Creative Labs Reviews 143

Bought a Audigy FX V2 to fix windows 11 audio popping issues. alas didnt at all in fact was worse no matter what PC it was inserted. Installed random drivers that made latency worse. Tried a 2nd card. same issue. Creative said it was my PC, despite having tried multiple. and said to buy a creative USB DAC (Eye roll that wont fix anything just trying to upsell me)

Gave up using it and went back to my ALC4080 and re-enabled it in BIOS.

few months later thought id give a crack at it again. Creative software wont pick up any sound cards.

"Plug in your creative devices to experience the app"

Tried all the fixes.
Went to support waited days for a response.
Low and behold

AI support automated reply regurgitating google results. No support.

Never buy creative they are scum who dont care.

I bought a dongle from the Creative Labs website, and they shipped it with Poste Italiane/SDA. The result: delivery promised for today, nobody showed up, and then I received the usual fake message claiming the “recipient was absent.” I stayed home all day for nothing.
Relying on such an unreliable courier shows a lack of respect for customers.
Creative Labs should seriously rethink their logistics. As long as they keep using carriers that invent delivery attempts, it’s better to buy elsewhere.

Too hard to get support, difficult to navigate site who do not really care unless you purchase direct.. GS5 failed after 13 months and no help whatsoever. You get better support from cheap Chinese companies

​I placed an order for one of their speakers from Creative labs online store in USA. I regret not using other stores. I have had good experience with Creative speakers in the past, but the one I received did not meet my expectations. Since I am not happy with the product, I returned it.
​I had to pay the shipping fee, which cost nearly 25% of the original product cost. I will not get a shipping fee refund. The product was delivered, and even after a week, I received no update. I had to contact them and gave them proof of shipment/receipt, and after two days, they verified the delivery of the product.
​Now I am waiting for a refund. Two weeks have gone by, and they say it takes 30 days to process the refund! I have never had such a poor experience with any other store.

The mimis werent defective and working in the beginning but didnt even last a year, what a waste of money

I asked for a rubber spare part that attaches to the bottom of the Sound Blasterx G6. I asked once and was told there was not one. I asked again if somewhere in the huge company worth at least 11 million dollars had the spare part. I was answered with a no.
I find it hard to believe that a conglomerate like Creative Labs does not have a part for an item that is still in production.
I’m totally stunned by this, customer support seems to be absolutely terrible.

I had a fantastic experience with Creative. I had bought one of their blue-tooth dongles for online gaming & low latency audio around 5 years ago.

But I lost the USB C-to-A Converter making it useless for anything but USB C consoles. I tried a number of fairly expensive adapters all with glowing reviews but none worked.

So I got in touch with them and Elaine from Creative Labs Pte Ltd, Worldwide Customer Response offered to to see if they could send me a replacement.

Not only did they send me a replacement free of charge but they sent it first class tracked. You really could not ask for a better experience in this day & age of poor customer experiences.

I'm not quite sure why a lot of others here seem to have had a negative experiences but I'd definitely purchase from them again. They fixed essentially something that was my fault & over 4 years out of warranty.

I love that they still sell older hardware soundcards thats support Alchemy for older games like CoD. But they dont support it on their newer hardware. I dont know about their speakers but I love their soundcards. Ae7 and Ae9. The G8 is a great Dac but the older software is forgotten which includes Alchemy. Alchemy is an essential part of Soundblaster, so personally I think they should keep supporting it. I would recommed G8 but you'll need a seperate card if you want to play older games that have EAX or Alchemy.

The Zen pro earbuds do not work for me, I tried to return them but I keep on getting, “we are still reviewing the issue”, 6 weeks later and 31 emails, I am constantly receiving the same answer without resolution. Terrible customer service, I will never buy from them again.

Creative labs has stopped support for many of their "older" products.
This is very frustrating. I own 4 creative lab sound cards and 3- 5.1 speaker systems. I purchased one just 2 years ago and now I am being told they no longer support these and they can not be used on Windows 10 or even 11 because no windows drivers are provided anymore.
I have spent a lot of money over the years buying creative labs sound cards and matching speakers.
It is very frustrating because the tech industry is extremely greedy and pushing you to buy new product when there is nothing wrong with the old. Currently, Microsoft has stopped support for all operating systems before Windows 10, and Windows 10 is becoming obsolete in a year. What are we supposed to do with all this hardware we have spent 1000's on??
Is it a coincidence all of your hardware has to be updated to use Windows 11?? I don't think so.

Creative Labs your better than this. I have used your products for almost 30 years but I will not spend another cent with your company.
In the past I was able to use your older sound blaster cards on newer operating systems so it is beyond disappointing when I see your jumped on the bandwagon and are forcing us to buy new product when we shouldn't have to. The sound quality hasn't changed in years and funny how the onboard audio in current motherboards is the same as it is has been for 10+ years.

Never buy from them. They will do everything in their power to not let you return their products. That says enough. Also the box in which the product came was damaged. I didn't need the product anymore as I already found a better external sound card.

i had done an RMA Request with Creative because the connection to the audio module had become faulty. This is the AE-9

This request had been accepted and within a week and a half i had gotten a replacement audio card and module (which was rather speedy, kudos for that).

However, this is where the postives end.

Instead of getting a brand new card, i had gotten a refurbished card.

Now i wouldn't have minded getting a card that had been refurbished, i wouldn't have even minded that the card had the distinct "Magic Smoke" smell.

(even though every customer should get a brand new card when it is within warrenty but nevermind that)

What i did mind is that the card has pronounced buzzing every time you do anything CPU intensive...
i cannot game or do anything without hearing this...

So because of this, i also started getting very annoyed that Creative thought it was a good idea to send me a replacement, half refurbished card that had previously been in a computer that had a catastrophal power fault.

i'm very glad this Audio card has not done any damage to my computer and i REALLY HOPE Creative takes notice before they actually do damage someone's computer by sending them an even more badly refurbished card...

Complete rubbish and borderline scam artists. Their refund policies and billing practices are completely lawless.

I've requested an RMA from Creative and they delay. I'm still waiting. Now they will lose because now I'll never buy again any of their products. Why delay and say you are reviewing the request for an RMA so I can return the product for a refund. Since most reviews here are bad I recommend NEVER buy SXFI CREATIVE CARRIER Soundbar. I will NEVER buy a product from CREATIVE again. Every company I ask for a return do it immediately so why do CREATIVE make you wait.

Ordered 360 subwoofer. Delivery was quick and on time. Connected with my LG Tv and works amazing. Price was reasonable.

Update: After somebody else “reviewing” my case, creative refuse to acknowledge any fault and say it is normal for these speakers to make a constant whistle noise. Won’t be buying from creative again.

Awful after sales support. My Katana V2 makes a constant hiss and whistle noise which isn’t normal for any speaker so I contacted creative thinking they would be able to help. After me sending them a video of this issue, they responded and that there is no issue with the speaker and that this is the “noise floor” of the speaker.

What’s the point of a warranty if the customer points out an issue and you refuse to accept that it is an issue. This is massively disappointing as the speaker itself is great apart from this constant noise it emits, if creative would fix this issue then I would be happy with my purchase, the customer service/after sales support is awful.

Definitely would not buy from them again!

AVOID!

Do not EVER buy from Creative Labs

My soundbar died just after 1 year and they offered no support. they will not repair it or replace it even if you offer to pay. You will need to dump it in the bin and buy another one. They offered a 10% discount to buy a new garbage at best, heck i can find better deals online.

Inconsiderate and utterly appalling service and support!

DO NOT EVER BUY FROM THEM!

Most expensive SoundBlaster didn't last a month. Company denied receipt of return despite proof of delivery. £270 stolen

Good hardware. Terrible support and drivers and good hardware is pointless if it won't work because of driver issues never being resolved.

I recently ordered an audio related bluetooth dongle from Creative Labs. It took several days to arrive. It didn't work as advertised on their site and caused compatibility issues with my non-audio bluetooth devices. Upon attempting to return it, I was told that this was not considered a device issue and that any return would be on my dime. When I complained about this (there was clearly an issue with device compatibility despite what their site says) I was told "We will take this as a feedback. Rest assured that all the feedback are looked into as we strive to improve our customer's experience with us. Once again, we apologize for the inconvenience caused." So I had to pay $11 to return a $39.00 item. My thoughts: Creative doesn't stand behind their products, doesn't care about customers and their customer service is a joke. This is what I get for buying direct instead of going through Amazon.