Creative XF1 review: compact desktop speakers with serious sound

We often tend to spend a fortune on our laptops and PCs, and even our monitors and keyboards, but overlook an important component - the speakers.

They're sometimes built in to monitors, or laptops, and it's easy to overlook how poor the sound quality is until you invest in a good set of desktop speakers.

Creative is a company that's been making computer speakers for decades, and their new launch the XF1 is aimed at the higher end of the market, priced at £139.99. So they should be a very effective piece of kit for demonstrating why better audio matters in a home office or gaming setup.

The XF1s are compact desktop speakers with 72W of RMS power, Bluetooth 6.0, USB-C audio, AUX input, and support for higher-quality LDAC wireless playback.

They’re also bi-amplified, meaning the individual drivers get their own amplification, and they come with cork stands that angle the speakers upwards by 15 degrees towards your ears.

At this price, they’re not exactly impulse-buy PC speakers, but they’re considerably cheaper than a lot of proper powered bookshelf speakers.

And that makes the XF1 quite an interesting middle ground.

What I liked about the Creative XF1

The first thing Creative has got right is the size. Each speaker measures roughly 19cm tall, 15.5cm deep and just under 10cm wide, so they’re small enough to sit either side of a monitor without swallowing half your desk.

There are some excellent powered speakers around, but plenty of them are basically bookshelf speakers pretending they belong beside a keyboard. The XF1 feels much more obviously designed around a desk.

They’re reassuringly substantial too, with MDF enclosures rather than lightweight plastic cabinets. Creative has also included a pair of cork stands which tilt the speakers upwards by 15 degrees.

It sounds like a very minor detail, but desktop speakers often sit below ear level, so pointing the drivers towards you makes considerably more sense than firing everything into your chest.

Connectivity is another strong point. You can hook them up to a PC using USB-C, connect something through the 3.5mm AUX input or use Bluetooth 6.0.

Bluetooth supports SBC, AAC and LDAC, the latter allowing higher-quality wireless audio with compatible devices.

USB audio supports hi-res playback up to 24-bit/96kHz too, so Creative clearly hasn’t treated these as a basic pair of PC speakers with Bluetooth bolted on.

There’s also a subwoofer output. The XF1 is a conventional 2.0 setup out of the box, but if you decide you want more low-end grunt later, you can add a powered subwoofer rather than replacing the whole system.

The controls are pleasingly simple. There’s a knob on the front of the right-hand speaker for volume, alongside the controls for power, Bluetooth pairing and switching sources.

That means you’re not constantly reaching behind a speaker every time you want to change something, which is a surprisingly common bit of bad design on desktop audio gear.

Then there’s the Creative Nexus app. This gives you a 10-band parametric EQ along with more than 100 tuned presets covering music, games and other types of audio.

That’s considerably more adjustment than most desktop speakers give you. It also means the XF1 should be relatively easy to tailor if you prefer warmer sound, more prominent vocals or simply want to compensate for where the speakers are sitting on your desk.

What I didn't like about the Creative XF1

There’s no getting away from the fact that £139.99 is quite a lot of money for computer speakers. At this price you’re starting to stray into proper powered-speaker territory, so the XF1 has to do more than simply sound better than the speakers built into your monitor.

The compact design also inevitably brings limitations. These aren’t huge speakers and there’s no dedicated subwoofer included, so anyone expecting chest-thumping bass from a pair of boxes less than 20cm tall is likely to be disappointed.

That subwoofer output suddenly makes a lot more sense if you listen to bass-heavy music, watch a lot of films or want explosions in games to have some proper weight behind them.

There’s also quite a lot going on in the Creative Nexus software. Having a parametric EQ and masses of presets is brilliant if you enjoy fiddling with audio settings, but plenty of people just want to plug their speakers in and never think about them again.

Fortunately you don’t have to touch any of it, but some of the XF1’s appeal is undoubtedly tied up in features a more casual user may never use.

Overall verdict - should you buy the Creative XF1?

The Creative XF1 sits in a very sensible gap between cheap computer speakers and much larger powered bookshelf systems. They’re compact enough for a normal desk, powerful enough to be used for more than notification noises and YouTube videos, and the connectivity is excellent.

USB-C, AUX and Bluetooth cover practically everything you’re likely to put on a desk, while LDAC, hi-res USB audio and proper EQ controls give the XF1 a more serious side for anyone who actually cares about how their music sounds.

I also like the fact Creative hasn’t overcomplicated the physical design. They’re relatively discreet, the controls are where you need them and those little cork stands are much more useful than they initially sound.

At £139.99 they’re too expensive to recommend as a casual upgrade for someone who only occasionally watches a video on their PC.

But if your computer is where you listen to music, play games and watch films, the XF1 offers a lot of proper speaker functionality without requiring you to surrender half the desk.

And if you eventually decide the bass isn’t quite enough, at least Creative has left you somewhere to plug in a subwoofer.