Sound Quality

The Creative Pebble X Plus is a 2.1 sound system, consisting of a pair of speakers and a subwoofer. As mentioned earlier in the review, each speaker is equipped with a 2.75-inch full-range driver angled at 45°. The subwoofer has a 3.5-inch flat-cap driver and a pair of passive radiators, one on each side. The specified power output varies from 15 W RMS to 30 W RMS (60 W peak), depending on the user connecting at least a 30 W USB-C PD adapter to the USB-C PD port on the main (right) speaker. If you're powering the system through the USB-C input port, located next to the USB-C PD port, it will top out at 15 W RMS, which makes it usable for passive, background listening. With added power, the Pebble X Plus speaker system significantly improves sonically, to an extent where I'm inclined to declare the 30 W USB-C PD power adapter mandatory. Do keep in mind you have to buy it separately, as Creative decided not to include it in the bundle.

The system has a specified frequency range of 45-20,000 Hz, which sounds hugely optimistic on the low-end side of things. The playback resolution is locked at 16-bit/48 kHz (PCM) and cannot be changed to any other bitrate and/or sample rate. The built-in Bluetooth 5.3 chip only supports the rudimentary SBC codec.

With all that in mind, my performance impressions are based on the Pebble X Plus being connected to a desktop computer via USB-C, and to the Cellularline Multipower Magnus 100W GaN power adapter, which provides up to 100 W of power through its two USB-C ports.

First and foremost, 30 watts of RMS power isn't a lot. When listening to music actively, I regularly found myself in the 90+ volume range and often maxing out the volume of the Pebble X Plus. There's no noticeable speaker driver or integrated amplifier distortion even at maximum volume, but the fact remains that sometimes I wished that the system could play even louder than it does. It's worth mentioning my home office is acoustically treated and as such, more dampened than usual. In a more lively room, and especially if you're sharing your living space with others, chances are you won't have any issues with the power output of the Pebble X Plus.

The volume adjustment, when done via the volume knob, is slightly frustrating. The knob itself is made of plastic and feels cheap, but what bothered me even more is its lack of granularity. It digitally changes the volume in steps of six (instead of the usual two), and when you reach 90, the next turn of the knob will launch you directly to 100. This was a personal annoyance more than anything else, although I figured it's still worth mentioning.

The overall sound performance of the Creative Pebble X Plus, considering the compact size of the system, is quite good. Creative's decision to angle the speaker drivers was the correct one because you get an entirely surprising sense of the scale of the sound, which wouldn't be achievable if the drivers were firing in the usual straight direction. The full-range drivers aren't overly sensitive to positioning in relation to the listener's ears, so you don't have to worry about losing performance when sinking deeper in your chair. The same characteristic also gives you the freedom to play with the exact left and right channel positioning, namely their toe-in. That way you can easily find the sweet spot between being able to hear everything clearly and getting the widest soundstage the Pebble X Plus can deliver.

Even though the speaker drivers are full-range, their bass response is next to non-existent. They're primarily focused on the midrange, which they handle well. Both male and female vocals have a good presence, with no audible shoutiness or sibilance to report. If anything, they strongly lean to the warm side. The upper midrange and higher frequencies are smooth, even tamed, probably with the goal of avoiding any shrillness or ear fatigue. You could argue that the speakers lack energy and sparkle throughout the upper midrange and above, and you'd be right. However, the target audience is likely to appreciate them for the things they do offer, such as pleasant clarity, overall warmth, and a sound that doesn't seem like it's coming from two small spheres at all, size-wise.

The bass reproduction is entirely in the hands of the supplied compact subwoofer. With a single front-firing 3.5-inch active speaker driver and two side-firing passive radiators, the amount of bass you'll end up hearing is entirely dependent on subwoofer placement. Due to the way low-frequency sounds spread through space, subwoofers usually aren't very sensitive to placement, but that rule doesn't apply in this case. When I placed it in an open space, directly on the table, the subwoofer struck me as tame and underwhelming. It did add a certain fullness to the sound, but it was lacking both in depth and punch. That all changed when I moved it under the table, where it sat between two drawer units on which my tabletop is resting. When I surrounded it with hard surfaces and allowed it to use them to amplify the low frequencies, suddenly the subwoofer sprung to life. The bass in fact went from underwhelming to too powerful, until I positioned the subwoofer centrally so that its side-firing passive radiators were equally distant from their corresponding drawer units. In that state, the bass had a pleasant punch and reasonable depth in music, games, and movies alike, nicely rounding out the sonic performance of the Pebble X Plus. I can't say it became seamlessly integrated into the system, in the sense that it stopped sounding like a separate unit, but with more experimentation with its placement, that effect can be minimized.

Comparison to Creative Pebble X

The "regular" Creative Pebble X speakers cost $40 less than the Pebble X Plus. They don't come with a dedicated subwoofer but use a rear-facing passive radiator, one on each speaker, to produce bass. This is a decent attempt at tackling the problem at hand, but ultimately not a very successful one. Even with the help of passive radiators, the low-end on the Pebble X is too anemic to be enjoyable. Also gone is the warmth of the sound coming out of the Pebble X Plus. The available volume range remained the same, as did the extra software and hardware features. Even so, I'd strongly suggest saving up for the Pebble X Plus. It's a much better-performing speaker system, well worth the $40 price hike.

Microphone Quality

I tested the microphone input of the Creative Pebble X Plus by connecting the Drop + Sennheiser PC38X (reviewed here), still one of the best analog gaming headsets on the market.




In a direct comparison with the Creative Sound Blaster X5 (reviewed here), a $300 external USB sound card, you can hear that the microphone input integrated into the Pebble X Plus sounds identical. Of course, the sound card gives you much more options in the CrystalVoice section of its software driver, such as background noise reduction, echo cancellation, and voice morph profiles. However, in terms of raw input quality, there's no audible difference. In other words, the microphone input of the Pebble X Plus is not only very handy but also perfectly usable.