ASUS ROG Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds review

I am not quite to the point of calling myself an audiophile, but over the last couple of years I have made it my mission to find solutions for all of my audio needs. There's no shortage of developers out there touting all the latest and greatest in headphones and earbuds. ASUS has surprised me in the past with the ROG Pelta wireless gaming headset, which is now my primary headset particularly for my competitive gaming needs, but when it came to earbuds I was still open to ideas. It seems ASUS have struck again with the ROG Cetra open wireless gaming earbuds, which have answered most of the call.

ASUS ROG Pelta review — Entering the Republic of Good Hearing

My ears have been pelted by amazing audio!

GAMINGTRENDCassie Peterson

Open earbuds are a new thing to me. I've always either used headphones or in-ear buds, but they obviously block out the majority of the sounds around me. As my priorities and circumstances shift, that spatial sound has to come more into focus, whether I'm at the gym, in the office, or on the plane to my next nerd event. No longer can I keep myself fully engulfed, being completely unaware of what's going on around me. However, I also wasn't ready for the drawbacks that come with the open design.

The ASUS ROG Cetra earbuds are incredibly light and become virtually unnoticeable when you're focused on your work, listening to a podcast during a workout, or commuting. They simply loop over and behind the ear with the speaker landing perfectly over the ear canal without fully blocking it. I say virtually unnoticeable because they do fight for space over and behind my ear because of my glasses, which did start to cause a bit of discomfort over time. It also means that they don't always sit securely if my glasses get jostled around. Unfortunately, they are not able to be fitted with ear fins to insert into the earlobe, which I find to be more practical and comfortable overall. That being said, they stay in place well enough when going for a run and are unlikely to move around or fall out unless you really throw your head around or knock it into something.

Sound is, of course, an important feature of any earbud or headset. The 14.2mm drivers provide clear and crisp sound, whether it's used for gaming, music, or video. However there are some cases where the deep tones feel shallow, particularly with bass-heavy music. It's not that it's completely absent; it just doesn't give that boom factor, but it's also important to remember that this is part of the design for open earbuds. This was simply another thing that I had to adjust to after years of being pampered by the wub-wub of my other sound devices. Once I could shimmy past that, I was able to fully appreciate the beauty of what I was hearing, like the knock on the door for my DoorDash order while I jammed out to Evan Fong's latest single.

Even though they are labeled as gaming earbuds, I am actually less likely to use them for gaming, except for games on my Nintendo Switch 2 when I'm on the go. Apart from that, I usually have the sound for story-based games I play coming through the television, but when I'm playing FPS games like Rainbow Six Siege, I want to be fully immersed in all of the sounds. While sound does come through the earbuds nice and clear, I don't get the same directional quality that I need to be able to know where footsteps are coming from. The Pelta headset achieves this at a much higher level with infinitely more reliability. I also don't like being able to hear my own mouse and keyboard clicks so easily as they can be a distraction.

The Cetra earbuds are compatible with nearly all devices that have Bluetooth capabilities or a USB-C port, except for Xbox, because why not? This is a limitation caused by Xbox's own USB-C codec requirements and the lack of Bluetooth connection support between the two devices. PlayStation systems require the use of the included USB-C wireless dongle, but iOS and Android mobile devices, PC, Mac, and Nintendo Switch systems can connect via Bluetooth. You can also connect to one device via Bluetooth and then a second via the dongle to get audio from both sources simultaneously, therefore creating three sources for sound that your brain has to pay attention to, unless you still somehow tune out the world around you.

Keeping that multitasking and productivity in mind, there's a built-in microphone that you can use to chat on the phone or a Discord call when you're gaming. Using AI Noise Cancellation, the microphone can filter out some of the ambient background noise, like fans, traffic, and random chatter, so those on the other end can hear you loud and clear. I tested this on a group call with my mother and sister, and they said I sounded great, as if I was on speaker phone but with more clarity and less distractions. As hands-free becomes the law across the country, this will come in particularly handy when I get a call while on the road.

On a full charge, the Cetra earbuds will get you up to 16 hours of playback, extendable by an additional 48 hours with the included charging case, which also houses the USB-C dongle. I have had these for a few weeks now and still haven't needed to recharge anything. Everything is quick to recharge, taking maybe an hour to get everything topped off again.

These earbuds will set you back more than a few bucks, sitting around $230 USD, which lands them in the same ballpark as the ARC 5 Open Ear True Wireless earbuds that Editor in Chief, Ron Burke reviewed. With a bevy of features and possible use cases, you're sure to get some good mileage on them, though I would be hard-pressed to get that spendy with them myself (thank you ASUS for sending them over to review).