FEBRUARY 2019 PCWorld 17in keeping with that spirit Razer might
be the company to deliver us from our
rumble-less prison. Well, Razer and a
gaggle of partners, including Lofelt
and Subpac.
SHAKING IT UP
We already got a glimpse of Razer’s
rumbling future late last year, with the
Nari Ultimate headset (go.pcworld.
com/nrul). I admit, I expected the Nari
Ultimate to feel like a gimmick. It’s a
headset that literally vibrates your skull
in time with the low-frequency effects,
which sounds...well, really dumb.
And yet it works. Listening to music,
the Nari Ultimate will pulse insistently in time
with the kick drum, rumble along with a synth,
bounce to the bass guitar. Gaming, you might
get a crunch driving through a wall in Forza
Horizon 4, or a sharp blast from a grenade
going off in Battlefield V. Like controller
rumble, it quickly fades from gimmick to
background feedback, an effect you notice as
soon as it disappears.
What makes it work? What elevates it
above other, similar attempts at haptic-
enabled headsets? Precision, mostly.
Designed by Lofelt, the Nari Ultimate’s haptic
effects are more nuanced than the crude on/
off rumble of old. Called “HyperSense,” the
haptics operate across the entire 20Hz to
200Hz low-end range, and also process
sounds in stereo.
That means you get layers of feedback.
The music I mentioned above? You don’t just
feel the kick drum, synth, or bass guitar in
isolation. You feel all three at the same time.
Perhaps the bass guitar throbs from your right
side, the synth from the left, and the kick
drum is an additive force on both sides.
Playing Battlefield, a tank moving left to right
moves in sync with the Nari Ultimate’s haptics,
while every explosion or stray bullet thud gets
an accompanying, shorter shake.
It’s one of the most advanced consumer-
ready haptics implementations I’ve ever
played around with—and now it’s looking
like just a proof-of-concept for Razer’s
greater ambitions.
At CES, Razer showed off an entire haptic-
enabled suite (go.pcworld.com/hptc) of PC