Description
The ASUS ROG Cetra True Wireless SpeedNova is a gaming earbud rather than a music earbud, and the distinction is structural rather than cosmetic. It ships with a USB-C dongle that carries a proprietary 2.4 GHz link alongside ordinary Bluetooth 5.3, and it can hold both connections at the same time, which ASUS calls hybrid multipoint. Around that sit adaptive noise cancellation, Dirac Opteo processing, microphones that use bone conduction for voice pickup, RGB lighting on the buds, three ear tip sizes and a quoted 46 hour battery life. The listing went live on March 13, 2024, and at the point this data was captured it carried 1,688 ratings averaging 4.0 out of 5, ranked 9,290th in Electronics and 1,017th in Earbud and In-Ear Headphones. This is a new unit, not a renewed or refurbished one.
Who the dual radio actually helps
The 2.4 GHz dongle is the reason to buy this over a conventional earbud. Bluetooth adds latency that competitive players can feel, and a proprietary 2.4 GHz link cuts it substantially by dropping the negotiation and buffering that Bluetooth requires. Being able to run both radios simultaneously is the more interesting part: the dongle handles the console or PC while Bluetooth stays connected to a phone, so a call or a message does not interrupt the game. ASUS lists PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 among compatible devices, and the dongle ships with a USB-C to USB-A adapter, which covers most desks.
The bone conduction microphones are worth understanding correctly, because the phrase misleads. Bone conduction here is a pickup method, not a playback method: the microphone reads jaw vibration to isolate your voice from room noise. It does not mean the earbuds play audio through your cheekbone, and it does not make this an open ear design. These seal your ear canal like any other in ear product.
Connection: the high resolution claim and its asterisk
ASUS states 24-bit 96 kHz audio, and puts an asterisk on it. The condition that asterisk refers to is not published in this listing data, which is the crux of the whole claim. High resolution audio over a wireless link is entirely a question of the transport: over the proprietary 2.4 GHz connection, a 24-bit 96 kHz path is technically plausible because ASUS controls both ends. Over Bluetooth it requires a codec capable of carrying it, and no codec is named anywhere on this page. SBC is the Bluetooth baseline and is what you should assume for the Bluetooth connection unless ASUS states otherwise. AAC, aptX and LDAC are all unnamed here, and each of them would need your phone to support it as well.
Read the mode, not the headline
The practical translation is that any high resolution behavior almost certainly applies to the dongle connection and not to the Bluetooth one, and the listing does not say so. If audio quality over Bluetooth is what you are buying, this specification does not support the headline. If low latency over the dongle is what you are buying, the specification does support that, and ASUS calls the technology SpeedNova without publishing a millisecond figure, so there is still no number to compare.
The specification table adds confusion of its own. It lists the wireless technology as “Bluetooth, Wi-Fi”, and the 2.4 GHz dongle link is not Wi-Fi, it is a proprietary radio that happens to share the band. It also lists the driver type as balanced armature, which is unusual for a gaming earbud and is not mentioned anywhere in the marketing copy, so treat it as unconfirmed.
Battery: forty six hours, with an asterisk and no split
The 46 hour figure carries its own asterisk in the listing, and again the condition is not published. It is a combined figure covering the buds and the case, and no bud runtime is published anywhere in this listing data. That omission matters more here than on most sets, because three separate features on this product draw power hard: adaptive cancellation, the 2.4 GHz radio, and the RGB lighting. A quoted total measured with lighting off, cancellation off and Bluetooth rather than 2.4 GHz in use will not resemble a session with all three running. Ask ASUS for the bud runtime in 2.4 GHz mode with cancellation and lighting enabled, which is the number that describes actual gaming use. The case supports wireless charging and fast in case charging according to the feature copy.
Fit, cancellation and the missing IP code
Three sizes of ear tip are supplied, which is the working minimum on a sealed design. Seal decides perceived bass and it decides how much ambient noise the cancellation has to remove, so it is worth working through all three before judging anything. Impedance is listed at 32 ohms, which is not actionable on a wireless product.
The cancellation is described as adaptive with an auto mode that optimizes based on in ear fit and canal shape, adjusting to ambient levels automatically. No decibel reduction figure is published and no test standard is named. As with every cancellation system, it works on constant low frequency noise such as a PC fan, an air conditioner or cabin drone, and poorly on speech, which for a gaming product means it will not remove a housemate talking.
The water rating is recorded only as “Water Resistant” with no IP code anywhere on the page. That is not a specification. Without a code there is no way to know whether the design tolerates sweat, rain, both or neither, so treat these as unrated and keep them away from water. That is less of a constraint on a desk bound gaming product than it would be on a sports set, but it should be stated rather than glossed.
What to compare it against
Among gaming earbuds, the JBL Quantum TWS, which also pairs a 2.4 GHz dongle with Bluetooth is the direct comparison and the one to read alongside this. If a headset rather than an earbud suits your setup, the Astro A20 Gen 2, a console focused wireless headset and the Turtle Beach Stealth 700 Gen 2 Max, built around long battery life cover the same use with more driver area, and the SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless, which uses a swappable battery system solves the runtime problem differently. Our coverage of over ear designs sits under wireless headphones, with the in ear formats under wireless earbuds.
Who should buy it and who should not
Buy the ROG Cetra if you want low latency gaming audio in an earbud rather than a headset, if running a console on the dongle and a phone on Bluetooth at the same time solves a real problem, and if RGB on your earbuds appeals. Do not buy it for the 24-bit 96 kHz headline unless you have confirmed which connection mode it applies to, because no codec is named for the Bluetooth path. Do not buy it if you need a published bud runtime or a published IP code. And do not wear a sealed cancelling earbud where you need to hear traffic.
