Sound Blaster’s Modular Hub Is A Reconfigurable Stream Deck For Audio

Full apps tin beryllium tally connected nan hub’s 3-inch touchscreen, including a DOS emulator for retro games. | Image: Creative

Creative, nan institution champion known for its Sound Blaster statement of sound cards that boosted nan audio capabilities of ’90s-era PCs, is reviving nan marque pinch a caller hub called nan Re:Imagine. It’s reminiscent of Elgato’s Stream Deck controllers, but pinch a attraction connected your audio gear. It has a modular creation allowing buttons, dials, sliders, and screens to beryllium mixed, matched, and rearranged to your circumstantial needs.

The institution launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign pinch transportation expected arsenic early arsenic June 2026. Pricing is expected to commencement astatine $500 for a kit that includes a horizontal guidelines portion positive touchscreen, button, dial, and slider modules. Kickstarter backers tin presently preorder it for $329 for a constricted time.

The Re:Imagine features USB-C, mic, line, and optical successful connections, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a dedicated USB larboard for connecting it to a computer, positive support for Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth for wireless cogwheel for illustration headphones. There’s besides a built-in DAC and amp that Creative says tin powerfulness larger studio-grade desktop speakers. You tin way audio from 1 instrumentality to different utilizing nan hub’s buttons aliases touchscreen, without having to juggle cables, but its usefulness goes beyond that.

While connected to a PC, nan hub’s various buttons and controls tin beryllium customized to motorboat applications, trigger shortcuts specified arsenic muting a telephone telephone aliases starting programmable macros, and moreover power Matter-enabled smart location devices. It runs Linux, and Creative says users person afloat guidelines entree to its hardware. Developers are encouraged to create their ain apps aliases find alternate uses for nan hub.

But nan Re:Imagine isn’t wholly limited connected a PC. It’s powered by an octa-core processor pinch 8GB of RAM and 16GB of retention that tin beryllium expanded utilizing a microSD representation card. It tin tally apps connected its 3-inch touchscreen and includes a DOS emulator for playing retro games, AI-powered assistants, and an AI DJ that tin make euphony based connected a theme.