Creative Sound BlasterX Pro-Gaming Katana Review

Performance

Just to get everything on show, I whacked the sub right up on my desktop, this isn’t where it will be for testing, it’ll be hiding under my desk where it belongs, but it does look pretty cool there anyway, don’t you think?

The sound bar fits under my monitor nicely, it’s just a little bit under the width of my screen, but given my monitor is 27″, that’s not bad going and it pairs up nicely.

Changing source, lighting profiles, volume, SBX profile, etc from the buttons or the remotes causes a hidden display to light up in the front mesh, giving you an easy visualisation of your settings.

The RGB lighting is gorgeous too, and while it’s not overly bright since it’s a downlight, not a forward light, it gives some nice effects. There’s an RGB picker in the software, and you can turn it off or set it per-profile, so lots of tweaking available here.

Right, so onto the performance testing, and I’ve got that sub tucked down under my desktop now too. There’s a cool promotion going on right now that gets you a free copy of Warhammer: Vermintide with a purchase of the Katana, and I’m not about to pass up on a free game. The game is actually a really good demo of the gaming capabilities of the Katana, with brutal combat, surround sound effects, team chat, and just general multiplayer carnage.

The SBX EQ settings built into the Katana are fantastic, with Neutral, Gaming, Concert, Night, all ready to rock. However, you can create your own with just a few clicks, and even have many extra ones stored into the software. Drag and drop them onto the Katana box in software and they’re instantly uploaded to the device, so you can really make it your own with ease.

For gaming, I like a bit of a boost on the bass and treble, the range set to ultra-wide, and some boosts on clarity and a bit of smart volume to stop things getting too out of hand. The difference between this and neutral profile is profound. The bass is bone shaking, the vocals are pin sharp and the sound wraps around you with amazing power and detail. I’m a big fan of my surround sound setup, but this is just something I wasn’t expecting to sound as good as it does; the Katana will rock your socks off.

If anything, I think the Katana is TOO POWERFUL! On the volume scale of 1-50, I rarely push it past 5 for day to day use. I had the audacity to turn it up to about 30 for testing, at that point, it was risking breaking my windows… you have been warned. It works really well through USB, but we suggest using optical, as you can take full advantage of the surround processing, and also control desktop volume independent of the Katana volume, giving you more control and helping tame the powerful drivers for quieter listening scenarios.

For movies, music and gaming, the Katana excels. I’m a big music fan and rocking out to a few of my favourite albums or 20 every single day is important to me. The Katana certainly has the chops to bring out the details in your favourite albums, from classical to death metal, it doesn’t falter. Of course, for music, I leave it on the Neutral profile, although a slight push to the mid range on the EQ does give it a nice warmth that’s not to be missed. The dialogue enhancements work very well too, especially on movies and even more so in night mode, making it a hell of a lot easier to listen to the dialogue without the thundering explosions waking the kids up.