JBL Creature III

Product Survey: 2.0/2.1/3.1 speakers

As you might have realised, the Creature speakers look very odd and, frankly, they make us laugh. We've found that people either love them or hate them, but they rarely leave anybody who's seen them indifferent. It's clear that the Harman group wasn't shy to adopt new designs a long time before Altec Lansing gave its whole range a makeover ... But underneath this intriguing exterior, the Creatures are lacking a few essentials. If you want to keep them under your desk, then you'll end up bending down to adjust the bass and treble--but also to turn them on and off. JBL consistently doesn't include a remote, and it's particularly annoying. It's even worse because the satellite speakers don't have an auxiliary input. That means you've only got a single minijack connection to play with. That's fine if you have a mobile or a laptop, but if you have a desktop PC, it's more complicated ... And a trailing cable somewhere doesn't just look ugly, it also creates audible feedback in the speakers, which isn't too great. Even before we listened to them, we weren't worried about waking the neighbours up with these speakers. And our tests confirmed our suspicions: the satellites take care of the treble, while the woofer does the mid-range. Bass, on the other hand ...