ASUS ROG Cetra II in-Ear Gaming Headphones | Earbuds, Microphone, ANC, USB-C, Aura Sync RGB Lighting, Bundled Travel Case, Silicon Tips, Compatible with Laptop, Switch, ROG Phone and Smart Devices

At the time I bought these they were the only USB-C ANC earbuds I could find for sale. So this was my last great hope.I had previously come from some Sony Linkbud-S which lasted a few years before the batteries gave out. Determined to be done with purchasing expensive bluetooth earbuds I setup to find the best pair of USB-C ANC earbuds and what I ended up with was the only pair.Fortunely they are pretty much everything I could have hoped for.First off, sound quality is above average. They sound very flat. Almost like studio monitors. However I am aware that to get the best out of them I need to install Asus Armoury Crate software. This was my first problem. My second is that the earbuds have pulsing LEDs enabled on them by default. On it's own it's not much of an issue, but in public it is. The LEDs seem to prompt everyone to try to initiate a conversation with you. They're also very bright on flights overnight when the cabin lights are turned down.Armoury Crate is available for iOS, Android, and Windows. However the iOS and Android software both only want to detect bluetooth devices. They don't seem to recognize the USB-C headphones as a valid target. I also do not have windows.I was able to check out a windows computer from my school in hopes of installing Armoury Crate. For better or worse, the moment you plug these into your computer it starts installing all the ASUS software. If it were my computer I probably wouldn't like that and it might alarm me. Since it wasn't my computer it was fine. Once the software was going I was able to turn off the LEDs, upgrade the firmware, and mess with the equalizer. I was indeed able to get much better sound with the equalizer. These earbuds also have virtual surround sound which I imagine would be great if you game on windows. Unfortunately the equalizer settings are only applied on the device with the software installed. However, the LED settings will stay applied.For gaming these are probably the BEST wired usb-c earbuds. They are also probably the only ones. Either way I would recommend these for gaming. I would also like to not the auto installed software was numerous, huge, and took forever on my gigabit connection. As mentioned if you are using these for gaming you probably want all this stuff.On any other platform, no worries, nothing installs. But you only get the default flat sound. It's pretty good though overall.With all that out of the way, all the other points are pretty great. The ANC can be controlled from buttons on the cable. They work as you'd expect for nicer bluetooth earbuds. They have volume, pause/play, ANC on (solid LED), ambient mode (blinking), and off (no led). The control board is very light. The headphones are comfortable to wear and the cable has a nice collar which can be slid up to prevent the buds from tangling up.The case works well and the earbuds fit in it easily. I added a picture for reference.The microphone is pretty terrible. The mics are on the earbuds themselves which is not great placement. However it means you can get stereo sound in ambient mode and the noise canceling can discern the source of sound better. It also means you don't have another device on the cable to weigh it down. It's a comfortable design overall. I recorded audio samples using various devices and found the sound quality is about as good as just talking into my Google Pixel 5. Good enough probably.The ANC is pretty decent. It isn't to the level of my linkbud S but it cancels out droning sounds or consistent beeps. Ambient mode drops the volume a bit so you can hear things around you. I like that feature.I've had a few issues with the connector. Nothing major. On my laptop running MX Linux and on my Steamdeck it just works. No issues. On my Pixel 5 it seems to take a moment to kick on. Then it doesn't work. I unnplug and plug it back in and it starts working after about 8 seconds. I also could not connect them to the in-flight entertainment on British Airways. Their USB plug on their screens aren't actually connected to the device so you'll need something with a headphone jack for that.Overall I'm very happy with these earbuds. i expect they will last many years. I plan on buying another set too so I can leave some at work. At the full price it might seem a bit high for wired earbuds but remember there are no batteries to die and make the product obsolete. These will last forever basically and I expect wired earbuds, especially with ANC will not exist for much longer so grab yours while you can.

TLDR: Expensive, with a couple flaws, but they work.I have upstairs neighbors. These neighbors have hardwood floors. I hear everything. It's not their fault, it's just the building. Anyway, when looking into ways to mitigate some of the noise I hear, I started looking into active noise cancelling (ANC) earbuds. I can't wear a headset, the pressure causes headaches. I didn't want to bother with recharging or replacing batteries, so I started looking for USB earbuds with ANC. Literally ALL the earbuds that have ANC I could find are either wireless or use batteries. Except these.They seem like they're pretty high quality. Connection is USB-C, cable is about 3ft/93cm between the plug and the control pod where the wires split to the earbuds. I use them at my PC so I needed an extension cable. When I initially plugged them in, it prompted me to install the software. I imagine that software might have some helpful features, but I don't have any use for them, so I'm just using them without it. The noise cancelling and control functions work just fine without it. I did also try them briefly with my phone, but I don't know if the software is available for mobile devices. They still worked the same as on PC without it. There are RGB lights on the caps of the earbuds that just cycle through the color spectrum. They are a bit bright, and I believe you can set control them with the software, or you could just cover them with a bit of black tape if they're bothersome and you don't want to mess with the software. Includes a decent little carrying case too. I have not used the microphone on these, so I can't say if that part is any good, but it does have one.Comes with the standard small/medium/large eartips, plus a couple sets of 'wings' that help hold them in place. Seems helpful, since the added electronics in the earbuds themselves make them a bit heavier than normal earbuds, and I imagine if I tried to use them without the wings, they would fall out fairly easily. The wings themselves are a little tricky to install if you need to change them, but once they're on they stay put. They also came with an extra set of tips that are similar to those foam earplugs that you roll up and stuff in and then they expand to block noise. Might be useful if you're using them at work and need actual hearing protection with your music/podcast/audiobook. I tried them briefly and they seem ok, but not what I need for my own use. With the large size tips, they're just as comfortable as my old normal earbuds I've been using for years.As far as the actual noise cancelling, they work surprisingly well. Better at reducing 'background' noise than intermittent noise like footsteps, but they DO reduce the volume of any noise I would otherwise perceive as loud and makes it just kinda dull, and makes it a lot less irritating. Background noise basically almost goes away completely. There's a small control pod where the wire splits to the buds and in addition to the volume/fwd/back and play/pause buttons there's a mode button on the side that controls the noise cancelling mode. Solid white light: ANC on. Flashing light: 'conversation' mode, reduces the audio levels from the device you're using and allows ambient noise to come through so you can talk to someone without removing the earbuds. Kinda handy. And then light off: ANC off, just passive sound like standard non-ANC earbuds. Switching between the modes really highlights how much noise these cancel out.The sound quality is ... fine. They're earbuds, you're never going to get studio quality sound out of a driver that's only a couple millimeters. But for earbuds, the quality is more than acceptable to me, however I'm not an audiophile.There's only one minor and one slightly less minor problem with these that I've found. The minor problem is just kinda silly, BUT for almost a hundred dollars, I'd have hoped it would come with a USB-C to USB-A adapter. The less minor problem is that these are extremely susceptible to static discharge. As it gets colder and drier where I live, I start to build up static faster, so I'm always getting tiny little static shocks anytime I touch metal. Well, with these in, I HEAR the static in the earbuds anytime I shift in my chair and sometimes I can even feel a little shock in my ear. On one occasion it even caused my PC monitor to reset itself. I have not had these problems in the same conditions using regular audio jack earbuds. I didn't see any other complaints like this in the reviews, so it might just be me, or I got a bad set. What fixed it for me was to get a grounding mat that plugs into the ground slot on a wall outlet and sits under my desk. As long as I'm grounded, its been fine.All-in-all, they do the job I bought them for, I just wish there were more than one product available in this particular niche.

I do not like over or around ear headphones, so I tend to opt for earbuds. I found these to be some of the only earbuds that offer everything I was looking for. I wanted virtual surround sound. Even though it is not like proper surround sound I found it to be pretty good and can be calibrated to how you want. I wasn't really looking for noise cancelling but these earbuds have it and now I almost always use them with noise canceling on. I am not a sound snob, so I think the sound is pretty good. The software they come with is pretty easy to use and offers multiple sound profiles specific for what type of game you are playing (FPS, RPG, Racing, Etc.). You can even have the sound profile automatically change when the software detects that you booted up a game. Not the best software but definitely better than what I have seen before. I only have two things I could really complain about. First being that sometimes the earbud backs out of my ear because the silicone sock thing that goes behind the earpiece slips off and scrunches up (this is hard to explain I did the best I could). I do want to make it clear that this issue is unrelated to how the earbuds actually fit in my ear. The earbuds come with plenty of different tips to use based on preference. The second thing I have an issue with is the length of the cable. I found it to be a little too short, so I had to buy an extension cable. Other than that, they are pretty good gaming earbuds. I originally bought them as a placeholder until I can get a better pair, but I liked them enough that I continue to use them. Maybe a little expensive but to be fair, you do not often see the surround sound technology and sound profiles in earbuds.