Product on Review: Creative Sound BlasterX Katana
Manufacturer: Creative
Street Price: UK: £279 US: $299

Soundbars are a popular choice among many people looking for a high quality speaker system that is also compact. As a sub-market, gamers end up having to wade through the many offerings out there in the wide world, yet may be unsure of what it is they want or need. So, the 'gaming' soundbar became a thing. Our first outing with such a product was with the Razer Leviathan, and now we get to take a look at the Sound BlasterX Katana from Creative.

It has been titled the 'Katana' as it as its concept has been heavily inspired by the legendary Japanese sword. Thus the soundbar itself has been expertly crafted from a monococque frame and has been styled vaguely in the shape of a katana blade. Inside, the Katana is jam packed with technology, including: 2x 1.3" tweeters, 2x 2.5" up-firing midbass drivers, and is accompanied by a subwoofer unit with a 'longthrow' 5.25" driver at its heart. Consolidating a whole host of modern technologies, Creative have equipped the Katana with a multi-core DSP that helps control the tri-amplified design, with the tweeters, the midbass and the subwoofer each with their own amplifer, providing an impressive 75RMS/150W peak output.

As we have now entered 2017, where would we be without programmable RGB LED lighting effects? Creative won't disappoint here as they have lined the 'Hamon' (the Japanese name for the wavy line that differentiates between hard and soft steel along the Katana edge) with their programmable Aurora lighting system.



Overview by Creative