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Thanks to Creative for sending in the Sound Blaster Roar for review. Right out of the box the quality of construction is evident. The feel of the buttons and switches is top notch, it should provide years of trouble free use. It is easy to pair it to your bluetooth compatible phone and get your tunes cranking on the Roar. If you don’t want to play music through your phone you can select one of the many other methods of playback. Pop in a micro SD card with some music will allow you to keep it standalone and play all of your favorite music. If you have a device that just has a headphone jack out like an old iPod that will work using the Aux in jack. The micro USB port can be used to play music from your computer.
The system has 3 active drivers, one is a long through woofer for surprisingly deep base. There are also 2 forward facing speakers for right and left audio, 2 additional passive radiating drivers fire music out of the side grills.
If you have a cell phone that needs a quick charge you can plug it into the full size USB port. The port has a 1 amp rating so it will also charge most tablets.
Need a conference room speaker? The Roar actually does a good job of transmitting the sound from your cell phone to the speaker and transmits the room audio using the built in room mic. The system is obviously doing a good job of canceling out the sound that it is producing in this mode since there is no feedback.
If you are feeling a bit uneasy in your surroundings you can arm the alarm and press the siren button to grab the attention of everyone around.
The Good
- Great sound quality and bass
- Build quality is fantastic
- Feel of the controls is very good
- Battery life is good at around 8 hours
- Good range on the built in bluetooth receiver
- Built in NFC for easy paring with new devices
- Flexible methods of music connectivity
- Conference room speakerphone that works well
- Aux USB charging capability
- Easy to switch privacy modes to share access to the device
The Bad
- The rear controls are cumbersome to access without flipping the device on end, this could scratch the front of the system
- Although the micro SD card allows tons of music storage capability it is not possible to select a playlist or specific song to be played. A cell phone app would be a great addition to allow control over the SD card audio
- The case makes it hard to read the button labels
- Battery is not user replaceable
You can see that there are good and bad qualities to this device. That being said the good far outweigh the bad. If you are looking for a kick ass portable audio player to fill a room with booming sound this device is for you!
