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Creative Aurvana Ace 3 earbuds

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ZDNET’s key takeaways

  • The Creative Aurvana Ace 3 earbuds are available in the EU for $149.
  • These earbuds deliver brilliant sound unheard of at this price point.
  • You will need to walk through the personalization feature to get the best sound.

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I previously reviewed the Aurvana Ace earbuds from Creative and found them to be quite good. So when I got the chance to review the next iteration of those earbuds, I jumped at the chance. I assumed the new earbuds would offer the same kind of sound that the Aurvana Ace 2 produced.

Boy, was I wrong.

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The third iteration of the Aurvana Ace earbuds – the Aurvana Ace 3–> — is a massive upgrade to the previous version… and that’s saying something. Let’s dive in.

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My experience

As soon as I paired the earbuds to my Pixel 9 Pro, I opened the Spotify playlist I use to test earbuds and hit play. Oddly enough, the out-of-the-box sound was flat and unremarkable. I immediately thought something was wrong. First, I checked the seal on the earbuds, but that was perfectly fine.

Next, I checked Spotify to make sure nothing was going on there. Nope. 

It then dawned on me to open the Creative app. First, there was a firmware update, but once that was done, I walked through the personalization tool, which was quite interesting. 

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The Creative app’s personalization tool focuses on one ear at a time. I will play a tone and require you to press and hold a button until you can no longer hear the note. It steps through several tones and, once you finish with one ear, it moves to the next. This process takes about five minutes.

<!–> Creative earbud app.

The first thing you should do is walk through the personalize tool in the Creative app.

Jack Wallen/ZDNET

Once I was done with that, I hit play again and found the sound was vastly improved, but there was still room for improvement. 

My next step was to customize the EQ. I’ve used a lot of earbud app EQs over the years, and I find the Creative EQ to be one of the best. You not only get 10 bands of equalization, but there’s also bass and treble boost.

With the EQ out of the way, I pressed play again, and the smile that planted itself on my face was probably bright enough to light up a room.

It was audio bliss.

I’d not heard such crisp highs from a pair of earbuds in, well, ever. And although the bass wasn’t thunderous, it was deep and resonant, with plenty of separation at the low end to prevent it from getting muddy. 

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Now that it’s the holiday season, I tend to listen to nothing but Christmas music during the months of November and December. Instead of using my typical playlist for the review, I decided it was apropos to enjoy some holiday jams while putting the Creative Aurvana Ace 3 earbuds the test.

The holiday music test 

One of my all-time favorite choral groups is VOCES8, and their album “A Choral Christmas” is one of my favorites. The music is gorgeous, layered, and transports me to a place unlike any other. I could imagine the singers and orchestra were right in front of me, playing and singing their hearts out.

What I enjoyed most about hearing VOCES8’s Christmas album through the Aurvana Ace 3 earbuds was the incredible separation between the voices and instruments.

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I could discern the bass, baritone, tenor, alto, and soprano voices with ease. Given how complex some of the VOCES8 arrangements can be, that’s a huge plus. This is the kind of music that you don’t want to miss a single nuance or note, and the Ace 3 earbuds were very much up to the task.

Next up was the Winter album by the same group. Although this isn’t specifically Christmas music, it’s very much in line with this time of year and is profoundly haunting. Once again, the Ace 3 earbuds were able to present the music with the depth, separation, and clarity it deserves.

It was gorgeous.

Of course, I couldn’t just limit this review to holiday music, so I jumped back to my normal playlist and ran through a few specific tunes. On “Their Law” by The Prodigy, the sound was absolutely dynamic, and I heard bits that I’d never heard before. When the bass finally kicked in, it was all I could do not to jump up and dance around. 

“Between The Wheels” by Rush is another great track to test earbuds to. When a pair of earbuds can mine the depths of Geddy’s bass and Neil’s kick drum, while also delivering the crystal sound of Alex’s guitar and Neil’s high-hat, you’ve got something special. That’s exactly what happened here. When the chorus kicks in and Geddy’s pedal tones on the keyboard sound off, it’s magic.

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I could keep going, but you get the picture. There wasn’t a song that I threw at the Aurvana Ace 3 earbuds that didn’t sound brilliant – even using the same EQ curve for everything.

ZDNET’s buying advice

At $149, the Aurvana Ace 3–> earbuds are really hard to beat. I honestly can’t think of a better pair of earbuds at this price. 

There is just one thing to keep in mind. These earbuds really do need a good seal to deliver this high-quality sound. If you’re not one to bother with an earbud’s seal, you might find these to be a bit fiddly. If you’re willing to ensure you have a good fit, these earbuds will never let you down.

Aurvana Ace 3 tech specs

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