I want to love Asus’ gaming earbuds, but there are problems

I’ve been warming up to gaming earbuds over the past couple of years. Although one of the best headsets for PC gaming wins in terms of immersion, the low-profile nature of earbuds is better for comfort during long gaming sessions. Asus seems to agree, with its new Cetra True Wireless SuperNova earbuds squarely targeting gamers who value comfort as much as sound quality.

As if a low-latency 2.4GHz connection and ANC weren’t enough, Asus improved the battery life for up to 46 hours with the included charging case. And it also added multipoint support, allowing you connect multiple devices simultaneously. The 2.4GHz connection even enables audio resolution at up to 96kHz, allowing you to listen to high-fidelity tracks like those found on Tidal.

It was unpleasant, but the Active Noise Cancelling was worse. It didn’t seem to do much of anything, which was made all the worse by the fact that the tips gripped into my ears and made me listen to the hollow sound inside my head — draw whatever conclusions you will from that. The bad news is the the Cetra SuperNova earbuds are all wrong out of the box. The good news is that you can fix them.

The flip side of that is that the earbuds themselves are actually very good with the tweaks. There’s a shocking amount of bass, so much so that I found myself using the EQ to roll off some low-end. The midrange is where most earbuds live and die, and the Cetra SuperNova has that aspect nailed with Dirac Opteo. It’s silky, without the harsh upper midrange or boxy lower midrange you hear on some cheaper earbuds.

The microphone isn’t great, either, despite Asus’ marketing about “AI bone conduction microphones.” There’s a strange filter effect that cuts in and out, almost like an aggressive noise gate. The actual noise gate, available through Armoury Crate, seems to block out your voice more than it does background noise, while the “Perfect Voice” option sounds harsh, thin, and tinny.

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