14 DAY TRIAL // Razer Nari Ultimate is a step on the evolutionary ladder of headphones, and I can only hope that it’s going to catch on. The potential is there and anyone who uses this headset, at least once, will understand why haptic feedback is something we need.
Innovation for headphones usually means adding some light effects, increasing the fidelity of the drivers, or making a slightly better noise canceling feature. Most of the time, people want comfortable headphones and decent sound quality.
Very few customers are audiophiles and can tell the difference between two different high-end headphones. I can only tell when headphones cover the bass frequencies adequately, but that’s pretty much it.
The idea is that the space for innovation for this type of hardware is narrow, and it would be challenging to bring something to the table that’s radically different from everything else. But this is exactly what the Razer Nari Ultimate is doing. It’s shaking up the market in a meaningful way.
We also have to keep in mind that the Razer Nari Ultimate is designed for gamers. That’s a little bit limiting if you’re not a gamer but still want to take advantage of this cool new technology.
Design and ergonomics
The first thing that people will notice is the size of the headphones, but the big size is not a disadvantage, in this case at least. It’s not the kind of headset you take with you on the subway, even though you could, in theory.
Razer Nari Ultimate is clearly designed for people playing on the PC. And I’m not even including consoles in this category because connecting to anything else than the PC will leave users with a pair of regular headphones. The Nari needs the accompanying software to work at its full potential.
The large size will accommodate all types of ears, and that’s one of the main concerns. For the haptic feedback to work suitably, the cushions need to encompass the ear entirely. And the cushions themselves are tall enough to guarantee that the ear doesn’t touch the drivers.
If you add the size of the cushions and of the driver housing itself, you end up with a rather large set of surprisingly light headphones. The increased size doesn’t translate into weight, and that’s always good news.
The adjustable headband is also welcome and seems to do the work just nicely. I never felt any discomfort, even after wearing the headset for an extended time.
Usage and other options
Let’s get one thing out of the way, the haptic feedback. Let’s be real, that’s the main reason why someone would spend 200$ on headphones. Right out the game, I’m saying that it’s very difficult to describe the feeling.
Ever since the Razer Nari Ultimate was announced, I was a skeptic. I figured that something vibrating on your head would be annoying, to say the least. But I am glad that I was wrong.
The effect of the haptic feedback is more than just a simple vibration, and the brain is really good at integrating the new feeling into the overall experience. There is no period of accommodation, and you don’t have to get used to it. The vibration just works, right from the start.
Basically, the Razer Nari Ultimate responds to low-frequency sounds, like the engine of a car or shooting a weapon in a game. It’s adjustable to be more powerful or even turned off, which I imagine that it’s an excellent way to save some battery life.
The feedback is controlled through Razer Synapse, which means that the full functions can only be used on PC when you can plug in the wireless dongle. Synapse does offer a large selection of options, including bass boost.
The Synapse also allows users to select between stereo mode and surround sound. You would think that emulating seven different directions with just two drivers is difficult, but it works beautifully. Users can also enable THX Spatial Audio and choose various presets from Equalizer. Usually, the equalizer is not all that relevant, but it’s very useful with this headset.
Synapse is also needed to control the microphone and its various functions, not to mention it's necessary for the Chroma effects that are available on pretty much all of the Razer products, in one form or another. But since people can’t see their headsets, it stands to reason that they are not going to be overly interested in this particular trait.
Moving on to the Razer Nari Ultimate themselves, you’ll notice the retractable microphone and a bunch of controls on the left side. There’s a 3.5mm jack, a micro USB port for charging, the power and sync button, the volume for Game and Chat, and the microphone mute button.
The right side only has a generic volume wheel and the slot for the wireless dongle. There’s pretty much everything except one button that apparently didn’t fit. Cutting the haptic feedback can be done from Synapse, but it would have been nice to have a hardware button as well.
As for the sound, as I was saying before, this is built for gamers. The size is an indication, but the haptic feedback works best in games. The 50mm drivers, with Neodymium magnets, are the same as the regular Nari iteration, but Lofelt L5 Haptic drivers double them. Coupled with the Razer Hypersense, which provides an accurate location for the sound, the package is complete.
The Good
The large cushion size is also a plus, which means that it can accommodate large ears and large heads, such as my own. The low weight complements the setup. If we add the Chroma effects, then the picture is complete.
Lastly, the battery life if more than decent. Razer says that a full charge should last for about eight hours, with Hypersense and Chroma activated, and about 20 hours without them. Fortunately, the headset can be charged while in use.
The Bad
Let’s start with the smallest problems. First of all, the microphone stinks, and that has nothing to do with the quality of the recorded sound. It literally smells of burned plastic or something close to that. I’m sure the smell is going to subside in time, but it’s still annoying.
Secondly, the overall build quality could have been a little bit better. The headset is fine, but the buttons, and especially the volume control, feels cheap to the touch.
Which takes me to the biggest problem I had with the Razer Nari Ultimate. It took me quite a while to make them work. For some strange reason, Synapse wouldn’t start. Razer says to remove the dongle from the USB and start Synapse without it. That allowed me to start the app, but adding the dongle back didn’t do anything. The Razer Nari Ultimate didn’t show up in Synapse.
I tried everything, and in the end, I did something out of desperation, following a piece of unlikely advice from YouTube. I started the uninstall process for the Razer package, but I hit repair instead. After this process ended, the application worked like a charm. My guess is that I shouldn’t have installed the application with the dongle plugged in.
Conclusion
I know that the Razer Nari Ultimate is not perfect, and I’m sure that people want a certain quality when they spend 200$. But none of the problems I found are deal-breakers, especially when you balance the quality of the haptic feedback with the rest. The Razer Nari Ultimate is really good, and I’m sure that the next iteration is going to be even better.
