Within the swelling tide of open earbuds, it may be straightforward to miss an underdog. When Acefast’s Acefit Air first got here to my consideration, they appeared like every other pair of price range ear hooks, the baseline design for buds that allow you to hearken to tunes whereas holding your ears open to the world.
I used to be delightfully shocked as soon as I obtained them out of the field, beginning with their spyware-thin charging case harboring stylishly slim buds with a contact of metallic aptitude. The Acefit Air’s each day efficiency is equally satisfying, marked by responsive controls and crisp but heat sound for stable musicality throughout genres.
These aren’t essentially the most feature-packed open earbuds, and the match may be finicky, particularly once you first stretch the pliable hooks throughout the again of your ears. At $80, these drawbacks are straightforward to miss, and I had a blast utilizing these buds throughout my outside actions for a number of weeks.
Slim and Stylin’
{Photograph}: Ryan Waniata
There’s one thing totally satisfying in regards to the Acefit Air’s case. When peeking via the cumbersome field’s plastic bubble, it appears like all variety of outsized clamshells. That made it all of the extra spectacular to search out it is maybe the thinnest case of any buds I’ve examined, slipping simply into denims or shorts pockets. The flat-matte end provides to the vibe, although it tends to gather oil out of your pores and skin in and out over time.
The buds are equally glossy. Although they weigh round 7.5 grams (the AirPods Professional 2 are simply over 5), they’re lighter and fewer obtrusive than most earhook buds I’ve examined. Acefast says that’s due partially to an “ultra-fine titanium wire” inside the hooks examined for 10,000 bends. The match is so free and cozy you’d suppose they’d fall off, however they’re nicely balanced and I’ve but to lose one whereas strolling, mountaineering, biking, or in any other case tramping round.
It may be robust to get the audio system and accompanying vents correctly aligned with my ears, significantly the appropriate one, as a result of means the buds are designed to dangle outdoors your canals. I’ve gotten used to it, however I often have to make some changes to the appropriate bud, discovering that pulling it ahead often locks within the stereo picture.
Whereas placing the buds in, I usually hear the telltale beep of their metallic contact sensors, but Acefast has seemingly made them unresponsive for the primary few seconds, so I not often make errors. Most significantly, not like plenty of open earbuds I take a look at, the contact pads are responsive, letting me simply single-tap for quantity, double-tap for play/pause, and triple-tap for track skip even in compromising conditions like an ebike trip. Merely working reliably places these buds forward of the sport.
Talking of ebikes, the buds aren’t one of the best at overcoming wind resistance, however they do a good job, letting me hearken to tunes or podcasts at reasonable speeds with out the necessity to blast my ears. That is an enormous advantage of open earbuds over conventional buds that depend on microphones that simply get overwhelmed by wind shear and resistance.
Triple Punch
{Photograph}: Ryan Waniata
Inside every bud’s rubbery body is a “three-magnet extremely linear speaker” that accounts for the Acefit Air’s spectacular sound high quality. Acefast says the audio system scale back distortion, they usually’re a lot loud to the purpose that I not often pushed them above a 3rd of max quantity. That’s factor, since turning on the EQ in Acefast’s app oddly lowers mentioned quantity, however I didn’t discover the necessity to use EQ anyway.
