Creative Labs revives Sound Blaster brand with modular audio hub — Re:Imagine is a tactile Stream Deck competitor, aimed at creators and audiophiles

The Sound Blaster Re:Imagine modular audio hub with AI

(Image credit: Creative Technology)

Creative Technology is bringing back its iconic Sound Blaster brand with the launch of a new modular audio hub. The Re:Imagine is designed for users who manage multiple audio devices, offering quick source switching and flexible configuration within a single setup. Currently listed on Kickstarter, the Re:Imagine is claimed to be an open, programmable platform that combines the functionality of a sound card and a stream deck, featuring broad audio connectivity and customizable controls.

The hub is powered by an octa-core ARM CPU with a dedicated NPU with up to 6 TOPS of performance, 8GB of LPDDR4 memory, 16GB of onboard EMMC flash storage and a microSD card slot for adding more storage. It features a hi-resolution 32-bit/384 KHz DAC and amp which can power headphones up to 300Ω as well as large desktop speakers. It also offers wide compatibility with devices including PCs, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, gaming consoles, headphones, speakers, mics, and music instruments. The company notes that it can be used as a standalone device as it comes with Linux or can be connected to your PC or laptop using USB to double as a control hub for activating macros on your computer. There’s even support for Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 meaning that it can connect to wireless audio devices.

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Design and features of the Sound Blaster Re:Imagine modular audio hub with AI — (Image credit: Creative Technology)

The design is quite interesting as it seems to be inspired by Teenage Engineering, who themselves are inspired by Braun. The company plans to launch two base hubs that differentiate in terms of layout where each unit comes with a set of included modules including a smart screen, a set of four buttons, a knob, and dual sliders. Initially the Horizon Base Unit will be offered featuring a wide layout including a total of five slots where two are used by the Smart Screen and three are open for other modules. The Vertex Base Unit on the other hand offers a taller layout with a total of six slots, although this variant will only be available once the initial Kickstarter campaign funding goal has been met.

As mentioned earlier, users have complete control over its hardware with deep customization options available via the provided SDK and sample source code. This allows users to build their own apps and control connected devices with root-level access. Creative will also allow users to share their creations and benefit from tools and features developed by other users.

Additionally the Re:Imagine includes some built-in apps including a DOS emulator for retro PC gaming, AI-powered versions of Sound Blaster Parrot and Dr. Sbaitso, an AI DJ that creates music based on user-selected themes, and tools for one-tap audio recording and visualizations.

Currently the most affordable pledge tier for the Sound Blaster Re:Imagine starts at $329 where backers receive the core modular audio hub unit, and the above-mentioned four modules. It is important to note that this is a pre-order estimate and shipments are expected to begin in June 2026. If you are looking for similar modular control hubs, make sure to look at the Cooler Master MasterHub and various options from Elgato.

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Kunal Khullar is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. He is a long time technology journalist and reviewer specializing in PC components and peripherals, and welcomes any and every question around building a PC.

13 Comments Comment from the forums

rluker5

I'm a big fan of older Creative soundcards, but I think since the G6 they have been toning down their equalization capabilities. Mostly software for sound cards, but also hardware for usb powered ones because of power limits. Likely to keep people from damaging their hearing with them.

Since this device says it supports up to 300ohm headphones (typically the higher the ohms the quieter the headphones are at a given power output, and while you can run 1200ohm headphones on most phones they won't get very loud) it leads me to believe that it will continue the recent trend of reasonable equalization limits.

The audio processing will likely be quite good and if you like the form factor or controls or are just looking to add some clutter to your desk, this may be for you. But for me it seems to be missing out on what the original AE5(older software), Z(older software), Recon 3D had, which for me, is the audio equivalent of a 75" 3000 nit OLED screen.

If such a screen existed and you had it you wouldn't have to turn up the brightness or contrast, but you could if you really wanted. Same with the EQ on the right soundcard. For example here is when I was fooling around looking for more bass and made a video to visually show off the bass capability of a power limited G1 hooked up to a 6w 11" tablet and some homemade headphones:
8puEa4HIXK8View: https://youtu.be/8puEa4HIXK8
The internal sound cards can push nearly all headphone speakers past their limits. Not blowing them up, they usually just start sounding like crap when the travel limits are hit. Also one should be aware that their hearing could be damaged if they get overindulgent. And internal soundcards in general tend to be finicky as to which motherboards can stably run them and I've had issues with Asus in particular. My 2 MSI Z790s are great with AE5s though. I would upgrade to the AE7 or 9 if I knew I could run SoundBlasterConnect2 on them to unlock their potential but that seems pretty unlikely AFAIK.
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DS426

Why does this article say Creative is bringing back the Sound Blaster brand? All of their discrete soundcards and DAC/Amps have been using the name -- it never went away from what I can recall.
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Spuwho

It is good that Creative is pushing out into new spaces. Audio routing and rules are definitely needed in the world now, with cell phones, podcasting, gaming, and other audio related activities now in the compute space, this is where some advancement is needed.

By having it Kick-started helps them deal with the start up costs and gauge interest.
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jg.millirem

DS426 said:
Why does this article say Creative is bringing back the Sound Blaster brand? All of their discrete soundcards and DAC/Amps have been using the name -- it never went away from what I can recall.
Came here to say this. I bought a Sound Blaster X5 earlier this year. Excellent, modern device.
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thestryker

While this seems like a relatively interesting device the price combined with the limited output functionality immediately kill the device for me. Their somewhat recently released G8 seems to have better audio capabilities, does have better IO and costs a bit over half as much. I get that all of the additional functionality adds cost, but the base functionality shouldn't be sacrificed to get there.
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Chokkymalk

I’m at this point where something like this just screams “I’m going to be obsolete in 3 years”
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rluker5

thestryker said:
While this seems like a relatively interesting device the price combined with the limited output functionality immediately kill the device for me. Their somewhat recently released G8 seems to have better audio capabilities, does have better IO and costs a bit over half as much. I get that all of the additional functionality adds cost, but the base functionality shouldn't be sacrificed to get there.
I just checked a review on the G8 and it looks like it has an EQ range of +-6dB. The G6 had +-12dB which was still fairly anemic, and the AE5(running SB Connect 2), Z(older software, in my daughter's pc now), and Recon 3D PCie all ran +-24dB EQ range. Also some of the older USB cards like the G1, Play 3!, and Recon3D usb also have +-24dB EQs with the Recon3D usb being able to run outside of other EQs and stack EQ effects with at least some others for anyone that wants that. Not very practical IMO, but I've done it.
DhuPsHfWrpU:370View: https://youtu.be/DhuPsHfWrpU?t=370

EQ APO can often restore this depending on the motherboard but often has issues with Windows updates, and anything external is often lacking in the power to support that range at an indulgent volume with good headphones, like the G6, G1, Play!3, Recon3d external for examples. Recon3d USB having the most power out of those but the worst detail, and G6 being second on power, best detail but worst built in EQ.

Not an issue if you don't want it or have never experienced most of your headphones being able to sound better than high end floor speakers instead of sounding like very nice diminutive speakers. If you want to check it out EQ APO is free and easy to use with the Peace skin. Also Sound Blaster Play 3! is $18 on Amazon but has hissing issues on a lot of systems. And you have to lower the preamp with both EQ APO and the USB ones to prevent clipping with lots of EQ. But if you aren't that interested and don't want to find a new problem to fix you may be better off not trying them out. Because no solution is perfect in making the audio as good as you imagine it should be. None.

But really my point was that Creative is going down the path of moving away from their greatest advantage over motherboard integrated audio solutions which was the raw power of their cards. Take that away and the reasons for using something that looks and touches different but sounds pretty much the same are just aesthetic. A lot of motherboards already have 32/384.
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thestryker

rluker5 said:
But really my point was that Creative is going down the path of moving away from their greatest advantage over motherboard integrated audio solutions which was the raw power of their cards. Take that away and the reasons for using something that looks and touches different but sounds pretty much the same are just aesthetic. A lot of motherboards already have 32/384.
Definitely, and I'm not really sure why they've done it. When I found myself in a situation where I needed to replace my internal card it was somewhat amazing how hard it is to find an external that supports 5.1 (or higher, but that's all I needed). I ended up getting a SB X4 because Creative seemed to be the only ones actually making anything worthwhile and it has been good enough. It falls somewhat middle of the road and if I was willing to ditch my old Z5500s and go either stereo or headphones I'd be able to get pretty much anything which would do the trick.
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Pemalite

I would rather we bring back full hardware accelerated 3D audio.
R.I.P. Aureal A3D.
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Anton_Godlike_Gaming

Creative resorting to Kickstarter tells everyone all they need to know...
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