Closer Examination and Build Quality

The Creative Pebble X Plus stayed completely true to the instantly recognizable design philosophy of the Pebble lineup, although some less obvious changes do exist. The speakers are made of plastic and shaped as spheres, with the front faces cut at a 45° angle. This is where the brand-new 2.75-inch full-range drivers reside. They're slightly enlarged compared to the rest of the Pebble lineup, which is equipped with 2.5-inch speaker drivers. The point of the 45° slope is to angle the speaker drivers toward the listener; the obvious expectation is that you'll sit in front of your computer or laptop. The chosen angle works well as long as you're sitting upright. If and when you sink into your chair, you inevitably move your ears off-axis, so the audio performance slightly suffers. This is particularly noticeable for higher frequencies due to their directionality. It's hard to say if Creative should have gone with a more aggressive angle, simply because everyone sits differently, and it's completely unfeasible to come up with a solution for all possible scenarios.


The speakers can be placed on the table or mounted on anything with a standard 1/4-inch screw, such as a camera tripod.


Each speaker has two integrated RGB lighting areas with mesh-like cutouts. The integrated LEDs seem to be covered with a diffusor internally and are wrapped in transparent plastic on the outside, so the light effects look smooth and pretty – assuming this is an aesthetic you're into. The RGB effects (Static, Glowing, Morph, Cycle, Aurora, Peak Meter, Wave, Chasers) can be selected in the Creative App, or you can use the button on the right speaker to cycle through six of them. The ones available to cycle through are also chosen in the Creative App software suite and then saved to the on-board memory.


The Creative Pebble X Plus includes a very compact subwoofer, measuring 156 x 156.4 x 158.5 mm (61.4 x 61.6 x 62.4 in). To give you a better idea of just how small it is, I took a photo of it next to the Xbox Series X gamepad. The subwoofer is equipped with a single active 3.5-inch flat-cap speaker driver and a pair of side-firing passive radiators. Due to its size and overall power output, you can keep it on your table if that suits you better than putting it on the floor, without the risk of getting overwhelmed by the bass it produces.


The controls are placed on the right speaker, below the aforementioned 2.75-inch full-range speaker driver. The plastic volume knob can be pressed as a button. A short press mutes sound, while a long one turns the speakers off. You can also use it to adjust the brightness of the RGB LEDs by pressing and holding the RGB button first. The third button is marked with a Bluetooth icon but actually cycles through all available inputs: USB, AUX and Bluetooth. The active input is indicated by the color of the small circular LED, located next to the volume wheel. Pink is USB, green is AUX, and blue is Bluetooth.


There are three ports on the rear: a 3.5-mm AUX input and two USB-C ports. The left one, marked simply as "USB-C," serves as an audio input. This is the one you'll use to connect the speakers to your desktop computer or laptop. The speakers will also get sufficient power to operate through the same connection, but their power output will be limited to 15 W RMS (or even 10 W RMS, if that's the limit of your computer's USB-C port). To get the full 30 W RMS (60 W peak) output, you have to utilize the secondary USB-C port, marked as "USB-C PD" and surrounded by a red line. You must connect a 30 W (or better) USB-C PD power adapter, which you have to buy separately, as it's not included with the speakers. Suitable power adapters can be found for less than $20, but that's hardly an excuse – one should be included in the bundle. More so when we take into consideration that the extra power it provides improves the performance of the speakers quite drastically.


An obvious downside of the Creative Pebble X Plus is significant cable clutter. Aside from the 1.2-meter (3.94 ft) permanent cable connecting the speakers, there's a 1.2-meter (3.94 ft) cable going to the subwoofer, and two 1.5-meter (4.92 ft) cables connecting the right speaker to a computer and a USB-C power adapter. You can omit a single USB-C cable if using Bluetooth exclusively, but let's be realistic – that's not why you're considering buying the Pebble X Plus.


On the right side of the right speaker, there are two more 3.5-mm audio ports. The left one is a hybrid 4-pole (TRRS) audio input/output, which also works as a pure output when connecting a 3-pole (TRS) headphone/headset plug. When you connect the headphones to it, the speakers stop playing and the volume knob now controls the headphone volume. The right 3.5-mm port is a 3-pole (TRS) microphone input. You can use these ports to connect your headphones or headset directly to the speakers and tap into the various sound processing technologies available within the Creative App. This isn't only a practical feature of the Creative Pebble X (Plus), but also a functional one. You're essentially getting access to features you'd otherwise have to buy one of the company's sound cards for.