Posted in: Games, Review, Technology, Video Games | Tagged: audiobar, AverMedia, GS333, GS335, subwoofer

What's That Rumbling? We Review AVerMedia's Sonicblast Soundbar & Subwoofer

AVerMedia have put together some products to sell during the holiday season with the hope of making your gaming experience much more fulfilling. The company was kind enough to send us a couple of products for review that are meant to be paired together from their Sonicblast series, with the GS333 Gaming Soundbar and the GS335 Wireless Subwoofer.

Starting with the Gaming Soundbar, this little unit is 26" wide and stands 3" tall and 3" depth. The tech has been boiled down to be as simplistic as they could make it with a single 3.5 jack line in, a red/white audio hookup, an optical line, and a USB port. All of which are designed so that you could theoretically hook up four devices at once if you truly wanted to, along with a Bluetooth option. Depending on the mode you've selected, there's a single glowing light on the front of the panel to indicate what's currently playing. The system also comes with a remote that allows you to control the source's audio, bass, make it optimal for movies, music, or games, and mute audio altogether.

The primary speakers sit along the bar with a pair of subwoofer drivers on the base to give whatever you're listening to an extra little kick. I found that depending on what you put on this system, everything has a different reaction that you need to compensate for. I can't go from playing a game to watching a movie without going to the remote and changing the settings, which is kind of an annoyance. Once you make the changes the audio sounds absolutely fine, but it seems like that is a transition that could be made with memory settings from system to system rather than resetting each time you change.

As for the Wireless Subwoofer, this guy is kind of interesting. He is wireless, but you can only pair him with one of the Soundbars made by AVerMedia. It even says so in the instructions that it was made exclusively for three specific products, so if you're looking to purchase this separately for whatever audio you already have, it won't work without one of those bars. The subwoofer stands about 14" tall and 9" around. Once you pair it to the bar, it will interact with whatever audio is playing and act accordingly to provide that extra bit of rumble to your setup. The only main issue I had with this is that sometimes it doesn't go loud enough. I tried to come close to popping the speakers on it and it just wouldn't budge beyond a certain point. Which is cool in one respect that it is protected from being blown out, but on the other front, it means the audio is capped and won't break a certain point if you like it loud.

The two of these together did quite well when I hooked them up to my television and my computer. The pairing seemed flawless and I didn't have any major issues hooking anything I owned up to the soundbar. That being said, I would recommend this more for gaming use above everyday use. Depending on what I played, my music didn't come in any clearer than other systems I own, and movies and TV shows on Blu-ray and streaming services didn't really change that much either. I heard the difference in my PS4 and Nintendo Switch, as well as my Steam library. Get it if you want to enhance your gaming, but don't be surprised if it doesn't add much else to the rest of your media.

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