Creative Pebble 2.0 USB-Powered Desktop Speakers with Far-Field Drivers and Passive Radiators for PCs and Laptops (White)

When I replaced my monitor my new one didn’t come with internal speakers, only a headphone jack. I am accustomed to using airpods to monitor sound when I am editing and I’ve gotten into the habit of using them whenever I listen to anything on my computer, which actually other than editing isn’t very often. But a lot of websites are making increased use of videos which means to listen to them having a set of old fashioned speakers sounded like a good idea. I didn’t want (or need) super expensive speakers just to listen to a news clip or a social media clip so I started searching for a pair of small, attractive computer speakers and was dismayed that most of the cheap one were unattractive and barely above using a tin can in terms of sound quality. I stumbled on these hidden several pages in during my search, which is a shame because Creative practically invented the first small cheap computer speakers. I bought these more on how they look than anything else and had very low expectations how they would sound for a price well under twenty bucks. When they arrived I was impressed. The presentation was typical of Creative Labs, which is to say top notch. The documentation is superior and the look and feel is much better than expected.SOUND QUALITYBe realistic, you can’t reinvent physics and there is only so much you can do with a speaker this small. Typical of this company, rather than try to dazzle with phony equalizations that have an initial wow factor then sound tiresome and hard to listen to they have opted to have these sound natural for the content that comes out of most computers. That’s something that’s not easy to explain but don’t expect them to rock the room with bass or break glass with sizzling highs. Instead they just “sound good” and personally I am very happy with that sound. Part of that equation is they understand that the typical user of this pair will be sitting only 2-3 feet from the speakers, that required an entirely different approach to how they sound compared to speakers that are at the other end of a room. I didn’t believe my ears, I can’t imagine them sounding any better.HINTS1. Per Creative not all computers have enough juice to power these speakers to their full volumepotential. They suggest, and I agree, that if you can, rather than using one of the USB ports on your computer instead plug these into their own dedicated power transformer (the same kind you use to charge your phone or other USB device). For me doing that about doubled the sound volume.2. Where should you plug the mini audio cable into? Creative is kind of vague on that. With a lot of computers you might have more than one option, for example in my case my computer has both an audio line out jack, an audio headphone jack and an audio jack for headphones on my monitor. The last one is the least desirable because almost all monitors these days are using HDMI connectivity which is probably going to digitize and re-digitize an audio signal several times and try to optimize it for headphone listening. To a slightly lesser degree the headphone jack on your computer may try to output sound optimized for headphone listening. Your best choice if possible is to use the line level output. These are amplified speakers and they can deal with the kind of output from a line level jack, which is likely the purest and cleanest sound your computer is capable of outputting. Many computers autosense what’s plugged into a jack or will pop up a setup screen to let you choose how to use that jack. It turns out my computer (an HP workstation) offers a very sophisticated setup to fine-tune the speaker output even better than a graphic equalizer. The difference between using my monitor’s headphone jack and my computer line level jack was night and day, they made these speakers perform to their absolute fullest potential.3. That soft springy disk on the back of the speaker is called a passive radiator. In simple terms what it does is to act as a non-powered loudspeaker by capturing the vibrations of the actual speaker and replicating them in synchronous harmony and generally improving the bass performance. You can utilize these passive radiators to their full potential by experimenting a little how far away you place the back of the speaker from the wall behind your desk (if your desk is free-standing this doesn’t apply). While there isn’t a hard and fast best solution, I’ve found that with these a distance of about 8-10 inches sounds the best to me. By the way, the passive radiators are delicate and can be ruined if pressed on too hard or the rubber ring has a hole poked into it. Keep your fingers away from that area.ONE SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTCreative Labs is a very old and successful company and I am hardly qualified to tell them what to do, but there is one small thing they overlooked, possibly because no one has ever told them about it. It’s not major and certainly not a dealbreaker but it could have been designed slightly better. The issue is that the speaker is a sphere and the volume control is mounted at the lower lip of a crater on the face of it below the loudspeaker. When I put my fingers around the volume control to adjust it gravity causes the sphere to slightly tilt over toward the front, it has to because of the placement and angle of the volume control. Aesthetically I can’t think of a better location for the control, it looks beautiful where it is, and the current location is absolutely easy to reach for and adjust and I wouldn’t want to change either of those things. If I were in their design studio I would probably choose to counterbalance that tendency to tilt forward by putting a little weight inside toward the rear of the base, I don’t think it would require much.YES NO MAYBEI don’t consider tendency to tilt a flaw, just a minor issue. Moving beyond that these are beautiful, they sound great, they are well-made and they cost a fraction of what they’re worth when compared to the no-name junk in the same price category. When the true meaning of five stars is (and should be) a product that is best in class and near flawless in execution, these earn that rating hands down.

Update: the Pebble SE with RGB didn’t have as much bass as these 2.0 ones. I think it’s the Fairfield drivers that make the difference. I ended up giving my Dad the SEs and I kept the 2.0s for myself. I listen to YouTube and game at the same time. I have been using these speakers now instead of my head set. It’s nice not having the headset on. Nobody talks in games now anyways. No Mic needed.They were much bigger than I thought they were gonna be which is a good thing. They are the size of a large softball. They have the rubber bass drum that bounces in the back. They sound great and do have good bass. I was listening to YouTube music and my video game at the same time. They both sounded great and didn’t interfere with each other. I listen to YouTube videos also and the dialogue was very clear. This is a very good brand. The only downside is that I cannot turn them more than halfway up when my computer is at volume max. They will distort anything above half volume. I think that’s the price you pay for having this much bass. They really are the most bass you can get out of a set without a subwoofer. For 24$ these are definitely worth it. They were packaged beautifully and are very clean looking. I didn’t see the SE RGB lights version until after I received these. I ordered the SE RGB version and will update which one I like better. I’m going to keep one of them because they sound great and are a great price. I wouldn’t hesitate to purchase again. I’m using with a gaming PC.

These are very good speakers, especially for the price. But I'm knocking off a star due to the non-detachable cords being very short. The cord length for the 3.5mm plug and for the power/usb plug are both fine in terms of length. But that one non-detachable cord (connecting the left and right speakers) is very short. Too short, in my opinion.The description says this cord is 3.9 inches. Seems slightly shorter to me, but it's now behind my computer setup and it'd be a hassle to dig it back out just to measure.I have 2 monitors on my desk. If this cord was just 12 inches longer it would fit nicely on either side of the monitors, and I would give this 5 stars. Or if this cord was detachable (allowing us to buy an extension cable), that would be great. But I guess they would rather that I shell out $40+ in order to get the one with the longer cord.I'm thinking of maybe cutting that cord and splicing-in some speaker wire to make it longer. But with my luck, the cable would contain something more than just speaker wire. Pretty sure it's just speaker wire, though.But enough of my rant. The speakers, themselves, seem very good. Even though they just arrived today, and I haven't had much time to test them out.The packaging was nice and showed a lot of care.I'm also happy with the volume levels. If I didn't live in an apartment complex, I'd totally crank it up.Other than that, I'm not very much of an audiophile or anything, so I can't judge things like frequency response or any other terms that I am ignorant about. I just know it sounds good to me. Seems like a good mix of bass and treble. A nice, full sound in my opinion.