These aren't smart™ speakers but they are SMART speakers.
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Settling on the score is always the hardest part of writing a review, for me. In my NZXT Relay review earlier this year, (spoiler alert) I gave the speaker set a 75, as you pretty much have to buy all the extra accessories for the thing to work properly. However, with the whole set, this has become my daily audio driver and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
With the NZXT Relay, you are effectively buying into an audio ecosystem. If you are big into mobile phones, there’s a good chance this phrase has set off alarm bells but it’s not as restrictive as that may lead you to believe.
Starting out with the Relay speakers, they are a compact set of 80-watt desktop speakers that can easily fit onto a table. Their relatively small stature belies a strong mid and high sound, though it lacks in bass.
Having tested out a much more competent set in my Kanto Ora reference speakers review, the Relay feels comparatively lacking in the low end. By themselves, they are a passable way to listen to games and music, though nothing special.
It’s when you start adding accessories that this audio beast truly comes to life. The NZXT SwitchMix is a dedicated headset stand with a sound mixer. You pop any set on there (though the Relay headset suits the aesthetic) and you can change the mix between game sound and game chat with just a quick flick of the mixer.
Next to that is a wheel that can be turned up and down to change volume, or pressed down to mute the whole thing. However, it’s the pressure plate at the very top that makes this thing sing.
When you pop a pair of headphones on top of the SwitchMix, the sound automatically goes to the set of speakers. Take it off and they are in the headphones now. This means you can swap from listening to music on the speakers to talking to your friends on the headset in about as quick as it takes you to grab the thing.
The swap is nearly instantaneous and the only thing you will ever find yourself waiting for is the speakers to wake up if they haven’t been active in a while.
The Relay headset is cheap and cheerful, but fits the look and comes with standard physical controls on the aux cable to easily customize your sound while playing games. It’s nothing special but, luckily, if your current gaming headset has a 3.5 mm headphone jack, you can plug that into the stand instead and it will work just fine.
Finally, finishing off the full NZXT set is the subwoofer. This is almost as necessary of an accessory as the SwitchMix, due to the lack of bass from the central speakers. It adds that much-needed low-end to everything that makes the sound much fuller.
It’s not a hugely bassy subwoofer, though, and won’t rumble the floor like the subwoofer found in the Razer Nommo V2 Pro. However, it’s just the right amount to add some depth to a battlefield as your soldier’s legs carry you across or the rumble of a car engine flying above you in Rocket League.
I did notice a little bit of fiddliness at one point with this set, where I had to unplug it and plug it back in again to work as intended, but that’s only popped up one time in nine months and could be down to user error in some form.
I’ve tested better speakers this year in a technical sense but what made me settle on the NZXT, other than the convenience of leaving them on my desk, is that everything about it just works so well. Setting up with a coffee in the morning and playing some songs has never quite been as easy as this, and being able to quickly swap to the headphones for a Discord call or a check-in from my partner is just the cherry on top. There are better dedicated gaming speakers but these are an everyday set in the truest sense, offering a decently dynamic set of cans and speakers for games, and a laid-back ecosystem for very casual use.
The SwitchMix felt like a gimmick on first use but that’s because of how easy it all is and how much it wows people when I show them. However, with time, my view has shifted from thinking it’s a gimmick to an out-and-out selling point. Just pick it all up in a set to get the most out of it.
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