Creative Stage  Soundbar Review

The Creative Stage is a budget-friendly soundbar that's designed to go under your computer monitor. You can also set it up with your TV if you prefer. It has a rectangular design with square-shaped sides.

The sub is tall and thin, and it appears to be made from particle board. There's a port at the front made of plastic. It has to be wired to the bar to work.

This soundbar is small enough to fit between the legs of a 65" TV stand. It also fits perfectly beneath a 27" monitor, which is great if you want to use it with a computer instead.

The sub has a uniquely tall and thin design, so it can sit underneath your desk. You'll have to connect it to the bar, so you'll have to keep it under your desk or close to your TV stand.

You can mount the bar to the wall using the included brackets.

This soundbar's build quality is okay. It's a budget-friendly bar that's mostly made of plastic, which feels quite cheap and collects fingerprints with use. There's a metal grille in front of the bar, though it also feels quite thin. You can also see the bar's internal components, which cheapens its look. The sub doesn't have a very premium build, either.

• User manual
• Wall mounting screws and anchors
• Remote
• 3.5 mm aux cable (length: 3.8 ft / 1.2 m)
• Optical cable (length: 4.9 ft / 1.5 m)

The Creative Stage soundbar has a decent stereo frequency response. Out-of-the-box, you get a boomy sound with lots of extra punch in the bass range. This bleeds a bit into the mid-range, resulting in a muddier sound with voices and sound effects in your favorite games. The bar seems to be missing some brightness in the treble, too, though this is likely because of the overemphasis in the bass. Some distortion is noticeable, especially in soundtracks with a lot of low-bass, like Stay from the Interstellar movie.

If you prefer a more balanced sound with stereo content, adjust the bass to -5 and the treble to 5. The resulting sound is more even, so you notice less boom in the bass range and more brightness in the treble. Voices and dialogue are less muddy, too. You can only increase or decrease the bass and treble up to five, so these are the maximum settings available.

The bar's stereo soundstage is okay. The soundstage is perceived to be about as wide as the bar itself, but it doesn't have any tricks to make it stretch past that. Focus is decent, too, though this is mostly because of the bar's small size. There's only so much space for sound to come from, so there's likely to be some overlap with effects in games.

The Creative Stage 2.1 gets loud enough to fill larger and more open rooms with sound. However, as you increase the volume, there's more compression in the mix.

Distortion falls within pretty good limits at an average listening volume, though it jumps significantly at a louder volume level. While distortion is hard to hear with real-life content, especially if you're a more casual listener, we also subjectively noticed distortion in our audio content with this soundbar.

The Creative Stage is a 2.1 soundbar, so it doesn't have a dedicated center channel to improve vocal quality in the mix. Instead, it uses its left and right stereo channels to simulate a "phantom" center. The resulting sound is more diffused and less clear. Voices are slightly muddied, too, due to the overemphasis in the bass on this channel.

This 2.1 soundbar has to downmix surround sound content into stereo to play it back. The resulting sound isn't quite as immersive as what you get with more premium bars with dedicated surround channels. Sound effects seem like they're coming from a speaker placed in front of you rather than from all around your room. The boomy sound profile on these channels muddies voices and other effects a bit, too.

The Creative Stage soundbar doesn't come with a lot of sound enhancement features, which is to be expected given its budget-friendly price. You can adjust its bass and treble or choose between different EQ presets like Music, Cinema, Concert, and Gaming.

You can connect the bar to your TV or computer monitor using an Optical or HDMI connection. Without a Full HDMI In port, though, you can't use the bar as a hub between devices for video passthrough.

This soundbar only supports 2.0 PCM content. It's disappointing, especially if you want to experience more common surround sound formats like Dolby Digital or DTS.

Similarly, the bar only supports 2.0 PCM content over an Optical connection. For a similarly-priced soundbar with Dolby Digital support, check out the Hisense HS214.

The bar's AV synchronization is decent. You're more likely to notice a delay between the audio you hear and the visuals on screen over an Optical connection. Some apps and TVs compensate for this differently, though.

You can wirelessly stream audio from your mobile devices to the bar via Bluetooth.

A small display in front of the bar shows various settings like the source, the EQ preset, and the volume level as you change them. It dims slightly after your command is registered, but otherwise, it's always on.

On the right side of the bar, there are a few controls to help you adjust its most basic settings. You can power the bar on/off, change the input source, and adjust the volume. Other features like the bass and treble adjustments are accessible through the remote.

The remote is pretty simple and easy to use. Since the bar doesn't have a companion app, this is the main way to adjust its features.