightly overwhelms the rest of the more delicate instruments a bit. Looks like Razer have tried to tune this thing to be slightly heavy on the bass which is unsurprising to some extent given the target market for Razer products.

Next on the sample list is Eddie Van Halen’s Eruption. This ode to the electric guitar is also quite a precise piece but requires a very different poise from audio gear than the first selection. The minimalist drum intro followed by Eddie letting rip on the Frankenstrat culminates in about one and three quarter minutes of pure rock guitar nirvana.

The Leviathan Mini is really starting to find its feet here. Although precision is required to really enjoy Eddie’s guitar solo, bass is also needed to really feel the strings and vibration when EVH rests on a thick string. The Razer is improving my impression of it and I have to listen to the song several times as I just find myself enjoying it rather than listening to it critically which is a good sign. It’s starting to sound impressive and I’m enjoying it. It helps that I love the tune and I crank up the volume. The buttons on top of the Mini give a click and the speaker plays a blip which increases and decreases in volume as you turn it up and down.

First real surprise of the review. The Mini can actually get loud! And still sound good! That’s impressive in a speaker this size. The kids wander in to find out what’s going on and it’s at this point I realise I’ve never played Eruption to them. What a terrible father I am! I tell them to sit down and restart the song while they sit there looking bemused. Once it’s finished, the older one wisely mouths some nice platitudes at me before they make good their escape.

I try the song one final time (it’s a short song after all!) to see how loud it can go. I get to a decent volume before the quality starts to drop and a touch of distortion seeps in. Certainly enough to use outside and hear well with some background noise and then a good bit more than that.

Now an absolute personal favourite. Pink Floyd’s Echoes from their Meddle album is an amazing piece. At just over 23 and a half minutes, it’s the kind of song that just doesn’t get made anymore and it’s also one of the longer songs I regularly listen to, plus it has the added bonus of being one of the few songs where the winamp visualiser really makes sense. It’s a great song for testing audio equipment through several different kinds of music. Usually, it gives me a great excuse to put on the headphones and tune out the wife and kids for a while (shhh, don’t tell!), but today I’m testing a speaker not headphones. Time to weird the family out…

The opening pings haunt as ever. I’m sitting back in the chair and having a listen. Awesome. I’ll never grow tired of this song and you know what? The Leviathan Mini is handling it well too. Everything, is going wonderfully, until I open my eyes and see my wife eyeing me oddly. “What are you listening to?” I get asked. This is why I use headphones in the house…

But back to the speaker. The Leviathan Mini is once again a good performer, pumping out a surprising amount of bass given its small stature and decent mids and highs. The sound is certainly good and above average compared to many other portable speakers I’ve heard and better than some that are larger too.

Overall, the Razer beats expectations in the sound test. Expectations were low, but that’s not to say that the speaker is mediocre. It genuinely sounds good (but not exceptional). Keep in mind this is all over bluetooth audio which will also be a factor to sound, as ultimately will the size of the package.

Battery Life

So the Leviathan Mini has a claimed battery life of up to 10 hours. Here we go, the inevitable “up to”. Up to for me usually signifies lab conditions with optimal battery saving usage not representative of the real world.

Much like a Volkswagen taking an emissions test, the likelihood of this thing ever actually reaching the claimed numbers in a real world environment are, if not zero then extremely close to it. Pretty sure that they would have tested this with the Mini being still plugged in while they powered it on so the whooshing “power up” noise wouldn’t drain the battery, then plugged in the audio source via the 3.5mm input so it wouldn’t use too much power on the bluetooth radio, set it on the minimum volume where you could still hear something and hit play the instant they pulled the plug out (while being in a temperature controlled room of course to make sure the batteries weren’t adversely affected) and managed to eke out 10 hours 1 second with a brand new battery.

I’ve fully charged the Leviathan Mini and am going to do a proper rundown test, using it like it’s meant to be used. I turn it on and the bluetooth connects. It’s 12:20 pm, time to put the entire music collection on random and see how long it lasts. I turn the volume up to a decent level, not too loud, but loud enough that I can hear it well walking around a couple of rooms. I figure if I get 8 hours out of it, I’ll be reasonably satisfied.

8 hours later and the speaker is still going strong. I check the user manual. Apparently the power button is also a power indicator. Green for ok, amber for getting low and blinking red for critical. Surely it’ll be changing to amber any moment now.

Any moment now… come on you bloody thing, change. I have to get up earlier than normal for a breakfast meeting at work tomorrow and I wanted to get an early night…

It’s going to do it isn’t it, the Leviathan Mini is going to last ten hours. The kids have gone to bed and I told them to shut their doors so the noise doesn’t disturb them (I’m not turning the volume down! This is a test!).
Just short of ten hours later, the light changes to amber. Ahhh, at last. 10:15pm. Not bad, I can still get a decent bit of sleep. Now that it’s dying, surely it’ll die quick. Right?

RIGHT?!?!?!

But there the amber light stays. Merrily glowing away and not being red and blinking. This isn’t right.
A little over another hour and a half later, the power button starts blinking red. It keeps playing for another ten minutes before shutting itself down.

11 hours and 40 minutes! It’s midnight! I need to get up for work in 5 hours!

Still, despite the late hour, it’s yet another impressive turn from the Leviathan Mini.

NFC

Besides the battery test, the Leviathan Mini has a few other points of note. The NFC functions as you’d expect it to. Tap your NFC enabled phone or device to the left side of the speaker and it immediately pairs the bluetooth connection.

Another significant point of note here is that, like most other portable battery devices these days, the battery looks unserviceable. Or at least not designed to be user serviceable. I’m sure the guys at ifixit would be able to do a decent teardown and rate it, but that’s beyond the scope of what I’m doing here.

Calls

Taking calls on the Leviathan Mini is a breeze. If your phone rings, it fades out the music and you answer using the multi-function button on the top. The sound comes through clearly and the people at the other end of the few calls I took while doing the endurance test said that my voice came through clear and without issues.

Dual Leviathan Mini's

Last point to make here which I wasn't able to test. The Leviathan Mini can pair with another Leviathan Mini with each one acting as an independent channel for a wider stereo soundstage. It's an interesting notion and makes me wonder if they are trying to sow the seeds of a preliminary attack on Sonos or perhaps in the future to allow for some surround sound 5 speaker wireless setup for gaming/watching tv with. Who knows what the future holds.

Conclusion

So wrapping up, there are a few points to note. Is it an audiophile grade piece of hardware? Absolutely not. Is it a great sounding, portable, battery powered, bluetooth speaker? Absolutely. The battery life is excellent, the size is ridiculously small, particularly given the sound it puts out, the total package is generally very good, oh and yes, it sounds great too.

There is of course the small matter of the elephant in the room. This is getting compared to my wife’s Bose SoundLink portable bluetooth speaker. Whether you personally like Bose or not (many don’t), it’s likely they make one of, if not the most popular bluetooth portable speaker series in the SoundLinks. This comes at a cost though, both in terms of money and size. The current version of the Bose weighs more than double the Razer (1.37kg) and is substantially larger, as well as being almost double the price of the Razer in the UK ($300 Amazon US, £250 Amazon UK). Add in to that the fact that it lacks a microphone and personally, I’d go with the Razer. Overall I’d say that the Bose usually sounds slightly better than the Razer, although its bass is even more overpowering and in tracks which need precision (like the first sample I tested) it sounds worse.

Some people will buy the Bose for the name, the better quality they think it represents, the image, they may like the sound more etc. But personally I think they'd be doing themselves a disservice not to try the Razer. They'd be surprised, I know I was.

So, once again I find myself being surprised and impressed at what can be delivered in a small package. It doesn’t have the most features (some are “splash proof” or can charge your phone), but it has the features you need, expect, and are likely to use in it all the time. It does what it aims to do very well (create decent big sound and let you enjoy your music), even more so considering the size of the package it comes in. Is it going to set a stadium alight? Of course not. Is it a very small and great sounding portable bluetooth speaker to have outside at the barbecue? Entirely.

Reviewed at $179.99 (Amazon US) and £129.95 (Amazon UK).

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