ASUS ROG’s Gjallar is ROG’s first gaming soundbar

Somewhat out of nowhere, ASUS ROG has added its first soundbar to its gaming audio collection, named the Gjallar. For us non-Nordic folk, ASUS says it’s pronounced ‘gal-ar’ (strange, as the ‘g’ is usually silent in Scandinavian languages, but we digress).

Not only is it ROG’s first entry into the soundbar market – which is somewhat strange considering they’ve been around for a while already – and in order to compete with the rest of the market, it brings 2.1.2 Dolby Atmos surround sound to the mix. 

The speaker setup on the Gjallar consists of four 50mm full-range drivers, two of which are upward-firing, two 27mm tweeters, and a separate 6.5-inch subwoofer. The subwoofer itself packs a couple tricks of its own; it supports 5GHz wireless connectivity, so it can rest on the floor without being tethered to the rest of the Gjallar.

Also built-into the Gjallar are what ASUS calls Acoustic Echo Cancellation microphones. This is essentially a beamforming mic array that cancels out environmental noises and game audio to pick up your voice clearly. 

Beamforming arrays have been used in soundbars in the past (like the Creative Sound Blaster Katana V2X), but, as with all products launching nowadays, it’s helped by a little AI magic.

The soundbar can be controlled via ASUS’s Gear Link tool, which can be accessed via an app or the web, but then you’d be missing out on the Control Hub that comes with the Gjallar. 

Through the Control Hub, you can adjust volume and RGB lighting, scrub through EQ profiles (fine-tuning is done through Gear Link), change input sources and access microphone controls, with the main interface being an LCD with customisable animations.

As for connectivity, the ROG Gjallar sports the usual aux and optical ports, as well as Bluetooth 5.3. But being a gaming soundbar, it needs that little bit extra. Hence, you can find two HDMI 2.1 ports – one for input, and another for output, the latter with eARC support and 4K@120Hz passthrough.

You can also find two USB-A ports for dongles or external storage. There’s a USB-C port, too, but that’s only for the Control Hub, no Power Delivery or audio output supported.

Availability and Pricing

The ASUS ROG Gjallar will be available in stores beginning Q3 of this year, though we don’t know it’s exact price yet. We’ll update this piece when we do, but it can’t go much farther than S$300 if it wants to compete with the likes of Razer and Creative, who already have a bit more experience in this field than ROG does.