Creative Pebble X Review | Trusted Reviews

Verdict

The Creative Pebble X are a fantastic set of sub-£100/$100 speakers with a funky design, decent connectivity choices and powerful audio with brilliant soundstage and meaty low-end. They lack a little bit of top-end finesse and sheer quantity of connectivity options, though.

Introduction

Creative’s Pebble line of speakers has been around for a while as a reliable and functional choice for more affordable computer speakers, with the Creative Pebble X looking to add another compelling option to the series.

With this in mind, the new Pebble X is priced at £84.99 / $90, Creative is perhaps aiming a little higher than previous models, featuring uprated 2.75-inch drivers, fun RGB lighting and Bluetooth connectivity. That’s a fair price for such a capable set of speakers, especially when all-in-one budget soundbars such as the Edifier MG300 aren’t necessarily a patch on these.

I’ve been testing the Pebble X for the last few weeks to see how well they perform, and whether they’re worth your hard-earned cash. Let’s find out.

Design

• Tiny stature
• Easily portable
• Funky RGB lighting

As with previous Pebble speakers, the Pebble X is a pair of dinky, spherical shaped desktop speakers with a small cutout for the drivers. The smattering of RGB present on the side in a grille-style pattern is pleasing too as it shines through the translucent plastic, and gives the Pebble X some welcome flair.

The cutout spherical design also has the benefit of raising the drivers into the speaker enclosure, and angling them to an optimal 45 degree angle, according to Creative. The gold colour on the drivers themselves offers some welcome flair alongside the RGB lighting too.

At just 136mm tall, they’re also rather compact, and can be placed virtually anywhere without any hassle. I’d also wager you could put these in a bag and take them on your travels if you wanted to have desktop-style audio with a laptop. They also weigh just 1.2kg, making them significantly more portable than the likes of the Majority D80.

Features

• Intriguing connectivity options
• Simple on-board controls
• Companion app present

As much as the Pebble X follow Creative’s design language for more simpler desktop speakers, they offer a bit more than that when it comes to features. Connectivity is handled either by USB-C or 3.5mm for wired options (with the option to connect a microphone), while there is also Bluetooth 5.3 wireless support.

The physical inputs are found on the back of the right hand speaker, and oddly, there are two USB-C ports. This is strong, but the likes of Majority D80 have a more extensive selection of connectivity options.

The reason for two USB-C ports is because one is designed to handle only 30W of power – i.e. what you’d get from a USB-C port on a laptop or desktop PC – while the other offers a way of getting to 60W of peak power. 60W of peak power is a lot for more compact speakers like this, with the knock-on effect of making audio sound bigger, and with more bass, allowing the RGB lighting to get brighter.

On-board controls are otherwise minimal with a small volume dial and tiny dedicated buttons for Bluetooth pairing and changing the RGB lighting effects. There is also companion software for Windows which offers basic functionality such as choosing from preset sound modes, fiddling with an EQ or choosing RGB lighting presets.

A companion app for iOS and Android also exists, although its feature set is stripped back to just allowing you to upgrade the firmware and customise RGB lighting effects.

Sound Quality

• Powerful, bass-heavy audio
• Solid mids and highs
• Fantastic soundstage

Plugged into a USB-C PD port to provide the maximum 60W of power, the Pebble X’s audio is powerful for such a small unit, carrying plenty of volume. They’re quite a fun-sounding set of desktop speakers that also carry a fair amount of bass, such as on Simply Red’s Ring That Bell. Let’s Groove from Earth, Wind and Fire was energetic with a strong low-end, although sub-bass is a little lacking.

As for the mid-range, James Taylor’s Walking Man offered solid handling of vocals with reasonable precision, with clear strings in the track’s background alongside crisp acoustic guitar lines. It was the same story with Jimmy Buffett’s Tonight I Just Need My Guitar, while moving over to Get On Your Feet from Gloria Estefan exhibited this with the track’s energetic synth horns carrying plenty of punch.

In certain instances, the treble on offer here lacked a bit of refinement in comparison to the rest of the soundstage, such as the percussion on Get On Your Feet or the light cymbal work on Steely Dan’s Doctor Wu. It isn’t as crisp as with other speakers I’ve tested, but still perfectly serviceable.

Where the Pebble X excels most though is with its fantastic soundstage. It’s here where I’m thankful for the longer cable between the two speakers, as it allows for precise positioning on your desktop so you get the benefit of distinctive separation with plenty of room to breathe between a track’s individual elements.

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