Creative Labs Stage Pro 2.1 soundbar review
Flat-screen TVs are a mixed bag in terms of sound quality, and most monitors with built-in speakers sound downright tinny at best. That’s where Creative Labs’ Stage Pro 2.1 soundbar comes in. Whether you’re gaming, watching movies, listening to music or some combination of the three, it’s likely to knock your socks off.
The Creative Labs Stage Pro, priced at £129.99/£169.99, doesn’t accomplish this feat with a single audio component. The 21-inch soundbar is backed up by a seriously powerful subwoofer that’s slim enough to lie on its side inside your TV unit. Admittedly, that may not be Creative’s intended orientation, but it works well enough if you’re short on space. It was the best option for me, and I can’t say I noticed any difference in sound quality with laying it this way.
Between the soundbar and the subwoofer, the Creative Labs Stage Pro delivers 80 watts of audio power, with a peak of 160 watts. It’s also eye-pleasing enough when it’s not in use. Unlike some of Creative’s other soundbars, it doesn’t boast any LED-based bells and whistles, but the gold caps at each end lend it a touch of class.
On most fronts, the Creative Labs Stage Pro punches above its weight, delivering powerful, room-filling audio. I stopped just short of neighbours-knocking-on-my-wall levels of loudness, but the floor definitely felt like it was vibrating. Despite this, there wasn’t a hint of muddiness at high volume, or the sense I was sacrificing anything else for oomph.
Most of the time, I had the Creative Labs Stage Pro hovering at a volume level of about 12 (it goes up to 32) and it performed admirably well after tweaking the treble ever so slightly. I mostly connected via AUX in and Bluetooth, but it also supports HDMI Arc, Optical and USB. A little disappointingly, it doesn’t support playing files from a USB stick, one of my only two gripes with the setup.
Aside from letting you tweak the volume, bass and treble, the remote lets you switch between several modes: Game, Music, Movie and Vocal. Despite the names, I found myself hopping between modes, depending on what I was doing. With the bass-heavy Doom Eternal, for example, I got the best results from Music mode.
Modes aside, the Stage Pro has SuperWide technology, which, according to the marketing blurb, “expands the audio soundstage to deliver a captivating, immersive experience”. I wouldn’t describe this feature as essential, and it didn’t exactly create a convincing concert hall experience, but it’s fun to play around with. You can switch between ‘near’ and ‘far’ settings, and upon choosing ‘far’ during Battle Beast’s King For a Day, the electric guitars suddenly became way more prominent.
However, while the Stage Pro delivers when it comes to audio detail and dynamic range, its audio positioning could be better. Blasting your way through enemies, DOOM or Call of Duty style, you won’t notice. But when you’re gingerly sneaking around a room in something like Alien Isolation, it can be hard to pick out whether an unsettling noise is coming from the left or right.
That may well be a limitation of the Stage Pro’s size. With separate speakers, you can place each speaker at the opposite end of a TV stand, but that’s not an option with a soundbar. The upside to the Stage Pro’s compact size, however, is that it also fits on a desk, making it equally suited to PC or console gaming.
Despite a copule of niggles, I’ve been really impressed with the Creative Labs Stage Pro. It punches well above its price bracket, and has trumped the Edifier 2000s as my gaming speakers of choice. If you’re looking for a soundbar with serious impact without breaking the bank, the Creative Stage Pro should be on your shopping list.
