At $69, Creative’s new Stage Air V2 has to be one of the most affordable desktop soundbars you can buy. But what are you giving up at this price? Or is this actually one of the bargains of the century?
The Stage Air V2 is fairly compact. At 41cm long, it will fit under 24-inch monitors nicely. Though I’d say that it is fairly tall at 7.5cm in height.
Setting it up is dead simple. The power button and volume controls, along with the Bluetooth connection button, sit on the right side of the speakers. Wired connectivity is equally simple. There’s a USB-C port and 3.5mm audio jack on the back. That’s it.
You turn it on, hit the Bluetooth button if you want to connect it wirelessly, or plug in your device via the available ports. That’s all there is to it.
The USB-C port accepts digital inputs of up to 16-bit/48kHz or CD-quality audio. Creative also says the USB-C port will work with PS4 and PS5 consoles too. Owners of Sony’s gaming consoles will know how difficult it can be to output sound from them. Unfortunately, I don’t have a Playstation console to try this out.
The USB-C port also doubles up as a charger for the speakers. Yes, curiously, this has a built-in battery so you could feasibly use it as a portable speaker. Battery life is rated at 6 hours per charge, which is quite decent.
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