I will start by saying that the sound from these speakers is surprisingly good. No, not $1000 Bose or Sonos sound bar good, but way better than most computer speakers, and I have gone through several. But my main complaint may sound trivial and contradictory. There is a lot of wire to manage with these. The power cord and the wires between the pair and the connecting wire that has to go into the monitor because it isn’t long enough to go to my computer or hub. This made me buy under-desk wire management shelves. Also, when I move things around I might bump one and then it goes rolling over, and I have to check to make sure I don’t have it upside down. On the plus side, there are none of those tawdry cheap looking 1950s movie theater light strips scattered all over them. I may bet rid of them for a sound bar, but I know I’m looking at something much more expensive if I want to avoid the Shanghai nights light show. But they do sound quite decent for the price. Others have complained they felt they should get better sound for the price. I challenge them to find it.

I wrote a pretty positive review a few days after getting these, but as I’ve lived with them a little longer and really thought about it, I’m not as happy with my purchase. If you’re looking for speakers that are clear and just want something with good volume and clarity, these are great. They are decent enough and have *some* bass to them. Read below if you plan to listen to music and care what that experience is like. I do suggest scrolling down to the bottom where I’ve added pros and cons.

Every review you see of these sings their praises. Don’t get me wrong, they sound “good”. Certainly better than the extra-tinny, clearly “there-so-they-could-put-another-feature-on-the-box”, sad excuse for speakers that came built into my monitor. But they aren’t great. Just good. For $50, I think I could have found better. Speakers have come a long way in the past decade. Your run of the mills bluetooth speaker in the flavor-of-the-week isle at Aldi has passive base reflex and have good bass response. These do not.

The little woofer is more of a mid-range speaker with the two satellite speakers acting as tweeters. The sub does not thump or boom. It does a decent job filling out the sound, but there’s no wow factor and deeper notes are lost completely. And I’m not even talking about edge cases. I like a song called “Daylight” by Watchhouse. It’s a folky countryish song. So it has that classic BUMM bumm BUMM bumm bass line that many folky and country songs have. While these speakers play it, it’s subtle to the point that you notice and miss it.

Another thing that annoys me more than I thought it would, is that there is a good 4 second delay between the moment you turn on the speakers to the time any sound comes out. This seems minor, but I work from home and listen to music while I work. I get frequent work calls and since I’m logged into a remote computer, cannot easily mute the music with the computer, so I turn the speakers off. Maybe I’m being a bit nit-picky, but waiting for the music to start playing so I can set the volume drives me nuts.

PROS
* Look good
* Clear sound
* Good volume
* Not “fake bassy” like many cheaper speakers (not muffled or muddy sounding)

CONS
* Utter lack of real low end
* 4 second delay from the time they are turned on to the time they start playing audio
* Wires are *just* long enough to reach from the top of a desk to a computer on the floor directly below. If you have a non-standard setup, you may need to get a headphone extension cable

I purchased a new ASUS laptop last month. Unfortunately, the speaker/volume quality is not that great. When I’m listening to music or watching a show, I can’t hear them at the maximum volume unless I’m positioned close to the laptop. After some research, the price was comparable to other wired speakers. I watched the reviews here on Amazon and decided to purchase the Creative Pebble 2.0 speakers. Once I received them, installation was a breeze. There was no driver to download. Plug into the audio/headphone jack and the SS (3.0) port. At first, I used the 2.0 USB port. A pop-up message indicated that the speakers would perform better using the 3.0 port. Creative Labs send a message via the Amazon account with installation instructions and common issues.
The sound was balanced in each speaker. It definitely has bass. The volume control on your computer has to be adjusted also. The volume control is on one of the speakers. You turn the knob clockwise to turn them on and adjust the volume. There’s a green indicator light that comes on. The quality of the sound depends on the source. When watching network shows on their individual websites, the sound is clear enough. YouTube vlogs are the same. It kind of sounds like the actors or vloggers are speaking into a mic. That maybe the bass. It’s kind of echo-like. Digital downloads sound the same. You don’t have to turn the volume control more than halfway to listen at a comfortable level. After that, it’s too loud for me. I’ve only had them for a week now. The sound from the speakers isn’t a clear, crisp sound. But its good enough.