Creative Stage Pro review: Great speakers for small spaces

I expected the SuperWide to make dialogue more difficult to understand, but the Stage Pro has exceptional audio clarity for both Far and Near, even in Music and Movie modes. I found the extra boost for the mids and highs in Vocal mode to be unnecessary.

As a music speaker, the Stage Pro is geared toward low volume levels and short distances. It’s not that it can’t get louder – it can get ridiculously loud – it just doesn’t sound good at these levels. The screaming at highs starts creeping up around 50 percent, and by the time you get to 75 percent, it sounds like noise.

You’ll get the best accuracy in normal stereo mode, but even in that mode, I needed to drop the treble adjustment to its lowest setting to compensate for the heavily boosted highs. Music in both SuperWide modes can be a mixed experience. The definition of the midrange is partially sacrificed (that dilution of detail I described earlier), causing the highs to be overemphasized. On some tracks, like Sabriba Carpenter’s “Taste,” she leaves a gap between the bass notes and the vocals. Some songs fared better. Jon Batiste’s “We Are,” with its gospel-tinged chorus, benefited from both a wide soundstage and fine tuning, but this was awkward.

The speaker sits on rubber feet that angle the unit slightly upward to direct the drivers toward your head when seated. For my combination of desk, chair, and body heights, that wasn’t enough. I ended up placing an AA battery under each foot to get a more aggressive angle. Although I don’t recommend this particular hack, I encourage you to find a solution that does the same thing. When sitting close, the ultra-wide near and far positions will look much better if you get this angle right.

Solid bar

Using the Stage Pro with a 32-inch TV in our bedroom was a different experience. Unlike the bed, the TV is not placed in the room. On my wife’s side, the viewing angle is about 10 degrees off; From my side, it’s more like 30. We can adjust the angle of the TV a bit to compensate, but the little electric heater that doubles as a speaker stand doesn’t give us the same level of flexibility as the soundbar. When using my usual speaker, the Sonos Beam, I don’t notice this at all. However, with the Stage Pro in Far mode, my wife’s side clearly did well, while I got a less immersive experience. Switching to close mode increased this gap.

As an experiment, I set up the Stage Pro in our larger TV room. The speaker surprised me, especially in Far SuperWide mode, with an expansive sound that sounded like it was coming from a much larger speaker. Unfortunately, the subwoofer couldn’t move enough air to match the main bar, and the bass performance was too weak to be enjoyable. Lesson learned: Stage Pro prefers a smaller stage.

For the price, the Creative Stage Pro is a fun and versatile speaker system that excels at providing immersive cinematic sound with excellent dialogue clarity. Its SuperWide processing is not only noise-free, but you’ll only appreciate the effect over short distances with the drivers aimed directly at your listening position. Don’t ask it to fill more than a small bedroom or office, and you won’t be disappointed.