I listened to wireless earbuds with xMEMs drivers, and they’ve set a new bar for me

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• The Creative Aurvana Ace 2 headphones are available now for $89 ($60 off) on Amazon.
• These earbuds are game-changing and sound better than any pair I’ve ever tried.
• The only con is that it took me a while to get them to connect with my Pixel 9 Pro. (Turns out the earbuds have to be out of the case before you pair them.)

For a while now, my go-to earbuds have been the Denon PerL Pros. The sound those babies deliver is rich and exciting, filled with just the right amount of bass and treble and a perfect blend of midrange.

Also: Fairphone’s ‘fully repairable’ earbuds also pack replaceable batteries

But that time at the top of the mountain could be coming to an end, thanks to the Creative Aurvana Ace 2 earbuds. These devices use xMEMS speaker technology to deliver a clarity of sound I’ve never heard in a pair of earbuds. 

Behind this sound are the new xMEMS drivers, which are solid-state semiconductor MEMS speakers. MEMS stands for Micro-Electromechanical System and incorporates both moving and non-moving electronics, as well as moving mechanical bits to produce sound. For the Aurvana Ace 2 earbuds, the moving piece of the equation is a tiny silicon membrane that creates sound when an electric signal is passed through it.

Also: I replaced my AirPods with Google’s new Pixel Buds Pro 2 – and shamelessly enjoyed it

The advantage of MEMS technology is that these drivers can produce a higher frequency response range, can shift from one sound to another with exponentially faster speed, and are far more durable than traditional drivers. That means they can produce higher highs and lower lows, do so faster, and last longer while doing it. On top of that, MEMS speakers are IP58 rated, which means they are fully dustproof and waterproof.

In other words, these earbuds can take a beating and keep on treating (your ears to glorious sound).

But do they deliver on that promise? Heck yeah.

Seriously, I was fully prepared to call xMEMS a gimmick and say, “Nice try.” In the end, I became a believer, and the Aurvana Ace 2 earbuds impressed me in ways I never thought possible for a pair priced at $150 ($89 at the time of writing).

The specs

If you’re curious, here’s the specs for the earbuds:

• Frequency Response – 5–40,000 Hz
• Operating frequency  – 2402–2480 MHz
• Noise control – Adaptive Hybrid Active Noise Cancellation, Ambient Mode
• Total battery life – up to 24 hours with a playtime of up to 6 hours
• Weight – 1.64 oz
• Driver – xMEMS solid-state driver, 10 mm dynamic driver
• Audio Codec – LC3, AptX Lossless, AptX Adaptive, AptX, AAC, SBC
• Mics – 3 omnidirectional with a sensitivity rating of 1 kHz – 38 dBV/Pa
• Control – customizable touch control (via the Creative app)
• Siri/Google Assistant support – yes
• Water resistance – IPX5
• Connectivity – Bluetooth 5.3

One of the more important specs is the frequency response. Few earbuds can reach down to 5 Hz or up to 40,000 Hz, which is impressive.

My experience

As I said, I wasn’t expecting to be blown away by a pair of $150 earbuds, but wow, was I ever. The first piece of music I played was the Godzilla -1 original score, and I had never heard such big sounds from a pair of earbuds. These sound more like over-the-ear headphones than tiny earbuds. And it didn’t matter what genre of music I played through the Aurvana Ace 2 earbuds, they were capable of producing beautiful, glorious symphonic sounds all the way to hard-hitting, crunchy distortion without missing a beat

Also: These headphones solved my biggest issue with listening to music while running

One piece of music that was particularly impressive was the live version of Zeppelin’s Kashmir from the 2007 O2 Arena show. Listening to that made me feel as if I was right there at the show. Even the Denon PerL Pros weren’t capable of producing such accurate, agile sounds with a wide enough space to make it feel as front and center as possible.

These earbuds will get into your head in ways you cannot believe. The depths of bass they can plumb are about as impressive as I’ve ever heard from such a small device.

These earbuds offer the smoothness of audiophile-quality bookshelf speakers and feed it directly into your ears for an experience unlike anything you’ve ever heard.

ZDNET’s buying advice

I might sound as if I’m overselling it…but I’m not. With regards to sound, I’m about as picky as they come. The Creative Aurvana Ace 2 earbuds have reset the bar for me, and I cannot imagine another device knocking the crown off their head. 

If you’re looking for some seriously special sound in a very small package, you cannot go wrong with the Creative Aurvana Ace 2.