Although the $99.99 Mackie CR StealthBar takes its oblong aesthetics from soundbars, this Bluetooth and USB speaker is designed to sit under your computer’s monitor rather than a television. Its upward-angled drivers help direct its stereo audio directly at you, and the whole setup takes up less space than a traditional pair of PC speakers. That said, the StealthBar’s volume knob seems to have a life of its own, and the speaker can distort audio at higher volumes, preventing us from recommending it more highly. At $49.99, the Editors’ Choice award-winning Creative Pebble Plus system is more affordable and delivers excellent 2.1 sound.
Lots of Connection Options (and Issues)
The StealthBar measures 4.3 by 18.7 by 3.0 inches (HWD) and weighs almost four and a half pounds. The speaker sits on two feet that angle its front-facing grille forward. You can remove the angled feet so that the speaker sits flat, or replace them with feet that tilt the speaker even higher—8 degrees is the default and the replacement feet angle the StealthBar at 15 degrees.
Behind the grille, a Class D, 50-watt amplifier powers dual, 2.5-inch full-range drivers that deliver a frequency range of 67Hz to 20kHz. Dual passive radiators help beef up the audio. The active drivers are well spaced and provide a sense of stereo separation, especially on tracks with hard panning in the mix. The StealthBar is compatible with Bluetooth 5.0 and supports the AAC and SBC codecs.
On the front left, the grille houses a button with the Mackie logo (for Bluetooth pairing) as well as a 3.5mm headphone jack. A power and volume knob sits on the front right; pressing the knob mutes or unmutes the speaker. On the right side, you get a button for switching between Music, Voice, and Game EQ modes, and below that, a source button for switching between aux, Bluetooth, or USB sources.
The rear panel houses a 3.5mm aux input, a subwoofer output, a USB-C port, and the power adapter. You get 3.5mm and USB-C-to-USB-A cables in the box, but the power cord is very short; depending on how you organize your desk, this could be problematic.
The next bit of bad news is that the speaker, though lightweight and armed with Bluetooth, can’t run on battery power. I would prefer the flexibility to easily move the StealthBar between rooms, but that’s simply not possible without taking the power adapter with it. Note that in Bluetooth mode, the on-speaker volume knob works independently of your Bluetooth source’s volume; typically they work together. In USB mode, the volume knob controls your connected computer’s master levels.
Another operational annoyance: The volume knob doesn’t always work or otherwise suffers from input delay. Multiple times when I was playing audio via the USB connection, the audio levels would only adjust several seconds after I turned the volume knob—delays like this inevitably mean you’ll turn the knob again, going above or below the level you intended.
When I simultaneously paired the speaker with my phone and connected it to an iMac via USB, turning the volume knob all the way down on the speaker tricked it into powering off. In the process, it unpaired with my phone (you get a vocal prompt for all of these actions). Turning the volume back up forced the speaker to re-pair with my phone, but throughout this process, I was still able to listen to audio through its USB connection. The speaker never actually turned off—it continued to play USB audio at a very low volume. And sometimes, the volume changed on its even when it wasn’t connected to any Bluetooth devices and it was in USB source mode. Oddly, when I connected the StealthBar to my iMac, it thought the speaker was a keyboard; I had to go into the Sound menu and select StealthBar from the Output options.
Sounds Best at Moderate Volumes
In Music mode, the StealthBar’s lows are scooped out a bit, while the mids and highs are somewhat boosted. In Game mode, the bass and highest frequencies are boosted a little. Voice mode emphasizes speech intelligibility at modest volume levels. I mostly tested with the StealthBar in Music mode, but Game mode might appeal to you, especially if you aren’t using an external subwoofer.
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On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the StealthBar delivered a laudable thump but struggled to hold everything together at times. At top volumes on an iPhone and with the speaker’s volume maxed out, the speaker distorted a little and shifted around on my desktop quite a bit, despite the rubberized feet. At less intense volumes, I didn’t hear any distortion and the speaker still delivered a palpable sense of bass depth.
Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a track with far less deep bass in the mix, better reveals the StealthBar’s sound signature. The drums sound full and rich, as do Callahan’s baritone vocals. The higher-register percussion and guitar strums are bright and crisp, but the emphasis seems squarely on the low-mids and mids. This focus doesn’t make anything sound muddy, but the lows, although rich and full, seem unnecessarily pushed forward. The StealthBar doesn’t sound bad, but it doesn’t produce accurate sound. I like the speaker’s performance in Game mode a bit more. Here, the lows and higher-register elements get a little more space to breathe. Which mode appeals most to you will be a matter of taste.
On Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum loop receives enough high-mid presence for its attack to retain some of its punch, but again, the lows and low-mids dominate the mix. Both Game and Music modes deliver some solid bass thump on this track—the real difference between the two modes seems to be the relationship between the mids, high-mids, and highs. Both Music and Game modes deliver vocals cleanly and clearly, without any obvious added sibilance.
Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, sound well balanced, with the lows moving slightly forward in the mix; the highs get some added treble edge.
Too Many Quirks
Although we like the Mackie CR StealthBar’s stereo separation and soundbar-like design, we encountered the same operational quirks with two separate models, making it difficult to recommend. Our favorite PC speakers look nothing like the CR StealthBar, but some are more affordable. For instance, the $49.99 Creative Pebble Plus is a 2.1 system that sounds far better than you’d expect for the price, and the same goes for the $79.99 Logitech Z407. If you have room in your budget, meanwhile, consider the $300 Harman Kardon SoundSticks 4. And if you like the idea of a soundbar for your PC, the $199.99 Razer Leviathan is worth considering.
