- A modular hub with DAC, amplifier and programmable controllers
- Can drive headphones up to 300 ohms
- Early bird pricing of $329 / £249 (approx AU$499)
For gamers and musicians of a certain age, the words Sound Blaster bring back happy memories: Creative Labs’ sound card ruled the school in the 1990s, replacing the very basic sound of PCs with something much more exciting. And now Sound Blaster promises to change the audio world again with a new modular hub for all kinds of devices – not just PCs, but phones, game consoles and even studio equipment.
It looks like a lot of people are interested: the Kickstarter for Sound Blaster Re:Imagine only just went live, and it’s already reached four times its original goal.
So what exactly is Re:Imagine? It depends a lot on what you want it for. It’s a DAC, it’s an amplifier, it’s a sound card, it’s a very small retro gaming PC. It’s like Lego for your sound.
Sound Blaster Re:Imagine: key features and pricing
At the heart of Re:Imagine is a wedge-shaped audio hub, the Horizon Base Unit, for power, audio and device connections. It has a headphone output, line in and out, microphone input, Toslink optical input and a USB Type-C audio input. Wireless connectivity is dual-band Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0.
The hub has a 32-bit/384kHz DAC (meaning it’s capable of handling seriously high-resolution files) with PCM playback, and there’s an amplifier designed to drive the best wired headphones from 32 to 300 ohms, as well as “big” desktop speakers. And there’s a 3-inch “smart screen” to control it.
The hub is designed for both stand-alone and connected use; for the former, it has a Linux operating system and is powered by an octa-core ARM system on a chip with a neural processing unit.
The various modules are magnetically attached and square or rectangular, and the standard kit gives you the aforementioned smart screen plus four programmable buttons, a rotary control knob and dual slider controls. The Horizon Base Unit has five square slots for the modules, but Sound Blaster will also make a taller version with six slots called the Vertex.
The system comes with several apps, including an on-device DOS emulator for playing classic PC games; AI-powered versions of the early 90s Sound Blaster Parrot and Dr.Sbaitso apps, which followed your speech and offered a pre-ChatGPT conversational app respectively; an AI-powered DJ app and audio recording and visualization apps.
It’s certainly an interesting design, though of course its success will depend on what other modules become available – and on how many people will be willing to drop $500 on one, given that’s the expected retail price. But it’s currently much cheaper for Kickstarter early birds: $329 / £249 (about AU$499) plus shipping and taxes.
Sound Blaster Re:Imagine is on Kickstarter now with expected deliveries in June 2026.
The best headphone DACs for every budget
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews and opinions in your feeds. Be sure to click the Follow button!
And of course you can too follow TechRadar on TikTok for news, reviews, video unboxings, and get regular updates from us on WhatsApp also.
