Posted in: Games, Review, Technology, Video Games | Tagged: Nommo Chroma, Razer, Review, speakers

Getting Some Color in My Sound: We Review the Razer Nommo Chroma

Razer has gone out of their way to make a series of products that basically illuminate your entire desktop setup based on whatever game you may be playing at the time. Headphones, gaming mice, keyboards, even a mouse pad. This time around we're trying out the Razer Nommo Chroma. But how well do they actually hold up as gaming speakers beyond the flash and flare of programmable lighting? We hooked it up and gave them a proper test with several games from our Steam library.

The speakers themselves are pretty simplistic in their design. One side serves as the primary source for the power, transferring audio, and being an input/output source. The other side simply has one input to get audio and power from the other side. You have a built-in USB that connects to your PC and works with Razer's Synapse software that allows you to command the color design. Beyond that, the system comes with a 3.5mm jack so you can connect another device as you see fit for an input on the AUX port, and there's a headphone port as well. While the speakers themselves look relatively big (about the size of a police officer's radar gun) they've been made to make every option available to you without a ton of wiring and hookups.

The audio to the speakers was great, and they both pack a bit of a punch when you turn them on. The right speaker also comes with two dials to adjust the bass, which does get pretty intense, as well as the overall volume control that you can monitor how high it is with the light at the base of the speaker. As we were going through every game, the audio sounded crisp and clear, unless we really wanted to crank the bass up and get our desk rumbling. The downside to this is that the sound is concentrated between the two, so surround sound doesn't come off the way you would hope it could.

As to the lighting aspect, there's bonuses and minuses to these speakers. The bonuses are that they interact with the rest of your Chroma gear however you set everything up. So if you have a passion for the color yellow, you can fine-tune them with the Synapse software to match up with the rest of your gear. The minuses to this are that it's basically just mood lighting. A couple of the newer models of speakers from other companies we've recently reviewed in the past include the ability to interact with the game, while these don't. It's just lighting, not interactive lighting.

Overall, I enjoyed the Nommo Chroma a lot for what it had to offer in audio, but not so much in the lighting. When it comes right down to it, they don't illuminate that much. I actually got more light out of Razer's recent mouse mat than I did out of these speakers. These are basically for people who love Razer's Chroma series and want the speakers to match up with the rest of their gear. The going price for these right now is $150, which is about $50 more than the previous model, so you are taking a hike in price for the lights. If you're a Razer addict, this is probably your style.

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