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Asus ROG Cetra True Wireless Gaming Headphone Review

Christine Cloma

A pair of wireless headphones is the convenient way to enjoy listening to music, making phone calls, or playing video games without having to deal with tangled cables or being tethered to a certain area. The tradeoff is that it relies on batteries and has a latency (aka lag) that can affect gaming experiences. However, there are already high-end wireless headphones in the market that have been able to fix this common problem, such as from ASUS’s ROG Cetra True Wireless Gaming Headphone.

It is a gaming-wireless-centric headphone that comes with a gaming mode which reduces latency essential for playing video games and can last up to 5 hours of playtime. When combined with charging case, it will last up to 27 hours on a single charge. Plus has an active noise cancellation feature that can be turned on to eliminate background noise, even you’re in a crowded place – you can focus listening on your media content without distraction. As well as an app for configuring your headphone and its charging case that looks like a proposal ring box.

With all of these features, the ROG Cetra True Wireless Gaming Headphone is priced in the Philippines for PHP 4,490.

Contents

  1. Look and Feel
  2. Latency
  3. Sound Quality and Active Noise Cancellation
  4. Microphone
  5. Gesture Controls
  6. Battery Life
  7. Conclusion
  8. Specification

We will go over the ROG Cetra True Wireless Gaming Headphone’s main features and see how it performs in our latency gaming test and why it is a great choice for those who are looking for a quality wireless gaming headphone.

Look and Feel

The ROG Cetra True Wireless Headphone comes in a sleek and stylish package that is sure to catch any gamer’s or audio enthusiast’s eye. On the front of the box, we see the colorful reflected name of the headphone and the ROG logo as well the headphones themselves. There is also the Bluetooth badge that tells you that this headphone are compatible with any Bluetooth-enabled devices.

The headphone’s key features are listed on the back of the packaging. The matchbox-style packaging is easy to open and access, thanks to the cut-out pull tab at the top.

At the side shows more of the ROG branding and the product’s reflected name.

The charging case itself is nestled snugly in black foam, with the charging cables, accessories and instruction manual stored beneath it.

Opening the charging case shows you a nice looking pixelated RGB logo and an led at the bottom for the charging indicator and battery life. But seriously, the charging case for the ROG Cetra True Wireless headphone looks like a proposal ring box, so be cautious while opening the charging case in front of your partner (If both of you are still not yet married).

At the back, you’ll find the USB type-c charging port. If you have NFC wireless charging pads lying around you can also use it as well to charge it wirelessly. It has a charging power of up to 27 hours of play hours on single charge.

Here is what it looks like without the headphone and the RGB lighting. It does have a nice little magnetic click when you put back the headphone in the charging case that can easily attached without worrying of them falling out.

Here is the pair of the ROG Cetra true wireless gaming headphone, it has an ergonomic shape design that is quite light and comfortable to wear even for long hours. It has a black matte finish with their ROG branding on both side.

Aside from its ROG branding, the front shows a grill-like pattern on the edge corner where the RGB indicator seats. Note that this RGB is not always on and just for indicator. The upper corner is where you can use the touch gesture for switching to different settings and accepting calls and such.

And here is the back showing the mark indicator for L for left ear and the other pair R for right ear. Inside the ear tips is the grill cover for the 10mm essence driver for crystal clear sound.

For the best fit and proper seal, you can swap out the ear tips provided with your headphones. You’ll get a set of three different sizes to ensure a comfortable fit for long periods of use. The soft rubber material is great for comfort.

Overall, the packaging design is premium furthering the idea that this is a top-notch item. It is also well-made and sturdy, which ensure that the product inside remains safe and in good condition during shipping or handling.

The headphone is well-designed and made of high-quality materials, so it’s durable and long lasting.

With the adjustable ear tips, you can get a perfectly secure fit to your ear and even shaking your head, it won’t fall.

Latency

The ASUS ROG Cetra wireless headphones comes with a gaming mode that can significantly reduces the lag latency, which is important for gaming and other real-time audio applications. Their technology reduces the delay between when the audio is generated from the system’s bluetooth and when it is heard by the user, resulting in a more responsive and real-time gaming experience. Usually a regular wireless headphones has a delay of 200 to 500ms that causes problems for people who are playing FPS games.

To see what low latency you can expect with ASUS ROG Cetra wireless headphone, we will be testing this headphones in gaming test to see the latency comparison between its default mode and the gaming mode.

For the testing methodology, we will be using the following devices and apps to check the latency:

We will begin our experiment by testing the time it takes from clicking a mouse to fire a gun in Counter Strike 1.6 up to delivering the sound to our headphones. To remove the mouse latency from the test, we will bind the mouse-down click as “start recording” for Audacity so that it will only record the time after the click is registered to the computer. We should only see the sound wave of the gunshot and the time it starts to play is our latency.

In our first test in Counter-Strike 1.6, the headphone were able to produced the sound at 80ms, compared to the default where it takes 325ms before it plays the sound. That is still an impressive real-time experience gain of 245ms for the gaming mode of ASUS ROG Cetra wireless headphone. However, you can still get better score when using much powerful Bluetooth system.

Sound Quality and Active Noise Cancellation

For its sound quality, it is superb thanks to its 10mm ASUS Essence driver that delivers clear and detailed sound that can delivers a good low and high notes without distortion. For bass lovers, it can be modified using the Armoury crate app, which is available for Android and iOS. There are also preset of equalization that you can select depending on the content you’re playing.

The Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) feature is also very effective, with 4 different modes: Heavy Noise Cancellation, Light Noise Cancellation, Ambient Noise, and turned off.

The headphones’ noise cancelling abilities are very effective in both Heavy and Light mode. In Heavy mode, all outside noises are completely blocked out from 100 dB below. However, you will still hear a little sound when there is no media playing in your headphone. While for the light noise cancellation, we started to hear noises at 80dB and up. The noise cancellation also further improves when using the correct ear tips.

The Ambient Noise mode is like a hearing aid where it amplifies sound from the outside so you can hear people talking to you without taking off the headphones. It’s very handy if you need to be aware of your surroundings but don’t want to remove your headphones.

Microphone

Since communication is one of the key element in games especially competitive one, a good microphone is an important part that needs to be tested on this review.

Aside from the Active Noise Cancellation from its speakers, it also has noise cancellation for its microphone by default. It manage to easily remove any background noise that are 50dB to 60dB and ensures that your voice is clear and audible even in noisy environments.

Here is an example recording comparison from phone’s microphone vs the ROG Cetra’s microphone. You’ll notice that in ROG Cetra, background noise was totally removed from the audio.

Gesture Controls

The ROG Cetra True Wireless Headphone is also packed with different gesture controls such as pairing it with your device, taking calls, switching to different ANC mode, playing music and turning on the gaming mode.

The top part of the headphone is a touch sensitive where you can use the gesture to control your headphones.

Battery Life

The most outstanding feature of this headphone is its battery life. The pair headphone itself has a rated battery life of 4.5 hours for Active Noise Cancellation and 5 hours without it on a single charge. However, as we have tested the product, we have found that the battery life is much longer than the rated battery warranty. For 5 hours of usage when using both ANC and gaming mode, we still have 17% remaining battery life.

If you need more juice, the charging case can also provides up to 4 additional charges for a total of 22 hours usage. Aside from that, it has a quick charging which it only take less than an hour to fully charge both the headphone and the case.

Conclusion

The ASUS ROG Cetra True Wireless is a pair of gaming headphones that delivers excellent sound quality, lightweight and comfortable design for extended hours of gameplay. The headphones’ effective noise cancellation feature allows you to pay attention to the game while blocking out any outside sounds. If you need to be aware of your surroundings, you can turn on ambient mode by a tap. Plus, its gaming mode helps you play competitive gaming wirelessly without worrying about lag.

At PHP 4,490, the ROG Cetra True Wireless Gaming Headphone is a bit pricey but it makes up for it in features. And we forgot to mention, it is water-proof rated IPX4.

If you’re looking for a good pair of earphones free from annoying cables, then the ASUS ROG Cetra True Wireless should definitely be on your radar.

Specification

Here are the complete specification of ASUS ROG Cetra True Wireless gaming headphone.
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