For swelling The flow of open earphones is easy to overlook the weak. When Acefast’s Acefit Air first caught my attention, they looked like other budget ear hooks. Bud’s bassline design allows you to listen to the songs while keeping your ears open to the world.
I was delighted to be surprised to see myself starting out of the box with The Spyware’s thin charging case and sleek, stylishly slim buds with a touch of metallic talent. The Acefit Air’s daily performance is equally satisfying, marked by responsive control and crisp, warm sounds for solid musicality throughout the genre.
These are not the most feature-packed open earbuds, and the fit is subtle, especially when you first stretch a flexible hook behind the ear. For $80, these drawbacks were easy to overlook, and for a few weeks I exploded using these buds throughout my outdoor activities.
Slim and stylish
Photo: Ryan Waniata
There is something completely satisfying about the Acefit Air case. A peek into the plastic bubbles in a bulky box will look like any number of oversized clamshells. It was probably the thinnest case of the buds I’ve tested, making it even more impressive to find that it slipped easily into jeans and short packets. The flat matte finish adds to the atmosphere, but over time it tends to collect oil from the inside and outside skin.
The buds are similarly refined. It weighs about 7.5 grams (the Airpods Pro 2 is over 5 years old), but is lighter and less noticeable than most earbuds I have tested. Acefast says it is partly due to the “ultra-sleek titanium wire” inside the hook, which was tested with 10,000 songs bends. The fit is very loose and comfortable, you’ll think they’ll fall, but they’re well balanced and I still didn’t lose it while walking, hiking, cycling or stomping.
It can be difficult to properly align the speaker and accompanying vents with my ears, especially the correct ones, as the buds are designed to hang outside the canal. I’ve gotten used to it, but usually I need to adjust the right bud. If you pull it forward, you will see that it will usually be locked into the stereo image.
While injecting the buds I often hear the telltale beeps of their metallic touch sensors, but I rarely make a mistake as Acefast doesn’t seem to respond to them for the first few seconds. Most importantly, unlike many open earphones I test, the touchpad is highly responsive, allowing for single taps on volume, double taps on play/pause, and triple taps on song skipping even in compromise situations like Ebikei. Simply work and these buds are placed before the game.
Speaking of eBikes, buds are not the best way to overcome wind resistance, but they do a decent job and let you listen to songs and podcasts at a gentle speed without the need to blow your ears up. This is a major advantage of open earbuds over traditional buds that rely on microphones that are easily overwhelmed by wind shear and resistance.
Triple Punch
Photo: Ryan Waniata
Within the rubbery frame of each bud is a “3-magnetic super-linear speaker” that explains the impressive sound quality of the Acefit Air. Acefast is loud and loud to the point that the speakers reduce distortion and rarely exceed the maximum third. This is good because it oddly reduces the EQ of Acefast’s app, but I didn’t think I should use EQ anyway.
