Creative GigaWorks T40 Series II 2.0 Speakers with BasXPort

My wife needed PC speakers that were clear so she could understand people in Zoom conference calls. She has some hearing loss and needs to accentuate certain frequencies. Her Win11 laptop speakers were anemic, as were her monitor speakers and several older pc speakers I had. She needed a set that was extremely frugal with her limited desktop real estate. She also needed at least a tone control. I could not believe how few pc speakers have tone controls these days. And navigating down multiple menu levels within the O/S to adjust tone is very inconvenient. Most speakers I found with a tone control were absolute pigs for the footprint they grabbed on the desktop. It was sticker shock when I found these speakers, but they ticked all the boxes, had good reviews, and I've been happy with Creative products in the past. These do a great job and she can understand everyone clearly. The two niggles I have with these speakers are: 1. After they power down (or sleep) after no audio for ten minutes, it takes several seconds for them to power back up after audio is detected. In my opinion, they should power up almost instantly. Due to the delay, she often misses the first few seconds of audio when she reviews a video or performs other tasks, and that frustrates her. The manual says you can just turn the off and on every time, but that requires quite a reach in her case and brings me to the next niggle. 2. To turn them off, on, adjust volume, and adjust tone controls, you must somehow grasp completely smooth knobs that are recessed so low into the front that there is hardly any of the knob to grasp. It is very uncomfortable to adjust the knobs. It's not a big deal because these are something you usually just set-and-forget. But, if you want to flip them off and on real quick to wake them up, you must deal with these almost ungraspable knobs. Overall, these are fantastic speakers. I am not deducting stars for these niggles. They have great fidelity, plenty of power, they are easy to set up, take up as little desktop space as possible, and they are good-looking. I would not hesitate to get them again.

This is an update to my prior review below from about 6 weeks ago... I thought my speakers were dead after 11 years. BUT, turns out it was totally operator error and I'm quite embarrassed. I seriously thought I had checked, double checked and then rechecked all connections to the speakers, computer, etc. and made sure everything was plugged in. I was ready to hit the the button to complete an order for a new set of these. But in my mind I couldn't believe and accept the fact they would have really completely stopped working. I decided to check one last time before putting them in the trash and sure enough, one of the connectors was not fully connected. First, I don't know how I didn't catch it the previous times I checked and second, the connectors are really secure so I don't know how this happened. Regardless, the speakers are working just as well as the day I bought them and they suit my needs perfectly!!! If you're on the fence I would bite the bullet and make the purchase. These are beyond amazing and a great price for the quality you are getting. I purchased these speakers in June if 2013 and overall was very happy with them. They were a bit larger than I would have liked but to me the sound was good and they are a nice looking speaker. I also liked the wired set up versus USB or wireless. I know many have complained about the auto shut off or standby feature but that wasn't really an issue for me. That is until a week ago when they simply never came back on. I think 11 years is a good run and honestly they still look brand new. While I'm giving these speakers 5 stars for everything I've just mentioned I'm not sure why but this go around I'm a bit reluctant to purchase these again. I'm looking at other options, maybe something smaller but most have a USB hookup. Also, I don't want to compromise on sound but don't want to spend a lot of money and I'm not sure I can find something better for this price. I'm anxious to get new speakers but don't want to make a rash decision.

If half-stars were available, I would have rated this product 4 and a half stars. <EDIT> The review below is 3 years old now, and it still stands, but here is an update. For some reason the bass now sounds better. My best guess would be that through use (cone excursion) possibly the glue loosened up, an the cones are traveling much truer than they were when I got them, or at least it sounds that way. IOW, a break-in period. Kind of a long one, they didn't really sound better until after a year or so. But I made another improvement, which is I connected a subwoofer I had laying around. I had put this off because I could not find a practical way to do this, but I found a box that works as a crossover from Rolls (SX45, about $90) that made this work pretty well. I roll the Creatives off at 150 Hz, and the sub back in at 150 Hz, and it sounds much, much better, because now the Creatives are not trying to do all of that work in the lower octaves that they are probably too small to do efficiently. As I originally stated, sub-200 Hz is where the Creatives fall down, while above 200 Hz they sound really good. But the combination of this and the sub really works well. The Creatives by themselves sound OK when the volume is low, but now I can listen at a reasonable level and still get good bass response. <END EDIT> The box says "Premium, home theatre sound with booming bass". If you qualify that, it is exactly correct. And here's what I mean by "qualify": The word "premium" applies if you are comparing this system to conventional computer speaker systems (it is the best I've come across in that regard). The term "home theatre sound" applies if you are comparing this to a low-cost "home theatre in a box" system, usually costing much more. This system ranks high in that category sound-wise (although it is a 2.0 system and HTIB is usually 5.1), but of course it can't begin to compare to a conventional high-dollar home theatre system. Booming bass? You betcha, although that might not be what we have in mind. "Premium, home theatre sound" is rarely accompanied by "booming bass", simply because "booming" bass is not ever really high in quality, so there is a bit of a dichotomy there. But if booming bass is what you are after, this system has it in spades, even though the goals for bass response in home theatre are usually quite different. Read on for a further explanation. The Good: If we consider just frequencies above 200 Hz, these speakers perform as well as many expensive bookshelf speakers. That's right, they really do. The dome tweeter (big fan of those) creates very clear and detailed highs, and mid-highs. Mids and mid-lows are equally good. In fact, I can't recommend them any more enthusiastically because of how well they perform in this range above 200 Hz; they are on par with hifi speakers or even prosumer desktop recording studio speakers costing many times more than this. There is also a lot of headroom; you could really rock the house, sheer volume-wise. And again, Amazon beat everyone else on price, which is reasonable for what you get. The Not-So-Good: As we get into lower frequencies, the farther below 200 Hz we go, the worse these speakers perform. This is also a function of volume; at low volumes the bass is not half-bad, and better than what one might expect from computer speakers. But as the volume is raised to a conservative listening level, the bass becomes muddy, poorly imaged, and with distortion that almost makes turning down the bass until there is an absence of bass, the better choice. Again, there is plenty of headroom, at least as far as the amp is concerned, but the bass elements just can't keep up with it, and they start to double the frequency and become very unlistenable. Kick drums (the bass drum in a trap set) are not all that bad; there is a solid kick reproduction although it feels a bit squeezed and missing its natural lower frequencies. What is disappointing is how poorly bass guitar sounds. And that is pretty ugly, although most computer-class speakers do just as poor a job, if not worse. Being an Audio Engineer for a very long time, with a history of building, rebuilding, and doing sound reinforcement with speakers of all kinds, my best guess is that this poor imaging and muddiness is a product of porting the speakers, which works well with large speakers, not so much with tiny speakers (although comparatively speaking, these guys are gargantuan next to most computer speakers). This porting technique gives an efficiency that doubles the lower-frequency volume (for the same amount of amp)and extends the bass response about a half octave lower, but the cost is cone hangover and associated muddiness and imaging issues. As a matter of fact, you can cover the port with your hand, and while the bass level then drops about 3 dB, the bass quality increases dramatically. I cut some styrofoam "corks" and plugged the ports, and turned the bass up a notch, and under those conditions the bass was also greatly improved, so that means the "corks" will be permanent in my setup. This essentially turns the speakers into more of a bookshelf speaker as far as bass response is concerned, meaning that the bass is more "tight", and imaging improves and muddiness disappears. But not completely. You can't expect miracles or 2.1 bass response out of a computer-class 2.0 system regardless who makes it, simply because the physics of that precludes it. But corking the ports makes them sound much more reasonable, and less like listening to that moron with the raised-up pickup truck sitting next to you at the stoplight booming rap music until your iPhone vibrates out of its holster. Bottom line: So it is easy to see why the gentleman who favors classical music rated these speakers so poorly. These are the wrong speakers for critical hifi listening to classical, even though the response is very flat and musical in frequencies above 200 Hz. But if you are primarily a gamer, or you want good quality for common computer speaker tasks, these speakers are ideal. Perfect for background music. Maybe not so perfect for watching Transformers III at home theatre levels, or for full volume music listening, but that is not what they are designed as, and is really not to be their expected performance level. Still, they are absolutely keepers. They should perform better in smaller rooms, too (I auditioned them in a room that was 20x24x9). I may add a 3rd-party sub, which would very likely compensate nicely in the lower frequencies. I'll amend my review when I do, but my prediction is that adding a complementary sub would make these speakers pretty hard to beat, even in categories above computer speakers.

Pros: Great looks. Sounds is both clear and tremendously powerful for speakers of this size and price. Couldn't be easier to set-up. Versatile and well-equipped. No separate sub. Cons: Size isn't for everyone. No remote. Not having a separate subwoofer may be a dealbreaker for some. I recently moved into a studio apartment and I can't afford a massive sound system. Like many people I rely upon my laptop as pretty much my sole source of entertainment but was growing tired of using headphones and my valiant, but tiny Altec speakers on my HP laptop. Looking through Amazon.com, NewEgg.com, and Cnet.com was definitely an exercise in frustration. In fact, it took me two months of trolling through those sites and my local Best Buy before I gambled on these. I finally settled on the T40 because both the T20 and T40 have garnered solid reviews. Are they perfect? No, but neither are most reviewers. But generally no one had horror studies to tell (ahem, JBL, ahem) and the only complaints seemed anal-retentive. A sale price of 99.00 on Amazon.com was also perfect and the lack of a subwoofer was a plus. Finally, I've owned a few Creative products in the past...MP3 players, etc...remember soundblaster? And while they were often on the fringe of the mainstream, they have always been solid and never poorly made. I want to break this review into several parts based on how I went about choosing these speakers: 1. Looks: with a sophisticated design and piano-black exterior, these speakers are very fancy looking. On my black lacquer Ikea desk, they look outstanding. Of course, like a shiny black BMW, they do require weekly dusting but I find it to be worth it (buy a Swifter). You will get nice comments from your friends, trust me. That being said, these speakers are a full 12 inches high, so they may be bigger than what you're looking for. Each speaker is slightly canted upwards for optimal sound since they are essentially pointing towards your head. 2. Versatility and Ease of use. There is everything you need here. You have a TV aux in (with included RCA adapter), Aux in, Headphone jack and a standard audio cable for hooking up to your laptop. The power adapter is smaller than most laptop adapters and doesn't even get hot. Wires are needed obviously but are minimal and easy to tie up. There is a Bass/Treble/Volume button right on the front so adjustments couldn't be easier. Very clean and thoughtful set up. People complain about the blue light around the volume button but c'mon. I don't even notice it. People need to calm down. Incidentally, I prefer the dust covers on and overall, the speakers are very chic and modern. 3. Sound: You might notice I put this third. Well, that's because I didn't have high expectations from a two speaker setup. But let me tell you, these speaker will SPOIL you. Pinback sounds amazingly clear and concert-like. Nine inch Nails sounds awesomely angry and loud. Deadmau5, Daftpunk, and Kaskade sound club-ready. Yankees Games sound crisp. Top Gear sounds terrific. These speakers have ALL the bass you need without any of the headaches (rattling furniture, angry neighbors). The high and mid-range sound is quite frankly excellent for two single speakers without any separate tweeters, etc. These speakers are great all-rounders for both movies, music, and internet use. Are other speakers better? Sure, but I bet you'll pay more for them and have to accomodate an ugly subwoofer to boot. 4. Price: There are not many other worthwhile alternatives that offer this sort of quality at this price. The Altec/Logitech crowd designs range from comical and horrendous to just plain tacky. The JBL designs are cool but like a BMW, their reliability sucks. Bose is laughably overpriced. Really little to complain about here. So there you have it. Great looking. Excellent Design. Terrific Sound. Good value. What more do you need?

I bought this in 2018. Wonderful speakers for their price and had performed wonderfully till this year. Since then they became inconsistent. I tried various various 3.5 mm stereo (look for two rings on each ) jack. I thought it must be the output on my Mac Mini. Periodically I try something else. I almost brought my Mac Mini in to Apple to have the mini jack outpost fixed. When I realized that, that was not the problem, I bought another high quality RCA jack 3.5 mm cord to see if my T40 would fire up. Nope. So I was sure at this point that the speakers had served me well and no longer worked. About to give them away for someone else to mess with, I found the original colorful box the set up came in. Within this there was a smaller cardboard box. "What's in here?" I opened it and found the original RCA 3.5 mm cord and compared it with other I had tried. They looked the same. But... BINGO. They worked. These speaker sound as fine as they did the day I opened the box and set them up. Its possible I had dud cords including the one just purchased. Or the Gigworks T40 cord that came with the unit may be ever so slightly wider in circumference. Anyway, I suggest that if you own this unit keep that cord, maybe even mark it so you can identify it if you the unit or whatever. 5 *****!

Update March 2026: Our ancient Sharp flat screen TV finally started to be lame, so we purchased a new Roku set. I was disappointed to learn that most TVs now connect to soundbars via Bluetooth. I'm not convinced Bluetooth is worthwhile, especially on stationary/non-portable equipment. For a while, I thought our TV had no headphone jack, which is the easiest way to connect the speakers. I was cleaning and happened to have a enough light to notice it was buried in a location near the ethernet cable connection. Today I had time to connect the GigaWorks T40 speakers that used to be connected to the old TV, which functioned for many years to make it so that we could actually follow the dialog on the programs we watched. This had become challenging with the new TV using the built-in speakers. What a big difference! We used to require the closed captions, but not anymore! These are great speakers for a PC, and also great for circumventing the idiotic way sound is mixed for new er movies and TV. The only real drawback is the trend of manufacturers obsessively using blue LEDs for everything. Not only annoying, but messes with night vision and circadian rhythms. In the one photo you may be able to tell I used a piece of translucent red plastic to cover the blue light around the volume knob. Original review:This is the second set of these speakers I've purchased. The first were connected to our TV to improve the sound quality. I've found that "theatre" speakers systems with more than 2 channels bury the dialogue, the entire reason we wanted better sound. Although these speakers are intended for a PC, they work perfect on any TV with an audio output. They are a bit large for a desktop, but the sound is quite good. The quality of construction is impressive. The appearance of the speakers is pleasant, without goofy shapes, lights or gimmicks. Bluetooth speakers usually have inconsistent connection quality. I only use them wired, and don't even know, or care, if these will connect via wireless.(edited for clarification)This second set of speakers were for my wife to use on ZOOM calls.

Updated review after almost 2 years: These are the worst speakers I have ever purchased. They sound terrible, the power saving mode is infuriating. They are huge and take up twice as much room as the old versions while sounding five times worse. I can't believe they are this bad when they old versions were so good. Stay away from Creative Old review: I bought these to replace my old Creative speakers that died from a lightning strike. This newer model has an extra cone on each speaker for about the same price, so that was a no-brainer upgrade. which would be the case except there is another new "feature" on these speakers that is about to make me crush them with a mallet and abandon the Creative brand forever: there's some sort of energy saving mode built in that automatically turns the speakers off until they sense that audio is trying to be played. When audio is sensed, the speakers will turn on, ABOUT TEN SECONDS LATER. Why would I ever want speakers that don't play when I want them to? They're plugged into the wall, there's no need to save battery or some minuscule amount of power draw by cutting the speakers off every few minutes. I HATE this "feature" and I wish I had discovered it while I could still get my money back. If this is how Creative is making their electronics now, then I will be staying away in the future.

I bought my wife a smaller set of T20's several years ago and they've been great sounding little speakers. I, however, used to have a more powerful set of Cambridge Soundworks surround speakers that eventually fell victim to the capacitor plague, and it wasn't until a couple months ago I finally tossed those (they were really nice). Since those died, I was using the crappy speakers in my monitor, thinking how wonderful it would be to get my old speakers up and running again. But that never happened. So I took the plunge and started looking around for something not as big as what I have (I don't do gaming or movie watching on my computer, so I have no need for surround), and I kept coming back to these. I know the quality of their smaller siblings, so, the price was right and I took the chance. So far, I have not regretted that decision. These barely take up more room than the smaller T20s, and they look quite attractive. I have them on a desk that's 5' wide, that also has two 26" monitors side by side, and they bookend the monitors fine. And they sound great too. I like that they will shut themselves off if there's no active audio signal detected, and will automatically turn back on when one returns. They manage some hefty bass for their size, and I find that I only boost the treble a bit, leaving the bass at the center setting. These are rally no-frills, basic speakers that do exactly what they're designed to do, and they do it well, and without excessive wiring; there's only two wires; one to connect them together and one on the power supply. The only other wire would be the audio cable, for which these have two inputs; one on the back and one on the front of the right speaker. Both of these will work together; there's no override circuitry that turns one off when the other has a signal, so, you could plug you iPod/phone/tablet in without disconnecting the audio from a computer and have to worry about switching. There's also a small headphone jack on the front of the right speaker.

Dual base . Amazing sound clarity for this little speaker. Even though price is little high it’s worth every paise.. better than 2.1 speakers as it has dual base and we can hear mid tones clearly

A little background: I have gone through a lot of speakers over the years for various reasons (upgrades, speakers stop working, damaged drivers). Once I got my first 2.1 set I knew I always wanted a sub-woofer in all my speaker sets. But as I upgraded into larger speakers over the years, my taste in music changed to those tunes that employed heavy bass and beats. Now that I listen to these speakers, I sort of realize why. Most 2.1 PC speakers are enjoyable for many types of music, movies and games (explosions). But, if you want to enjoy an immersive audio experience, you need to turn the volume up. At which point the bass becomes overpowering and disturbing to (neighbours or other people living in the house). REASON for 2.0: The fact that I enjoy loud music and the general lack of space in my room pushed me into looking for quality 2.0 speakers. I had heard a Bose audio dock and couple of other (premium) smallish speakers without subs throw a descent amount of bass. So I figured why not? After a little research, I picked these up. Research: [...] BUILD: Awesome. PROS : They are heavy for just satellites. So there seems to be a good amp(s) and quality drivers in there. The controls are just perfect (although a little smooth to grip properly). Bass, Treble and volume - Brilliant classic controls. The speakers themselves don't take a lot of space on the table. There is a snug-fitting grill on the front that is easily removable. Those orangish-yellow cones look even better in real. There is a power adapter with a reasonable length cable on it. The cable connecting the two speakers are long enough for two wide screen monitors. Overall build feels a thousand bucks. :) CONS (Not really): These are quite tall (you may read that mentioned often). Its not tall in a bad way, just oddly tall :P AUDIO: immersive and full-bodied PROS: The speakers have a very flat response and most music sounds quite natural. I wouldn't really consider them studio monitors but they come close. The mid's and treble's are especially detailed. I'm just amazed at the clarity the speakers provide. I was able to enjoy songs I hadn't heard in a long time and could hear nuances and instruments in the background. You know you have good speakers when you enjoy music like that. At 32 Watts the speakers aren't exceptionally loud. However, they are loud enough to fill a room and more than loud enough if you are sitting in front of them. Even at the max volume, there is surprisingly minimal distortion. The specs mention a frequency response starting at 50HZ. Not so sure about that, but it can deliver good audible bass (100Hz) with a little tweaking. Using the sound-card's EQ settings, I increase the bass at around 100HZ mark by a few decibels. The bass/treble controls on the speakers have a broader range and aren't as specific as a proper equalizer. However, they still do a great job and I use them on the fly when required. Also to note the, volume/bass/treble controls apply to headphones connected to the speakers as well (which is rare and awesome) CONS : If you have used 2.1's before, you will definitely find the earth shaking bass missing. There is no sub! If you want to shake the floor, get something else. SUMMARY: I bought them at $109 on sale and I feel like that was a steal ! I have had 200 Watt 2.1 systems which I enjoyed for other reasons (parties). This speaker however, I have been enjoying it personally ! If you are looking for 2.0 systems, i think they are good buy no matter what.

Bocinas de un tamaño considerable, pero debido a sus 2 driver por bocinas se pueden lograr una sonido fuerte y sin mucha distorción. Los bajos se perciben mas profundo gracias al diseño de las mismas bocinas sin embargo los medios se llegan a perder un poco, sin embargo esto no supone un problema para disfrutar de la musica o sonido a un muy buen nivel de volumen, ademas debido a su control de bajos y tremble se puede regular para tener un sonido nitido la mayoria de las veces Su nivel de volumen bastante aceptable, lo destacable es su desempeño con un DAC son capaces de soportar salidas altas y amplificadas aunque de esta manera se puede acentuar el problema en los medios, la potencia y claridad que ofrecen son muy buenas sorprendetemente los bajos no distorcionan mucho con el sonido amplificado por el DAC

This set of desktop speakers do the job. Good clear presentation, and with the added mini headphone jack for late hours headphone use. A good reasonable solution.

Halten was sie versprechen, guter Klang, gute Technik. Und sehen noch gut aus.