Creative Sound Blaster Katana V2 Review

Peter Donnell / 2 years ago

A Closer Look

This is one amazing looking soundbar, and it’s certainly a lot more modern and cooler looking than its predecessor. It’s the same width, coming in at 600mm wide, so it’ll be a good accompaniment for larger monitors, as that’s as wide as a 27″ monitor, which is a very common monitor size for PC gamers.

The speaker configuration is really nice on this soundbar too, and it has two 19mm (3/4″) tweeters that are forward-facing behind this strong metal mesh design. They’re closer to the outside too, so they’ll give you a nice wide stereo image.

There are two more speakers on the tops, with some upwards and slightly angled 63mm (2.5″) mid-range drivers, bringing the total to four speakers. There’s no middle speaker though, it’s more focused on creating a virtual centre speaker, but when you’re sitting right between the woofers, that should work great.

The top panel looks stunning, with a brushed metal design that gives it a premium look and feel. All the edges on the soundbar and the trim around those top speakers have been cut at an angle and polished too, and they look gorgeous.

Located in the middle, there is a nice set of controls, all clearly labelled and within easy reach. There’s also a bit more functionality than the old model, which basically just had the source, SBX and volume. Above that, you’ve got a more stylish branding too, as the old one had the Sound Blaster X red logo, which looked very “gamer” in my opinion.

I had the KATANA V1 on my desk for a few weeks, I so badly wanted it as my daily speaker setup, but I grew to slowly hate it. The headphone port was HEAVILY recessed into the back, and it was a total nightmare plugging them in every evening. Clearly, they’ve listened to feedback, as the port is right here on the front… Yay!

Look closely, you’ll see two pinholes in the front of the speaker, here let me point at one of them! They’re actually microphones, so you can use this for hands-free calls. This will work on your PC, so Discord, WhatsApp, etc. However, you can pair your phone via Bluetooth too, and use it to make phone calls.

On the back, there’s plenty of ventilation. While I’m sure that will give the amps some fresh air, it should provide some porting for the speakers too.

There’s a good range of connectivity here, with HDMI Out (ARC), SXFI Out, Type-C In, Aux-In, Optical In, Sub Out and then the power port. Basically, anything can be hooked up, Xbox, PlayStation, Switch, some dusty old DVD player, etc. If you can’t connect something here, you’re looking at it wrong.

The new subwoofer looks great, and its quite a nice upgrade from the old one too. Interestingly, it’s larger and features a larger driver too, so it’s simply going to be able to deliver more bass and power. The old one was no slouch either, so this one should be quite tasty.

The old red logo is gone, replaced with the much nicely silver one at the top.

Also, the bass port was at the front/top before, and that’s now been pushed down to the bottom where it should be.

The previous model has the speaker on the left, but on this model, it has been moved to the right. That’s not really a big deal, but if you’re upgrading from the old Katana, it could influence where you place the sub in your room.