NZXT Relay review

There's a certain mystique to running a speaker cable into a terminal and producing a sound in another speaker—a mixture of audio wizardry and almost pure magic. You plug it in and get that nostalgic hit of real sound. The floor under you shakes and…suddenly, you are hit with the sound of Mike Myers «hitting the griddy» in a battle royale with 99 other people. Isn't technology wonderful? 

Though I'm being hyperbolic here, our relationship has changed with speakers culturally over the last few decades. No longer your only way to get sound from a device, they have fit into a more «audiophile» niche — from a last resort to a first choice. The NZXT Relay embodies that audio wizardry in just how wonderful the full setup is, but new ideas almost always come with growing pains and there's a lot of those here. 

Let's talk about that wizardry first, as it's the most unique thing about these speakers. Though you can buy the speakers by themselves, the NZXT Relay set works at its best when you purchase the subwoofer, headphones, and Switch Mix stand. 

Essentially, that stand has a button at the top that flicks from speaker to headphones, depending on the weight. This means you can hang up your headphones on the stand and it will automatically switch to speaker mode. Take them off and you've got sound in your headphones. 

Connectivity: RCA, 3.5mm aux
Speakers: 2 x 3 inch drivers
Weight: 1.6 kg (left), 1.5kg (right)
Frequency response: 70Hz – 20,000Hz
Price: $240 | £230 (speakers only), $630 | £560 (speakers, stand, headphones and subwoofer)

This works near instantaneously and, no matter how fast I tried, I could never get the headphones on my head before it started playing my sounds. This is, admittedly, a dumb test, but also a good sign of how consistent that switch is. 

The speakers themselves are small and look very tidy on a desk. Mids and highs sound great and feel very well balanced, so Darwin Deez' geeky breakup anthem 'DNA' sounds as it should, thanks to those jangly