Soundcore Space Q45 Review – Amazing ANC For The Price

It’s the review of the Soundcore Space Q45 noise-cancelling over-ear headphones. The Q45s are considered premium headphones from Soundcore but with a mid-tier price.

The design supports folding for easy storage, and they weigh 301g, like most premium headphones.

The body construction is sturdy, and despite being mid-tier priced, it feels durable. However, it doesn’t seem to be dust or water-resistant, as there’s no mention of it in the documentation or on Soundcore’s website.

In terms of comfort, the headphones are equally comfortable with or without glasses, even after three hours of non-stop use. However, they’re not ideal for workouts as they can make you sweat (since they’re over the ear headphones).

The headband is a bit tight but still comfortable (as I wrote earlier), and the ear cushions are firm and soft with ample padding. The same can be said for the headband padding, ample padding is provided. Adjusting the headband is smooth, and the ear cups move easily.

Official replacement ear pads are available only in black, but third-party options offer more colours.

Resting them on your neck can be uncomfortable due to the large ear cups. Folding them helps, but there’s still a slight dig into the neck due to how large the earcup are. Transparency mode is available so you can just wear them all the time or you can rest them on your head above your ears.

Controls

For controls, the left ear cup has a power button and an ANC mode button. The right ear cup has a play/pause button (also answers and hangs up calls) and a volume rocker (holding volume up goes to the next track and holding volume down goes to the previous track).

The button layout can be confusing, as it’s easy to press the wrong button by accident. This is due to the play/pause button being under the volume rocker. At times I mean to press and hold the down volume button to repeat a track but I end up pausing it instead. For some reason Soundcore doesn’t have an ideal button layout like other headphone manufacturers where the play/pause button is typically between the next and previous track buttons.

When connected to your smartphone, it integrates with your smart assistant. I tested it with Android and Google Assistant, but it was problematic. Double-tapping the play/pause button should activate the assistant, but it often didn’t. Sometimes it activated without the tone, so I had to guess if it was listening. The Google Assistant voice playback was sometimes too low to hear, even at high volume.

There’s no passive play/pause feature, which isn’t expected in mid-tier headphones. When you remove the headphones, the content doesn’t pause automatically.

Noise Cancelling

ANC (active noise cancelling) works impressively well for the price, effectively reducing low-pitched noises like bus engines. It’s great for budget travel. Vocals still come through, but ANC works better than expected for $200 CAD headphones. In fact, if you’re on a budget and fly often, this could pass as workable for even plane noises.

Transparency mode lets exterior noise in to hear your surroundings better, but sounds like people are in a tunnel. It’s adequate for conversations within ten feet but struggles beyond that.

Regular headphone mode turns off all technology, relying on passive noise cancelling from the ear cups. This mode is useful for conserving battery, which is excellent but unnecessary due to the amazing battery which is covered in the next section. With passive noise cancelling you can hear vocals easily and only a moderate amount of other noise is reduced.

Sidetone mode, which lets you hear your voice during calls, isn’t available. This isn’t a big deal for mid-priced headphones but something I wanted to mention.

Battery

Soundcore claims 50 hours of battery life with ANC at 60% volume; I got 47 hours. Transparency and ANC modes usually have similar battery life on most headphones, and I got 47.5 in transparency mode.

In regular mode, Soundcore claims 65 hours, but I got 76 hours, though not always at 60% volume. Admittedly during this very lengthy testing I had volume changing between 50% to 60%. Since I was using lower volume at times, it explains why my battery results was longer than Soundcore’s.

Soundcore claims it takes about two hours to recharge the headphones, but I managed it in an hour and a half.

The USB-C charging port is on the bottom of the left ear cup.

Microphone Quality

Using the microphone in a quiet environment exceeded my expectations. While the person on the other end might notice you’re not using a traditional headset, the clarity at this price point is superb. They would have a hard time distinguishing whether you’re using headphones or talking directly on a cell phone. Conversations with the Q45 are very clear.

In a noisy environment, the Q45 impressed me again. It effectively cancelled out surrounding noise, allowing my voice to come through clearly, like its performance in a quiet setting.

Wind noise reduction also performed well. While some wind noise was present, it was so subtle that you would have to listen closely to notice it. Otherwise, it just blends into the regular background noise.

Audio Quality

The Q45 supports SBC, AAC, and LDAC codecs. However, out of the box, the sound is a bit lacklustre. It’s not terrible but it feels like music is lacking energy. Thankfully, the app’s equalizer can help customize the sound to your liking.

For bass, the lows can thump nicely but lack some energy. As a bass enthusiast, I found it a bit underwhelming. I don’t expect results like the Sony ULT WEAR due to the price point of the Q45 but would have expected a slightly bigger push for mid-tier priced headphones.

Vocals can shine with the right song, but sometimes slightly high-pitched vocals can be too sharp. One song I tested was “Always Love You” by Elton John featuring Young Thug and Nicki Minaj. Elton John’s vocals were superb, but some high notes were too sharp, requiring a slight reduction in the equalizer. The strange thing was that Elton wasn’t even singing at a very high pitch tone, but the increase in vocals in the equialiser pushed his voice to become too sharp.

When pushing up the high tiers, you get sharp, crisp sound. It wasn’t too sharp or annoying, just the right amount of energy to make it enjoyable.

With glasses, the sound quality is consistent across songs. However, the bass leaks out a bit due to the glasses frame poking out of the earcups, which is common with over-ear noise-cancelling headphones.

Software

In the Soundcore app, you can switch between ANC and transparency modes and customize the noise-cancelling level. There’s an option for adaptive noise cancelling which adjusts based on exterior noise, but I found it gimmicky.

One unique feature is safe volume that limits volume spikes to prevent your ears from getting hurt. This isn’t a groundbreaking feature but certainly a nice one to see.

The sound effects section includes a custom equalizer. Equaliser adjustments carry over to connected devices such as a laptop. You can use Soundcore’s equaliser templates or manually tweak the equalizer. The app supports a feature to help generate a preconfigured equaliser based on your listening needs but doesn’t work well and I prefer manual settings over the automatic tuning feature.

In settings, some key features available are firmware updates, view paired devices see paired devices, suppress wind noise, and other minor functions.

Conclusion

The Q45 is a solid option budget option, especially for travel. Its ANC performance is impressive for the price, making it a strong contender in the mid-tier range. An important feature for travellers is comfortable headphones which the Q45 excels at.

While it does have some minor short comings, they aren’t anything to make you skip the Q45 if you’re shopping for ANC headphones at this budget. They’re certainly a great option to consider.