These xMEMS earbuds hit all the right notes for me at a price that I can't argue with

"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."

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

Pairing the Aurvana Ace 3 with a Pixel 9 Pro produced flat, unremarkable sound out of the box despite a good ear seal and normal Spotify playback. A firmware update and a per-ear personalization hearing test in the Creative app markedly improved the presentation. Additional adjustment with the app's 10-band equalizer, including bass and treble boost, refined the sound further. The personalization process tests each ear with tones and requires holding a button until the note is no longer audible, taking about five minutes. The third iteration represents a substantial upgrade and resolves prior issues with running-listening experiences.

Read at ZDNET