Creative Sound BlasterX Katana speaker is designed for gamers
Creative Sound BlasterX Katana is the world’s first Under-Monitor Audio System for gamers that comes with built in multi-core audio DSP for lossless crystal clear room filling sound. The built in DSP has BlasterX Acoustic Engine and Dolby Digital 5.1 decoder. Gamers love progammable lighting and Creative Sound BlasterX Katana has fully programmable Aurora Reactive lighting system with 16.8 million LED lighting. The Sound BlasterX Katana will be available from November 2016 and will be priced at EUR 299.99.
This feels more in-line with new generation speakers that come with wide array of connectivity options and with built in DAC to avoid poor decoding done by some cheap onboard speakers in PC. Addition of optical output (that bypasses any source side audio processing) will be of great help for gamers who use TV for gaming on console. The speaker is made out of brushed aluminum and this it will be amazing if Creative manages to provide a distortion free sound that does not sound tinny (as speakers are made out of wood for perfect audio output without distortion).
Creative Sound BlasterX Katana Key Features
- 150W peak power, 75W RMS output
- USB connectivity, supports 24-bit 96kHz lossless audio
- Bluetooth compatible
- IR wireless remote included
- Aurora Reactive lighting system (16.8 million colors)
- 5 drivers (2x midrange drivers, 2x tweeters, 1x long throw sub)
- One soundbard housing mid range and tweeters, separater subwoofer
- Dolby Digital 5.1 decoder
- USB port to connect USB flash drive (plays mp3, wma, flac and wav media)
- Optical input port, 3.5mm port, USB audio input port
“We’re extremely excited to be adding these powerful gaming speaker solutions into the Sound BlasterX Pro-Gaming line of products. It’s time to bring back speakers for gaming, something we started more than 10 years ago with award-winning pro-gaming speakers like the GigaWorks series,” said Long Chye Low, General Manager of Creative.
“In particular, The Sound BlasterX Katana is a work of art. It is crafted in a sleek aluminium chassis to house an array of high-performance drivers individually driven by DSPs and amplifiers to ensure no compromise of audio quality. Internally, we affectionately called Katana, a UMAS which stands for Under-Monitor Audio System as it has a built-in Sound Blaster audio processor, the same audio processor used in Sound BlasterX G5/E5 as well as the Sound Blaster Z-series cards. Its sleek design allows it to be neatly placed under wide 4K monitors or multi monitors. Gamers can experience truly accurate immersive audio for today’s gaming, movie and music content. When it comes to connectivity, it caters to every part of a gamers lifestyle; including optical input for console gaming, and even Bluetooth for smart devices. Sound BlasterX Katana also features programmable 16.8 million colours Aurora Reactive lighting system which complements other similarly lighted gaming peripherals. The speakers not only sound great, they will take the atmosphere around your entertainment station to a whole new level.”
