ROG Cetra True Wireless SpeedNova Gaming Earbuds – Dual-Mode (BT, 2.4GHz), Dirac Opteo, Bone-Conduction AI Mic, Adaptive ANC, 46Hr Battery, for PC, PS5, PS4, Switch, Mobile, ROG Ally/X - Black

I was honestly surprised by how good these ASUS ROG Cetra True Wireless SpeedNova earbuds turned out to be. I use them mainly for PC and PS5 gaming, but they’ve quickly become my go-to for everything — gaming, music, and even phone calls. Sound Quality: The sound is crystal clear and perfectly balanced. Bass is strong and punchy without being overwhelming, and the mids and highs are crisp. Whether it’s footsteps in a game or a bass drop in a song, everything sounds rich and detailed. Latency & Performance: The SpeedNova 2.4GHz wireless connection is incredible — zero noticeable lag. It honestly feels like a wired connection. I can easily switch between 2.4GHz (for gaming) and Bluetooth (for my phone), which is super convenient. Comfort & Fit: They’re lightweight, comfortable, and stay in place even during long sessions. The included ear tips give a nice seal for passive noise isolation. Noise Cancellation & Battery: The Active Noise Cancellation works really well, blocking out most background noise without that “pressure” feeling some earbuds have. Battery life is also impressive, and the case supports both USB-C and wireless charging. Extras: The Armoury Crate app lets you customize EQ settings and check battery levels easily. I also like the subtle RGB lighting on the case — a nice touch without being too flashy. Final Thoughts: ASUS really nailed it with these. Between the amazing sound, low latency, comfort, and premium build, these are hands down some of the best gaming earbuds you can buy. If you want something that performs great for both gaming and everyday use, don’t hesitate — these are absolutely worth it!

I’ve been searching for a while for the perfect gaming earbuds. I tried the razer hammerheads wireless way back when they first came out, and they were alright. Since then, I’ve been looking for something else as I hate wearing a headset and find them bulky and that they take up too much space on a desk, even with a hook. I tried the regular ROG Cetra, but the Bluetooth just had too much lag to make it enjoyable for the games I was playing. It was about 1/4-1/2 second behind, but it was enough to be noticeable. Otherwise the buds themselves were comfortable. Then, onto Anker Soundcore VRp10. These were great with the dongle, and they connected well to my pc, vr headset, and cell phone. The volume left some to be desired and the quality was alright, but the microphone was useless. After those, I tried the JBL Quantums, which sounded better, had a decent connection with their dongle, but just couldn’t stay charged, plus weren’t the most comfortable. Now onto the Rog Cetra Speednovas, and dang these are great! They sound just as good as my AirPod pro’s, the audio is clear with no hiccups, and has fantastic range. I love not having to worry about a wire, and they recharge fast in the case. The microphone is great too. My only gripe is that there is no easy way to store the dongle with the carrying case so I’ll have to plan to bring that separately somehow whenever I go on a trip. I’d highly recommend these to anyone who’s had a hard time finding the perfect earbuds since I went through that enough already. I have every intention to change my review if I run into an issue with quality or performance in the future. But for now, they’re practically perfect!

(UPDATE: Dec 8th, 2025; I'm returning these after 2 days. The battery life is a flat out LIE. Again, every single additional feature they have was turned OFF! [which begs the question why pay $220 USD for headphones that HAVE to be made as dumb as cheap sets to be usable? "You shouldn't," that's the answer]. With every thing off, it was only 3.5 hours of headset life by DAY TWO (2). And the case would be at 100% when earbuds were placed in them. The earbuds were depleted to 25~%, and a single recharge depleted the case to 30% from 100. NOPE. RETURNED.) These look great, there's no question about that. But there's several small things, and a few BIG problems that disqualify them from being actually good. There's a review up near the top that says the case is hard to open. That person is right, and yes it's minor, but having to find a specific way to hold a case to let it open is stupid. The way it's designed ends up meaning that most of the intuitive/natural/common sense ways of holding the case mean that you'll be holding the lid down against the base. I promise, I'm not infomercial style overacting with the video. Opening it one handed is not really any easier for all the same reasons. For me the worst is that I didn't check the touch control list because I was excited for a Black Friday deal. But 4 touches to decrease volume is BAD DESIGN. One of the main features of Bluetooth devices is that you can get up and walk away from thecontrolling device that has 1 Touch volume controls. I'm using this with a PS5 so there's no easy volume control. These headphones also reset the volume EVERY time they go into the case,and the default is massively loud. I spend the first 30 seconds jabbing my left ear 16 times to turn down the volume 4 levels. Yeah, volume control takes 4 taps (FOUR)... The battery life is terrible. I turned off ALL the extras. RGB: OFF. ANC: OFF. DIRAC: OFF: Surround Sound: OFF. I was getting about 4.5 to 5 hours of headphone life. The case is not providing more than 2 charges worth before depleting its reserve. The guide ROG gives says I should get 11.5 hours out of the headphones this way. It's less than half that duration. Anyway, then there's the app. When I connect by Bluetooth to my phone, the phone sees the headphones and case no problem. The app does not. Refresh the device list and they show up. However, accessing the controls takes between 5 and 40 seconds. EVERY time. Even if you JUST loaded the control panel, if you exit and want to go back, it has to load again... It's small but it's stupid. So Bluetooth connectivity is not great. The dongle however, seems to work as intended, and the latency is truly low. Now the RGB is gorgeous. There's no denying that. The colours of the LEDs are bright, and the colours are crisp (they truly do make me happy, which is why it sucks I HAVE to have them off to use them for more than a short while). The sound is fine, but as I said above, it claims to do surround sound/3D sound but does not. The latency is low enough. They also fit well enough. They use an oval shaped design that seems to work well for me. So there's that at least. I didn't find them uncomfortable,but I've never gotten to wear them for more than 4 hours, so... Overall, I got these on discount at $180 USD, and I don't think they're worth that much. I will probably return these even though they're so pretty (breaks muh heart! Lol). But at full price of $220 USD... No. Definitely not worth the price.

I purchased these in November of 2024 and have used them as my daily driver for work, gaming and just browsing the internet. (Some background: I do IT, love music, and gaming, so they really are being used all day.) Positives: -They sound great. I was coming from a Sennheiser PC38X headset and do feel that the audio quality was comparable. - They fit great. My ears never hurt or got sore from continuous use. Perfect for glasses-wearers. - Lag free when watching movies or gaming in either dongle or Bluetooth mode. - Sound canceling tech is witchcraft and works surprisingly well while keeping the audio definition intact. - Easy to go from my phone to my PC to my projector without having to take them out. It remembers devices very well and connects without issue from device to device. - Fast charging is indeed fast. Within 30 minutes they can be fully recharged. - Durable. I have dropped these in the case more than a dozen times and everything is still rock solid. Negatives: -After 2 years of use, the battery is about half the life it used to be. I used to average around 6 hours of continuous use before needing to recharge (Which was totally okay for my use-case. Perfect amount of time to take a small break.) I now cannot play games longer than 2.5 hours without hearing the "Low Battery" notifications which has become a nuisance during work and gaming sessions. I love these headphones but I will be switching to a wired headset again. - There are two mics modes with a massive difference in quality, one for the dongle and one during calls. You cannot use one over the other in Windows. - If the dongle gets hot, let's say from a video card fan exhaust, the signal quality and sound quality drops into a robotic noise that can only be resolved by reseating the USB-C Dongle. Sometimes, this happens for no apparent reason. Line of Sight is also pretty important as the dongle will drop signal if there is too much in-between you and the dongle. - The battery does not dissipate in both ears evenly, which I supposed makes sense depending on where sounds are coming from. Upon first using these, I would have a 15% differential meaning one ear would give the low battery notification before the other ear did. - The functions on the earbuds are not programmable. There are no buttons so the activation pad can be activated when wearing a beanie or if your shirt touches the earbud. 2 presses on the left ear to change the DAC settings, 1 press on the right ear to mute the mic (which can be really annoying) and a total of 4 presses on either ear to increase or decrease volume by 5% which is pretty much useless. Over all, if you are using these sparingly or only for gaming in short sessions, I can fully recommend these. I still plan to use mine as regular earbuds when on the go, mowing or until they stop working. But if you do use headphones heavily, I think the investment may be better spent in wired headphones. I would like to not have to purchase another headset for at least a decade if possible. Overall, I think I got my money's worth besides the fact that the batteries are now on a very short life span.

The biggest reason to get these buds is the combination of a low-latency dongle and simultaneous Bluetooth connectivity. I can use these at home for gaming with low-latency audio, then take them to work to use for productivity (leaving the dongle at home) while remaining connected to my phone in between. If there were more competitors that had this feature set my review might be a bit more critical, but since it's one of the few devices capable of this I'm going with 5 stars. Other pros: - Good audio - Good noise canceling - Good battery life - Good Bluetooth behavior on Android (Galaxy S23) and Windows 11 I never get anywhere close to low battery, so even though this has better battery life than its competitors it's probably overkill. There are caveats, but they are not severe enough to lower my 5-star review. - Pass-through audio mode is merely adequate; nothing special - The Windows software is bloated and therefore best avoided - The case can be fiddly to open - The touch commands are pretty complicated and you can't customize them. Usually the only one I care about is toggling the noise canceling. I wish it were single tap instead of double because it's very easy to miss. - I've turned off the "Wear Detection" feature but it still likes to play/pause when I'm inserting or removing them. Customizing the touch controls would help here. - On very rare occasions you get glitchy behavior. When this happens on Windows you'll want to remove the dongle, wait, then plug it back in.

Let's start with the positives: +The earbuds look great and sound impressive for an earbud, even competitive with my pulse elite headset. +Bass is punchy without being overpowering, and the general audio quality is clear specially when enabling DIRAC (however, when using them as 2-way communication - sound output and microphone - the audio fidelity takes a big hit). + The dongle works very well, connection to my ps5 and pc was easy and fast. + You can edit the equalizer using an app which is convenient. +The ANC can be pretty effective against ambient noise. It's not headphone quality, but again I was surprised considering the size. + they charge back up extremely quickly in the case. Overall, very solid. However, I also found many negatives: - While the connection is stable, the audio would occasionally become very echoey and this would not change until disconnected and reconnected (putting them back on the case). - The touch interface is not very intuitive, and it's easy to touch unintentionally. The touch inputs also cannot be edited. So, you're stuck touching your right ear 4 times if you want to raise the volume. - Overall, there's not a lot of guidance on the usage of the device, neither in the manual nor the app. - I couldn't get the dongle and Bluetooth connections to play together. Once the dongle is plugged in, the Bluetooth is entirely overwritten. This means you can't receive calls unless you unplug the dongle, even if both your phone and the dongle are connected. I am not sure if this is just not supported or if it's just something my setup (again hard to find troubleshooting about the product). I also found that the battery life was quite inconsistent. While using the dongle on the ps5 with leds off and no ANC they could last from 4 to 7 hours, and each earbud could have significantly different battery life too (sometimes even 20% charge left in one earbud when both started from full charge at the same time). This may be a standard with gaming earbuds though, I have no point of comparison. I find the fit to be MOSTLY stable. However, because of the "dangly" design, they can slide off your ear. I found they got occasionally looser on my right ear, and this led to the final sad part: About 2 weeks after buying them I was walking back to my car from the grocery store - hands busy, when the right earbud fell off my ear and (of course it would) bounced a little in front of me. Before I realized where it went, I stepped on it and cracked it, fully killing it. I tried contacting Asus support, and they said there was no repair, replacement, buy-in/trade in or anything I could do. It's done. I understand this was my fault, but it's also quite frustrating that the only way to repair them would be buying a complete new set. I CAN use only the left one, but the features are extremely limited (especially since the controls cannot be changed). All in all, the ASUS ROG CETRA SPEEDNOVA are okay earbuds, but everything around them feels a little disappointing.

I have not used the microphone yet and will update when I do, but so far these are fantastic. The sound quality is great, they do not irritate your ears after extended wear, and the battery life is incredible. I listened to two full Critical Role sessions at 2x speed and still had ~50% charge left on Bluetooth (I was not using the LE connection either). Cons: Not worth removing a star, but the tap controls are terrible. Tap the left earbud twice for ANC controls, the right for advancing the song. Three taps on the left does I forget what and on the right it does the standard rewind. And then there's the really questionable one: 4 taps left to lower the volume and on the right to raise it? And if you slip up, you are pausing, skipping songs, or rewinding accidentally? I'll just stick to putting my hand in my pocket and adjusting the volume by touch directly on my phone. Another knock on the controls, but not exclusive to these: it is way too sensitive and thus too easy to accidentally pause your audio. Just stop trying to force and cram these "features" onto these things, or at least give a way to disable or edit them. Neutral: I get that Asus is known for their ROG gaming setups and that gaming is still synonymous with LEDs, but they just don't interest me. It's minor, but installing Armoury Crate to disable something that I frankly find silly is, itself, silly. Not a knock on Asus so much as the entire absurd "gamer" aesthetic. Would be nice if there were an easier way to control them without the awful app because there are times when I think it could be genuinely useful on the earbuds. Also, no fault of theirs, but as long as the mic is good on SpeedNova then I have no need for my G522 headset and well be returning it. I love that headset and its mic is fantastic, but they are not as versatile as these earbuds and I cannot justify the cost of having both.

The current promotion listed on this item does not work. Otherwise these are a fine pair of earbuds with a slightly tinny sound and directional audio good enough for single player experiences but not for competitive games. They are worth the sale price but are not worth the normal asking price. I bought them explicitly due to the assumed value add the promotion created, and the product support both from asus and amazon on fixing this issue has been essentially non existent as they both have handed me off to the other multiple times. I will not buy any asus products after these.