Sound Blaster’s modular hub is a reconfigurable Stream Deck for audio

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

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

The institution launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign with transportation expected arsenic aboriginal arsenic June 2026. Pricing is expected to commencement astatine $500 for a kit that includes a horizontal basal 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 enactment for Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth for wireless cogwheel similar 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 the hub’s buttons oregon touchscreen, without having to juggle cables, but its usefulness goes beyond that.

While connected to a PC, the hub’s assorted buttons and controls tin beryllium customized to motorboat applications, trigger shortcuts specified arsenic muting a telephone telephone oregon starting programmable macros, and adjacent power Matter-enabled astute location devices. It runs Linux, and Creative says users person afloat basal entree to its hardware. Developers are encouraged to make their ain apps oregon find alternate uses for the hub.

But the Re:Imagine isn’t wholly babelike connected a PC. It’s powered by an octa-core processor with 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.