Razer’s first-ever IEM earphones have landed. The company promises all-day comfort, alongside a dual-driver design. After weeks of testing, we have finally made our minds up on this pricey pair of buds.
The Razer Moray is the company’s first attempt at creating an IEM for the gaming audience. While IEMs have steadily been crashing in price thanks to the meteoric rise of “Chi-Fi” solutions which boast great drivers at a pocketable price point, Razer has clearly identified a gap in the market. The fruit of their efforts is the Razer Moray. After having used the pair of earbuds for several weeks, I’m finally ready to lay down the verdict.
Bear in mind, IEMs are wired, meaning that it’s best suited for working at your desk or gaming laptop, or while using a converter for your phone. Smartphones should really have headphone jacks, but I digress.
Key specs
- Connectivity: 3.5mm
- Frequency response: 20Hz – 2kHz
- Features: THX certification
- Price: $129.99
- In the box: Earbuds, detachable 3.5mm cable, spare eartips
Design
The Razer Moray might be a unique-looking pair of earbuds if you have never heard or understood what an IEM is. these “In Ear Monitors” boast slightly more fidelity than your usual earbud, and are most often wired, with sound quality prioritized over convenience. So, yes, there are wires, which are attached via a gold-plated quick disconnection system.
Once you get these off, you’re left with an ergonomically-designed black plastic shell, and the eartips, where you can select either foam or rubber. I personally preferred the foam tips here, as they make for a great seal. There’s not much to talk about, aside from the glossy plastic present on the earbuds, which makes them a smudge magnet.
This aside, the Razer Moray’s included cable is perfectly shaped to fit around your ear with a rigid portion, and then your usual looser rubber slightly further down. It’s all nice and feels incredibly well-built, as well as being comfortable.
When sliding the Morays into your ears, it feels like a genuine pleasure. For too long have I dealt with weirdly pointed stems or a convoluted ear molding process. These just worked, right out of the box, and might just be one of the most comfortable pairs of earbuds I’ve ever used. The foam ear tips feel great, and even taking them on a ten-hour flight, the audio device I reached for was the Razer Moray over the Beats Studio Buds Plus, since you can wear them for so long, and almost forget that they’re there.
Thanks to an included travel bag and carabiner, the IEMs quickly became a travel staple. You never need to charge them, they always work, and while they do not have any active noise cancellation, the ear tips do a great job of blocking out unwanted noises.
Sound Quality
The Razer Moray’s sound signature is fairly odd, especially if you are used to the bass-heavy tuning of most modern earbuds. The Moray has slashed the highs, deepened its mids, and has a respectable low end. But, the result is somewhat muddy.
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Listening to music isn’t the first thing we would do on these, as plenty of buds offer a more balanced or optimized EQ for what you’re looking for. Instead, Razer has attempted to make the Moray as inoffensive as possible, and by doing so, the sound quality is mostly fine, it’s the tuning of the drivers here that seems to be the issue.
Razer claims that this is the most comfortable earbud in the world, and the sound signature will be fine for most people looking to use them in their streaming setups, or in casual use. But, we wouldn’t necessarily say they are any good for listening to music, watching movies, or playing games. Even when traipsing around The Forgotten Realms in Baldurs Gate 3, or as a monitor for our condenser mic, it just sounds bang-average at best, and that’s a bit of a shame.
Should you buy it?
The Razer Moray is confounding. We love every single bit of its design, and it lives up to the claims of the earbud being one of the most comfortable earbuds around. But, at $129.99, we fail to see why someone would choose to pick up Razer’s option over something like a Moondrop Aria, which offers similar specifications, at a much lower price.
The Verdict: 3/5
The Razer Moray became indispensable for me during travel, but its sound quality is nothing to shout about. When comparing it to others in its segment, the Morays are just $50 too expensive to recommend to most people, despite how light and comfortable the well-crafted buds are.
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