Creative Aurvana Ace

I was impressed with the sound quality as compared with the budget earbuds I was using before. I played several tracks and did a head to head comparison with my budget earbuds, the difference in sound quality was far greater than I expected. For example at the beginning of the Spoon track Don't You Evah there is some whispered banter going on between two band members, with the budget earbuds this is muddled and inaudible, with the Aurvana's it is crystal clear and every word can be heard. Amazing. Then the deep bass line kicks in, on the budget earbuds this sounded bloated and flabby, with the Aurvana's it was tight, punchy and accurate. I was skeptical that earbuds at this price could sound so good, consider me convinced now. These are the real deal and a great bang for the buck.

While these wireless earbuds are priced towards the lower-middle end of the spectrum, these earbuds offer a ludicrously high level of sound quality for how much they're worth. Soundguys weren't kidding about the sound quality on this pair. The out of the box sound is decent off the bat, and you will have to download the Creative app and spend some time tweaking the EQ in order to bring out what the earbuds are truly capable of. But even having an EQ tweaking setting at this low price, and one so fleshed out, customizable, and impactful on the sound quality at that, makes these earbuds an insane value. In all other aspects, they are fairly standard in build quality, durability, battery life, and fit (fits similar to an airpods pro gen 1). Multipoint connection is standard and works almost all of the time. The active noise cancelling and transparency mode is decent and gets the job done. The surprisingly great sound quality more that makes up for these other features though. Summary: Some of the best sounding and most customizable EQ wireless earbuds on the market, at a great price point. This review will be changed if anything changes in the near future.

So I love these earbuds. I normally don't like in ear ear buds but I wanted a pair that charged on a wireless pad so all my devices could be charged on my charging dock instead of needing charging cords. I actually love these ear buds. The sound quality is amazing. I'm not super big on sound though so I wouldn't know any specs. They are comfortable and don't bother me like other in ear ear buds I've tried before. I'm a stay at home mom so I o ly wear one attire during the day and just one is loud enough and gives a clear crisp sound. They stay charged a long while. I feel asleep with one in my ear (listening to Bible) and it was still 80%charged the next morning but my other ear buds are10% or less when I fall asleep with one in. The only thing I find annoying about these is trying to get then out of the case. My other ear buds, 1 set is over the ear and doesn't go inside my ear and the 2nd set is inner ear but has a square case and I can easily grab the stem when remong from the case. The first set also just lays flat in the case so I can easily grab them. With this set I have to grab the silicone ear peace in a tiny grip to get the ear bud out. Maybe it's just me because I'm use to the way my other earbuds are set up and with time I'll figure out a better way. Even with the annoyance of getting them out of the case I still love these ear buds.

Okay, you sort of are buying these for the xMEMS drivers, but in my opinion they are the sidekick in this duo, not the hero. I don't know what's up with this dynamic driver, but now I'm more curious about that kind of tech and/or acoustic chambering has gone into that than I am anything about the xMEMS driver. I've been on a bit of a basshead kick lately. I have a Fosi SK01 (basically a physical equalizer box) and a whole slew of wired IEMs and headphones, ranging from lower end to fairly high-end stuff around the $500 range. It's been fun to see how far I can push some of these IEMs. The 7Hz Legato, which many consider to be the king of basshead IEMs in the 100-200 price range, do indeed handle bit more boost before they just start sounding wobbly. There's a reason I'm getting into all this. Out of the box, these have fairly even tuning. Slight bass emphasis, with a bit of 8k treble zing. It's what you're probably used to with TWS buds. Some will complain it's not enough bass, and some will complain it's too much. Just understand that this is all subjective as it applies to preferences. However, they handle EQ not only well, but extraordinary. I have never been able to alter sound this distinctly with EQ on any set, wired or TWS, that I've ever tried. Most impressive to me is the amount of absolute air blast the bass driver puts out on these. Even at just 6db of boost in the bass region, it feels like they are going to blow themselves out of your ears. I want to be very clear here, that the stock tuning (or minor adjustments to it) is going to be what most people prefer. The tuning I've attached is for a fun experiment you can enjoy. You, like me, may choose to keep it there once you hear what they're capable of. The xMEMS drivers complement this bass driver very nicely, which is what I think allows this level of fine-tuning. The treble is very consistent, although I would not call it the smoothest. There's a bit of an 8k zing I was able to confirm via some of the squig measurements posted online. A few db reduction evens out the presentation. They sound good on my phone, but incredible with the AptX Adaptive (HQ) codec selected on my BT-W5 dongle. All in all, impossible not to recommend. Final couple of notes. Before I updated my firmware this morning, there was an annoying issue with the EQ not saving half the time. The firmware notes show that has now been fixed, and from my testing this seems to be true. There are only a couple of things I can nitpick. One is that the multipoint implementation is not the best. It connects reliably, but switching from one source to the other simply doesn't happen sometimes. It behaves exactly the same as my Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones. If this happens, you may need to disconnect and reconnect them a couple of times. Sometimes you have to outright close sound sources before it'll let the connection go, and pausing isn't enough. Hopefully they'll fix this eventually. The second thing is the EQ page in the app. The numbers on the chart do not match the numbers you're tuning. For example, the dot directly over 10.6k is actually tuning 8k. This seems like a silly oversight, and would be easily fixed. Hopefully that happens soon. These two nitpicks would deduct half a star, of course rounded up. I've had some expensive TWS buds, and while these don't beat them at everything, they do in sound. They DESTROY everything I've ever tested on EQ-friendliness. You can get these and make them sound however you want them to. HIGHLY recommended!

I am blown away by the sound quality and range of these earbuds. I'm not an earbuds person, but I find myself actually a bit upset at just how much these things have soured my experience of what I *thought* were pretty darn good over-ear headphones in my possession. For the price, there is nothing even remotely close to these in my opinion. I've never experienced the separation (I mean the perception of distance is crazy) and the range from low to high these things have. I would say that "out of the box" the tuning lends itself towards rock/metal and modern audio aesthetics in general, extremely well - but classic, world, and folk music sound amazing as well, but you need to tweak the EQ a bit to make it perfect imho. The fact you can even simply tweak them to play anything superemly well is just amazing at this price point. Pros: See everything above Cons: Very simple 'tap menu' system, with not very many options. Ambiance mode works very well, but not as robust, or 'open' as some I've tried (I think Sony has this nailed compared to anyone else) No way to check the earbuds battery level outside the case other than the final dreaded "battery low". lol - So, other than a few nitpicks. Not much bad to say and a whole lotta good. If this is in your price range... just buy them and thank me later.