Creative announces Sound BlasterAxx wireless

In a departure from its traditional sound cards, Creative has just unveiled a line of Bluetooth speakers with built-in mics, called the Sound BlasterAxx range. Yes, these are the pun-heavy ones we anticipated last week, but now we have a lot more detail. There are three different sizes of speaker, but only the larger two (the SBX-20 and SBX-10) are Bluetooth -- the smaller and cheaper SBX-8 must be tethered. All contain the new SBAxx-1 hardware processor, and even the SBX-20 can be powered over USB from a mobile device (with sufficient current output) or a power pack. The speakers are designed to bring Creative into the Internet Age with a number of voice-enhancing features for video chat apps like Skype. These include highly-focused directionality and noise reduction, to frame out peripheral sounds, and also Smart Volume, which automatically adjusts audio levels as you move closer to or further from the mic. This same processing technology is also claimed to assist with voice-recognition platforms like Siri when you use a Sound BlasterAxx speaker to communicate with your device instead of its regular microphone. There's also some quirky stuff like comic voice effects, just in case you're not embarrassed by how you sound on a mic already. The SBX-8 and SBX-10 will be available in the UK from early July for £80 and £130 respectively, while the flagship SBX-20 will arrive in August for £180.