OXS Thunder Pro review

Soundbars offer a different experience to your more traditional speaker setup. Because you can't loop together tweeters with cables to stretch around a setup, you have to place it directly in front of you and this can have unintended consequences on the sound. Gaming-specific speakers tend to have this very over-the-top marketing style, with the ad's target gamer being entirely blown away by the noise and immersed in the footsteps of battle or the lumbering sounds of a dragon above. With the OXS Thunder Pro, this is the closest I've ever been to a marketing level experience… and I'm not too sure how much I like it. 

Starting out with the look, this thing is loaded with RGB lighting, with two up-firing, front-firing, and side-firing speakers complete with that familiar burst of colour as you turn it on. Those bright lights do serve a purpose with them being used to choreograph which of the listening modes are currently being engaged. We'll get more into that later but, for now, know that the RGB lighting isn’t entirely meaningless, and it looks quite pretty in the dark.

One of the main benefits of a soundbar like this is you simply need to plug it into the mains and it works. You don’t need to work around terminal cables or find space on equidistant sections of a desk for the optimal sound. Plop it down, plug it in, and get listening. 

It also comes with two different controllers; a remote that you can change settings from afar with, and a small wheel that you can spin and tap down to change volume and turn it on with. That dial tends to feel a little unnecessary with the remote but it's a nice bit of tech that feels surprisingly intuitive in use.

Speaker: 2 x 0.75-inch tweeters, 2 x 2.5-inch woofers, 4 x 1.5-inch full range drivers
Connectivity: Bluetooth, USB, Aux, HDMI
Weight: 4.5kg
Frequency response: 75Hz — 20kHz
Price: $600 / £600

It is helped by its great connectivity, working with USB-A, USB-C, Aux, Bluetooth, and HDMI, though it doesn't come with the necessary