How Much Does it Cost?
I was under the impression that the Creative T60’s are around £90 here in the UK. I mean, they’re $120 in the US, so I think it’s fair to say that’s a fair assessment. However, on the Creative website, they’re currently just £69.99, which is truly exceptional value for money. These are quality speakers from a well-respected audio brand, and frankly, that’s a price that’ll be hard to beat. The older T20 series II are quite old now, but they’re just £10 cheaper at £59.99, albeit, I still stand by it that they’re worth every penny of that. If you need something bigger and more advanced, there’s also the T100’s at £109.99, but at this time, I haven’t tested those myself.
Overview
Creative has finally created a speaker that I feel can match my Creative T20s. Keep in mind, that small form factor is pretty tricky to get a big sound out of it. The T20s launched around 14 years ago now, and Creative STILL sells them as one of their leading products, they’ve been impossible to beat for size, performance and price. However, while the T100s did offer a mighty upgrade, their larger size and higher cost made them more of an upgrade for the larger T40s. Thankfully, the T60 feels like the rightful successor to the T20s, and they’ve made quite a few improvements to justify the upgrade or the first time investment.
Acoustic Performance
Creative has given us the same size drivers but with a new cone design, negating the need for a separate tweeter. While the bass is still a match for the T20s, the mid is far more detailed and the treble is a lot crisper and brighter overall. While I miss having the Bass and Treble controls on the front, the digital interface now offers a full range of pre-amp, bass, treble, a full EQ, and other processing features that leave the old speakers in the stone age. The overall volume is actually pretty frightening too, considering the housing of these speakers is shorter than the old model it replaces. The only thing I did find strange is a slight delay when turning the volume wheel, hopefully, Creative can sharpen that up with a firmware update, but it’s not really a problem day to day.
Design
These speakers look gorgeous. The shiny plastic is a dust and fingerprint magnet, but honestly, they should be OK if you leave them alone. I like that they’ve removed the covers, exposing the driver, and that toned down gold/brass colouring looks pretty slick too. A longer USB C cable in the box would be nice but hardly a deal-breaker. Oh and one little detail the top of the speakers are flat, so you can easily put a little action figure, loose change, and other desktop crap on there. Not that you should, but you can, and you likely will.
Should I Buy Them?
Honestly, yes. I’m that confident in their performance. While the T20s are still my long-time favourites, but at just £10 more, the Creative T60s are better designed, smaller, more powerful, have some impressive software features, and greatly improved connectivity. It’s taken well over a decade to find a worthy replacement for the Creative T20s, and it looks like the only real contender for Creative… was Creative and their new T60s!
