In all the reviews we’ve published of Razer products, it has never once occurred to any Android Police editor to perform the ultimate penetration test and see how well they stand up to bullets. Not for lack of creativity, it just seems counterproductive to shoot your hardware. But earlier this week, a Redditor posted photos indicating that the Razer Kraken headphones were a real lifesaver for when someone got gun-happy in the neighborhood.
It’s a wild story and the tone of Redditor Enough_Dance_956’s initial post is serious enough to believe it:
… i’m trying to get a hold of someone at razer to thank them with all my heart. wednesday morning at 10:30am a stray bullet went through my window and hit the razer headphones on top of my head. if it wasn’t for the headphones made with good quality i would’ve been a dead kid at the age of 18. i couldn’t even imagine all the pain my family and friends would’ve been through.
Enough_Dance_956 posted multiple photos of a bullet hole through a window, the damaged Kraken (see above for both), and a bullet on an unmade bed. Naturally this post prompted a ton of sympathetic comments and through the Redditor’s responses, the rest of the story — so far — became clear. The shooting happened in Torrance, California, and the original poster believed the bullet was a stray from “someone with bad aim” a block away. The trajectory of the shot was through the window, then the top of the headset, after which it struck the wall and then rolled onto a bed. The Redditor left it there while waiting for the police to pick it up.
There were plenty of skeptical comments, and understandably so — photos of the bullet hole in a windowpane also showed an intact screen, which naturally makes you wonder why it’s undamaged. Additionally, it’s hard to tell based on the images just how a projectile would’ve had an unimpeded path from some location (presumably outdoors) a block away. Razer customer service apparently took the story seriously, though, and even offered to replace the $79 Kraken headset. To Enough_Dance_956’s credit, the Redditor refused a replacement and simply thanked Razer, presumably for making a product sturdy enough to take a bullet and keep on playing tunes.
All that said, we don’t anticipate testing hardware to see how it holds up to gunfire in the future. If you do, just remember these were over-the-ear headphones, not earbuds. That would’ve been a very different — and tragic — story.
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