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Rock Your PC with the Creative Sound Blaster GS5 RGB Gaming Soundbar!
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May 29, 2025
There's no way around it, the built-in speakers on your laptop or computer just aren't very good. Tiny desktop speakers? Not much better, and boring as paint drying. The solution? The slick, light-up Creative Sound Blaster GS5 RGB Gaming Soundbar with SuperWide technology. Peaking at 60W, this all-in-one 20-inch soundbar fits neatly under your monitor or on any worksurface, and offers much better sound. It adds optical in and Bluetooth 5.3 for maximal flexibility, and includes six fun and entertaining RGB light sequences (or you can turn it off, if you prefer). Demo and review by tech expert Dave Taylor. Check it out at: https://amzn.to/4hYPe8u Visit Dave's Q&A Web site at: https://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ 0:00 Introduction 1:45 Side Controls and Back Ports 3:00 Creative APP Demo 5:27 International Power Plug 6:02 The Remote Control 7:05 SuperWide Demo 8:30 Wattage and Audio Quality 9:05 Common Complaints 10:35 In The Box 12:52 Price and Conclusions #creative #soundblaster #soundbar #creativelabs #askdavetaylor
View Video Transcript
0:00
level up your audio game with this
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Soundbar let's check it
0:04
[Music]
0:10
out Dave Taylor here and I'm checking
0:12
out this this is the sound blaster GS5
0:16
RGB gaming Soundbar and it's pretty
0:19
slick because What it lets you do is you
0:22
can use it with Bluetooth but it's
0:24
designed to be plugged into to your
0:27
computer or to your monitor and give you
0:30
much better sound now right up front
0:33
I'll tell you there's no subwoofer so it
0:37
doesn't get those super super super low
0:40
frequencies but most people are going to
0:42
be perfectly fine with that and frankly
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your neighbors are going to be really
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happy those aren't going through the
0:47
walls but let me tell you this has 65 to
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20,000 HZ frequency response with a
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signal to noise ratio of 85 DB so it's
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pretty decent actually and it's 25 wat
1:01
3.3x 2.2 racetrack drivers I think it's
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hilarious they call them racetrack
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drivers but that's cool and then there's
1:09
a port tube in the back to give you more
1:12
base so talk talk talk let's actually
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give it some music and I'm going to do
1:17
this via Bluetooth off my phone you
1:19
ready let's
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listen so what you can hear is it's loud
1:29
it's bright and it actually has a really
1:33
nice sound to
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it so you can actually notice that the
1:38
lights on the bottom let me pause this
1:40
they aren't reacting to the music but
1:42
there's a light mode where they do and
1:45
so you can control this from all the
1:47
buttons on the side let me show you and
1:49
give you a quick tour of those the top
1:51
button is the multi-function button so
1:54
it does Source switching and you can get
1:56
into Bluetooth and the button in the
1:59
front is the super wide button we'll
2:02
definitely come back and talk about that
2:03
some more the button near the bottom is
2:06
for the RGB lighting settings and then
2:08
the knob itself is for volume and you
2:11
can push it to get it to actually turn
2:14
on or off the actual
2:17
unit and then let's look at the back
2:19
while we're looking at things and you
2:21
can see there is a multitude of ports
2:23
here so there's USBC in there's Au in
2:29
there's Optical in and let's jump back
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to that side just for a second cuz
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notice that there's a 3.5mm headphone
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jack conveniently on the side of the
2:39
Soundbar so it's really super flexible
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with all of these different features and
2:44
let's see so um there is a PC app and a
2:48
mobile app but I'm going to show you it
2:49
on the PC so let's spin some things
2:52
around and I'm going to show you on my
2:54
PC all of the many many controls you
2:58
have access to on this C bar I'm in the
3:01
creative app and you can see it's
3:02
already found the Sound Blaster GS5 and
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we're all good to go I will say the
3:07
first time I launched it it had a
3:09
firmware update for the Soundbar and
3:12
then it had another firmware update for
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the driver on my PC but we're all good
3:17
now and let me just show you a couple
3:18
things so there are different sound
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modes including gaming music and movies
3:25
and adventure and action which sounds
3:27
exciting and there's the acoustic engine
3:30
which gives you the ability to turn on
3:32
and off various effects either for
3:35
headphones or for the
3:38
speaker and then what I like is lighting
3:42
and so you can see it's kind of going
3:44
pretty crazy so let's slow it down a
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little
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bit so now I've slowed it all the way
3:51
down and it's left to right and this is
3:54
wave so it's effect five of the six
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possible effects but we can switch to
4:00
Aurora for
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example or
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Chasers and maybe we'll pick a different
4:08
color rather than that
4:10
aquamarine let's pick
4:13
red and speed it up a
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bit so now you can see what's happening
4:20
on the Soundbar it's pretty
4:23
fun I can turn off lighting too by just
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tapping
4:27
here easy enough
4:30
but we'll turn it back on and let's
4:33
choose
4:36
glowing and you can see that what's on
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screen corresponds to what's happening
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to the
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Soundbar so that's pretty slick so we'll
4:45
go back here that's lighting there's
4:47
also an
4:49
equalizer and I can turn it
4:52
on and then I can go here and choose a
4:57
different setting or fine tune and
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adjust it as I desire we're going to go
5:01
ahead and turn that
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off and then there's a mixer for
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playback and finally there's that super
5:10
wide far field and I have it set to
5:13
farfield but if I didn't want super wide
5:16
I can just turn it
5:18
off and then of course all of these can
5:20
be overridden with the remote control
5:23
but that's the basics of the app for
5:26
those of you that travel a lot I will
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note that this soundbar actually has a
5:30
generic power adapter and then there are
5:33
three different plug types that it
5:36
supports so you're going to have the
5:39
ability to take this with you or use
5:42
this in most all countries this really
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between these three covers quite a lot
5:47
of territory and it's easy enough we'll
5:50
put the us 2prong back on and that's it
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it's on and it stays on unless I pushed
5:56
a little button so I like the
5:58
flexibility of the power one of the
6:00
things we definitely need to talk about
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is the remote control it's really slick
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because you have so many different
6:06
controls here cuz you can control
6:08
everything from the buttons on the side
6:11
you can control everything from the app
6:13
on your PC or on your phone but then
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there's this remote control so I can
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turn it on for
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example now in Parry mode waiting for
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connection and so it'll connect with my
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phone connected right because the last
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thing that I was in sourcewise was the
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phone or Bluetooth so now it's ready to
6:33
go again and we can prove that by going
6:36
back into the music for just a second or
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two but we're going to pause
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that so this gives you access to
6:44
everything so you can switch sources you
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can go into Bluetooth mode you can
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actually CH turn different lighting
6:52
modes on so let's try changing
6:56
that and you saw some of that changing
7:00
when we were in the app but now you can
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see I can also change them with the
7:04
remote control and then let's talk about
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this superwide this is really cool what
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they're doing is they're digitally
7:11
processing your audio signal to give you
7:13
a bigger or smaller Sound Stage so if
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you turn off super wide then it's just
7:19
music coming out of the speakers and it
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feels like a pretty narrow music Source
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but there are two alternate settings you
7:26
can do near field which gives you a
7:28
larger but still pretty intimate Sound
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Stage or you can do farfield which
7:33
really spreads it out and I don't know
7:35
if you'll be able to hear it but let's
7:37
try stepping through the different
7:40
[Music]
7:51
modes so you can definitely hear there's
7:54
like a tonal difference there um it
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obviously is much more effective when
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you're sitting in front of it and it's
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just sort of expanding that music
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horizon or that audio Horizon which of
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course is fantastic for things like
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games because yeah you might have a lot
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of different speakers all over your
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office or all over your bedroom or
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wherever you game but having something
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like this where it's just an all-in-one
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self-contained unit is so much easier
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and neater and the fact that you can
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still process the signal to give you
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that wider signal I think it's actually
8:26
very cool now power-wise it's a Watt
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peak power so as I said they're two 15
8:32
watt speakers which theoretically gives
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you 30 Watts but it can actually go
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higher than that as needed and I have it
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set where on Bluetooth at least I have
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it on like 50% volume of my source
8:44
device and then this is pretty high I
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think this is on like 23 of 25 on volume
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guess we can find out by doing this so I
8:52
told you about the inputs it's Bluetooth
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5.3 so you have a lot of range and
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you'll have a you know super reliable
8:59
connection that headphone Port the
9:01
remote control the app the issues that
9:05
are worth mentioning before we're done
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is that number one it's still not a high
9:11
fidelity system it's still not an audio
9:13
file system so it gives you much more
9:16
base than you expect and it definitely
9:18
is dramatically better than the built-in
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speakers on your laptop or computer or
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monitor but you know this is still a
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budget device so it's still gonna give
9:29
you a less full audio experience than
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maybe a you know a device that's three
9:35
four 10 times its cost but that's
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probably always true with every device
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the other thing that's worth mentioning
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is that you can turn off the RGB on the
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bottom but as you notice the little
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light in the front that is one that does
9:50
not seem to be something you can turn
9:53
off and some people have said that
9:55
that's very frustrating for them I know
9:57
creative has released firmware updates
10:00
that is supposed to address some of that
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but as of right now it seems to me that
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it doesn't yet do what people would want
10:07
which is after maybe 15 or 30 seconds of
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you not making any changes to the mode
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it could just either dim it way back so
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it's barely visible in a dark room or
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just turn that display off if this is
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something that's going to be an issue to
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you you can also just put a piece of
10:24
black electrical tape over that and then
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not worry about it and control it
10:28
through the app or something so it's a
10:30
solvable issue I don't think it's a big
10:32
deal but it is worth mentioning so
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that's just about everything it does
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come with a quick start guide that gives
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you lots of information in an
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extraordinary number of languages as I
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said international support for the plugs
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a great little remote control that will
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just go into your box with all of your
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other remote
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controls and dimensions wise it's 20 in
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by 4 in by 3.3 in is let me give you a
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chance to sort of see the different
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dimensions and then on the bottom you
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can see how that um RGB light works and
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I'm a fan I really like these sort of
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devices because I think that companies
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like creative have been creative with
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this and they've said all right let's
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put a couple of speakers underneath your
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monitor and now that we've said that's
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our plan what can we do to make it sound
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better and better and better and
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obviously having the speaker spread out
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is actually going to sound better but it
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doesn't have to be that spread out and
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the complexity of having individual
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speakers and wires everywhere kind of a
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hassle this takes away almost all of
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that though if you are going to use a
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wired connection to your computer you
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need that wire and it does include a
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USBC to
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usba wire in the box so you can see it's
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just a couple of feet long maybe 2 feet
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or so and then you obviously have to
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have that power connector too so I'm
12:02
turn it off and here's that power
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adapter and again it's a similar length
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wire and you know this kind of thing
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unfortunately tends to hog the
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connection when you have a power strip
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but you can get better power strips
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there are better designs out there than
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the old school one and so that's really
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everything I think that this is a really
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solid upgrade at a really super
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affordable price and the fact that you
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plug in headphones if you need to play
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with this late at night is super fun and
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of course people love the RGB it's just
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really fun to have either responsive RGB
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or just have like glowing rainbow going
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back and forth and stuff it's just like
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the next level very gamer it's a very
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gamer thing so that's what I got this is
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definitely worth checking out and I am
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going to invite you to subscribe to my
12:54
channel click or tap on that subscribe
12:56
button hit that Bell icon for
12:58
notification and give me a thumbs up if
13:00
you found this of value excellent all
13:03
right this is the sound blaster GS5 RGB
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gaming Soundbar and it is
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$69.99 amazon.com so for the cost of
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what a couple of pizzas and a 2 L bottle
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of soda you can actually upgrade the
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sound on your computer and enjoy it
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whether you're someone who streams
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movies in your dorm room or you're a
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hardcore gamer or you just like to have
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some mellow jazz in the background while
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you're doing your afternoon work all of
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those situations work great with this
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it's definitely one to check out that's
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what I got hope to catch you in my next
13:43
video
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[Music]
14:01
he
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#Consumer Electronics