Creative T60 review: A feature-packed 2.0 system for all circumstances
Great sound, USB connectivity and a built-in DAC combined with a surprisingly low price make the T60s an easy recommendation
Pros
- Excellent sound quality for the price
- Supports Creative’s SmartComms Kit
- Internal DAC with USB input
Cons
- No subwoofer support
- No aptX
If you’re after a decent set of PC speakers then chances are you’re going to begin by perusing the Creative and Logitech catalogues. These two have had the lion’s share of the market for longer than I care to remember and for good reasons: they both offer decent-sounding, well-made and good value sound systems catering to most wallets and ears. The new T60 are Creative’s latest competitor in the most competitive part of the market: stereo computer speakers that produce decent sound quality but will still leave you with a decent amount of change from £100.
The speaker units are well made and rather elegant-looking things that each contain a 2.75in full-range driver and a rear-facing passive radiator. Power output is 15W RMS and, although there’s no separate subwoofer, Creative says its BasXPort technology is good enough to compensate. I’d say that’s fair comment: the T60 produces more bass than any comparable 2.0 system I’ve heard.
Installation is no more complex than plugging the right monitor into the mains then connecting it to the left speaker. On the back of the slightly larger (it’s 10mm deeper) master speaker you’ll find three 3.5mm jacks – one for your headphones, one for a microphone or headset and one AUX-in – plus a USB-C port. Creative bundles all the necessary cables but, unlike the more expensive T100 system, you don’t get a remote control. Instead, all your controls are on the front of the master speaker, including a volume knob, a power/source button and buttons to activate the Clear Dialogue and Surround options. The last also toggles the speakers on and off if you have a pair of headphones connected.
For the price, the Creative T60 pack several features you wouldn’t expect, such as a built-in DAC and USB connectivity, which together mean you can take a digital sound signal direct from your PC’s USB port and let the speakers take care of the signal conversion to analogue as well as amplification. The sound quality from my MSI Katana gaming laptop certainly improved when I switched from the 3.5mm audio jack to USB.
Creative T60 review: What do they do well?
First and foremost, the Creative T60 sound very, very good for sub-£100 speakers. There’s a more than generous amount of volume and bass and a very impressive level of stereo separation, something that really pays dividends in games where the ability to detect the direction of incoming fire can, quite literally, be the difference between life and death.
Some distortion does creep in at maximum volume, especially if you leave the Clear Dialogue feature engaged, but that’s more a testament to the almost ridiculous maximum volume level that the Creative’s can achieve than any design failing. If the sound the T60 produce isn’t quite your cup of sonic tea you can always install Creative’s app and tweak the T60’s sound profiles using the nine-band graphic equaliser as well as the bass, treble and “Crystalizer” settings. The latter adds an extra level of sharpness to higher frequency sounds.
In addition to this, two specific features can be activated by pressing buttons on the front of the master speaker. The Surround button is self-explanatory and opens up the soundstage to an impressive degree but without making everything sound too artificially spaced out. The Clear Dialogue button brings vocals more to the fore and works surprisingly well with both video and gaming sources. The two systems can be used separately or in harmony, making the system highly adaptive.
If you are a Windows user the T60 also support Creative’s SmartComms Kit. This has an automatic voice detection built into it that can mute or unmute your mic automatically and has active noise cancellation to eliminate background noise. I found both features to be surprisingly effective and a genuine reason to opt for Creative kit over that of its competitors if you make a lot of calls using your computer. At the moment, the T60 are the only Creative speakers that support SmartComms, giving them an edge over the otherwise more highly specified T100s.
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Creative T60 review: What could be improved?
The T60s only lacks two features but it’s hard to be too critical given the asking price: there’s no support for the aptX Bluetooth codec and there’s no facility to hook up a subwoofer.
It could be argued that, in this sort of price range, the difference between aptX and SBC compression is irrelevant because no £70 speaker system has the fidelity to make the difference audible. As for the absence of a subwoofer connector, that is a little harder to forgive. Granted, the T60 do produce a generous dollop of bass but the option to connect a sub would have been a handy addition.
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Creative T60 review: Should you buy them?
Unless you want to use your PC as the source for a hi-fi system, in which case you will need to spend a darned sight more than £70 on your speaker system, the Creative T60 are absolutely Best Buy material.
On purely audio grounds, they perform well above their price category, offering a full, detailed and expansive sound that works well whether you’re watching a movie, listening to music, gaming or chatting over Zoom. Features such as the built-in DAC, support for Creative’s clever SmartComms Kit technology and comprehensive connectivity options are cherries on an already impressive cake.