Creative Stage

Lots of strange reviews on this Blaster. The product is purpose built designed for one purpose. A below monitor, monitor.The higher voltage power supply adds headroom and girth where USB power is great if you have a C port delivering rated current power. But that's the problem, the C spec. can be a range where charging power is great but most notebooks are not at that rating. So, the soundbar doesn't distort and clip starved for power. That's a good thing.The lack of an analog input is common across the industry. You get much cleaner sound processing with an internal DAC vs amplifying a pre signal (with noise). The design is slick from the vol knob feel to the remote features and operation. The term sophisticated comes to mind using this thing.The dreaded banner 'item is often returned' is tagged on this unit. I think I know why. Out of the box, it's well, boxy. Two 'race track' oval drivers, a center diaphragm, and a side port that's flared to prevent 'chuffing'. What did you expect from a 16" brick? Seems kinda mid rangey, a tad nasal, basically a $25 squawker! Back in the box she goes!They missed the secret in the instructions. Download the Creative USB Host Driver. Once installed, go into Control Panel - Sound - Creative (tab) - select 'Wide Mode'. This opens up the stage and is very noticeable. Now poke the remote sound expansion button. The two effects combined change the 'box' to an EQ'd sound stage. Well worth the effort and rewarding to hear as definitely more HiFi. I normally don't like 3D Space Sound, but this one is a game changer.The design is for near field monitoring not a juke box for a room. A two inch diaphragm and 3/4 inch port ain't gonna pound you with bass. It is clear and doesn't suck reproducing audio. If you want a more open sound or boomy bass, get a 2.1 speaker pair (with sub). If you want desktop compactness and clear audio for YouTube reviews or instructional videos, here ya go. Don't think it's a party dance machine. For what it does, it does it well. But understand it's not ideal for music listening or bass rich gaming audio. Used as a portable outside could work, but would sound very thin compared to devices made for that use. It's simply to live under a monitor and what the design was all about. Is this better than a $30 USB powered soundbar. Yes, for the bucks it's well engineered, robust, sophisticated, and not junk. Unfortunately, others can have more bass, flashy LEDs and more stars. To me, for my use, those are disposable LED gimmick toys. Point - the SE is not marketed for teens or gamers. It's a tool more than show. Thus, 5 Stars.

Be aware, the sub isn't very powerful and the bass is mostly for movies orTV, not music. The speakers are alsodramatically better for tv and mobies than music. As a replacement for the tv speakers its amazing, night and day difference; its also good for using with my computer to play World of Warcraft. For music they are, and I don't say this lightly, profoundly underwhelming. But for the price they are very , not much better than he widest soundboard without a separate sun you can buy from Walmart as ONN brand (for music, not video or games); but I assume Creative will last better. For music that sound bar was arguably better with louder bass, for everything else this one is way better. Only other thing is that the cord for the sub should be longer.Super easy to install and connect to, super easy interface to deal with. The "surround" doesn't work like a full set of speakers but if you sit in front of it, it does dramatically increase immersion. The dialog setting improves the experience way more for video or games. The volume control is very easy to use and accurate (it doesn't get very loud, if that's important to you).Connectivity is great, super easy to connect to, sync to my router tv controller. Bluetooth works great with my computer.For the price, I'd buy it again, if it was for a space like mine.If you have a big room, want very loud noise, or are trying to get quality sound for music; spend more money and get something with more power and a better sub.Very good value for the money. But very lackluster for music. I think it would be a lot better for classica, jazz, or like acoustic music than hip hop/rap or harder rock, it's essentially useless for listening to electronic music. The less hard bass you want the better this system is.If you live in an apartment and want quality sound but don't want to piss off your neighbors, I'm not sure this could be beat. Which is my position currently. It's not too big, looks very clean, and unless you want to place the sub fairly far away it's easy to install.

The Creative Stage V2 2.1 is a well built, compact sized 2.1 sound bar with good dialog clarity. Both movies and music sound very good on this sound bar. Note that the remote on the original version had buttons to select EQ modes for movies, music, concert, and gaming, however, the new version does not have these buttons. It does, however, have buttons for surround and dialog enhancement mode. It also has buttons for bass and treble level adjustment. The bass is decent on bass heavy music, not super booming but it's decent. It's not a super loud soundbar, but it's good enough for a bedroom or a small room.Only observations thus far are that the HDMI-ARC sound output did not work correctly with my Samsung TV at first. That was fixed by replacing the HDMI cable with a better cable. Also, the LED display on the front of the soundbar is very nice, but the display never turns off, it's always on, which is kinda stupid. For the most part though, it's a really good compact sound bar with great build quality and sound, as long as you're not expecting to crank it up really loud.

Own plenty of expensive speakers and a few really nice sound bars over the years. But for the price, easily the best 2.1 speaker I've found. Sounds great and the bass is solid! You can tell from the heft compared to similarly priced speakers/bars it was solid and yes it is. Most of the woofers are hollow and cardboard. This one actually weighed a little and you could tell. VERY happy. Returned 5 other bars in the $100 range and this one I'm actually keeping.