I get so excited whenever Soundcore releases new products because they don’t make new products every other week, and when they do, it’s usually something really special and amazing and well thought out. 

This time around Soundcore is launching a pair of headphones and earbuds as part of the space series. 

The Soundcore Space Q45 ANC headphones retail at $149.

Compared to the more expensive Sony WH-1000xm5 these are honestly a no-brainer when it comes to price competitiveness.

I think Soundcore definitely has an edge over over the Sony’s.

Honestly, the Q45 is how modern headphones should be designed. Everything about them feels high-end. I’m honestly a fan of beautiful high quality products.

Even though they’re plastic they’re not just any cheapo plastic. They feel really premium to the touch and actually feel like metal when you touch them. 

Starting with the headband itself you’re gonna get this brushed metal headband and a leather wrap foam pad at the bottom. Although the foam pad here isn’t memory foam and doesn’t feel too padded, it doesn’t feel pain when it’s resting on my head.

The band also gives a very nice stretch without feeling like it’s going to break so if you have a big head like me stretching it is no problem.

The arm extension here by Soundcore isn’t new, but it’s a good idea, and despite not being as seamless as the Sony XM5 with the seamless metal rod. The entire arm extends out and has a seamless brush metal look at the top. 

You can see the brushed metal portion extends and the rest of the headphone looks pretty much the same. Regardless at what level or extension you use these are still gonna look very uniform which is nice.

At the side of the arm you’re also gonna get a super stealthy Soundcore branding very subtle and looks very classy. Moving down to the ear cups again the branding is minimal and with the stealthy gloss Soundcore branding.

The Space series design also helps to identify that that’s the left side. Only the left side has the space series branding there and the Earmuffs here is memory foam and it’s very soft and comfortable to your ears

But they do get hot after a while which is very common for headphones like this.

In terms of the clamping force it doesn’t feel very tight at all and very lightly grabs onto your head giving you a nice tight seal without the discomfort.

Earmuffs is also big enough to engulf my entire ears without it pressing on any parts of my ears.

As for the ports, on the left side you will find a Type-C charging port and on the right side you’ll find a 3.5mm auxiliary jack.

You can use this headphone plugged in and Soundcore also provides you with the cables in the box.

Design and Build
4.6/5

Features

The Q45 really comes with a whole set of features that more than justifies its price and i think many companies should take note and following Soundcore’s concept.

To start with you’re going to get the latest Bluetooth 5.3, so you know you have a headphone that is future proof and since it’s a high-res wireless certified headphones.

You’re going to get LDAC codec as well as AAC and SBC so you can stream music at very high resolution at about 990 kbps at 32 bits.

Like most headphones in this class there is no water resistant rating but then again we’re not bringing these headphones to the gym or run with them so they don’t necessarily require a water resistant design.

Soundcore provides you with a 40mm dynamic driver which Soundcore markets them as double layer metal ceramic diaphragm which seems like a fancy driver and in practice it really does sound pretty nice.

Also this headphone supports multi-point support as well so you can conveniently connect two devices together and swap between them seamlessly.

Features
4.5/5

Battery

Battery life is also extremely impressive here and comparing it to the competition in its class which are way above its price point the Q45 still performs the best with ANC on.

You’re gonna get a whopping 50 hours of playback time which is typical to most headphones’ battery life with ANC. With ANC off you’re gonna get a nice 65 hours of playtime which is enough for a whole week of listening.

If you ever run out of juice a quick five minutes charge will give you about four hours of playback time without ANC.

If you run out of juice on a plane, a quick charge and a trip to the bathroom will recharge it quite a bit and you’ll have enough for the rest of the flight. 

Battery
4.3/5

Controls

Controls on the Q45 is straightforward and you do get to control all of your media with these headphones.

Because they use buttons it’s very easy to find very easy to use.

You don’t have to go and fumble around and find it on your headphones. On your left side you’re going to get your power on or off button and above that you’re also going to get ANC button which is noise cancellation.

You can toggle it between ANC transparency and ANC off. On the right side you’re going to get your volume rocker which also acts as tracks skipping and also a play or pause button at the bottom.

Controls
5/5

Sound Quality

In terms of its sound signature i will say that these headphones are designed to be very balanced with its standard tuning out of the box which is the soundcore signature without bass up.

They don’t emphasize on any specific frequencies, and you can hear everything on the same plain where every range sounds really good.

Based on this headphones out of the box it doesn’t focus on the sub bass rumble so much and gives you a more subtle bass thumb that doesn’t try to overpower other frequencies.

You can tune them to give you more bass in the air but it isn’t designed to give you that rumble. However Soundcore do give you the bass up feature which you can tune in the app and it does really boost the bass and the lower frequencies quite substantially.

If you like bass definitely turn on bass up mode. The mid range is nice with very good reproduction of vocals but it isn’t the headphones most standout frequency.

With most music they sound good but with some songs you hear that it’s a tad bit recess however this is easily remedied with the EQ tuning in the app.

So highs here is good and again out of the box, they are not the brightest highs I’ve heard.

I really wish that it’s a little bit more stimulating without requiring much tuning but then again it’s nice to be able to tune this more to your liking using the app.

Sound Qualtiy
4.2/5

ANC

Soundcore has been proving time and again that they know what they are doing when it comes to ANC performance.

Typically the performance of ANC headphones they are generally not as strong as their in-ear counterpart where you also get the absolutely good seal from the the in-ear silicones.

With the Q45 you’re going to get very good performance but they are not excellent nor they cutting out 100% of noise.

Let’s talk about it with the road noise and cabin noise test i noticed that you still hear a little hum of the lower frequencies if you don’t have music playing.

With some soft music playing you still hear them very subtly in the background and you know it’s there but it does disappear if you increase the volume past 30% mark.

With the human chatter test or the mid frequency test crowd noise test with the same 30% volume you do hear some noise through and it doesn’t absolutely cut it away and remember this is at maximum ANC performance level five.

With the wind noise test these Q45 takes it like a champ and even with transparency level 5 i don’t notice any wind coming through and if you ever do hear wind noise coming through just turn on wind reduction in the app and it’ll go away.

Finally transparency mode here is good and at level 5 it makes the headphones feel very open but it doesn’t give you that you know super human ability that amplifies every noise around you but just increases your surrounding volume slightly.

So overall i would rate the Space Q45 to have a anc performance of 8.8 out of 10 still very good pair of anc headphones.

ANC
4.4/5

Features

The Q45 really comes with a whole set of features that more than justifies its price and i think many companies should take note and following Soundcore’s concept.

To start with you’re going to get the latest Bluetooth 5.3, so you know you have a headphone that is future proof and since it’s a high-res wireless certified headphones.

You’re going to get LDAC codec as well as AAC and SBC so you can stream music at very high resolution at about 990 kbps at 32 bits.

Like most headphones in this class there is no water resistant rating but then again we’re not bringing these headphones to the gym or run with them so they don’t necessarily require a water resistant design.

Soundcore provides you with a 40mm dynamic driver which Soundcore markets them as double layer metal ceramic diaphragm which seems like a fancy driver and in practice it really does sound pretty nice.

Also this headphone supports multi-point support as well so you can conveniently connect two devices together and swap between them seamlessly.

Latency

In terms of gaming latency, these headphones are not the absolute fastest.

You do get a slight lag when playing games like PUBG although you get the Bluetooth 5.3 you don’t get a dedicated gaming mode to knock down the latency like the A40 by Soundcore.

These are great with movies and videos and don’t have any noticeable delay. In conclusion these are not really designed for competitive gaming but if you use them casually it’s not really a problem.

Final Thoughts

Soundcore has been great with their ANC headphones such as the Soundcore Life Q30 as well as the Life q35.

I honestly don’t have any issues I can point to specifically and this is really a great offering from Soundcore.

Our Rating
4.5/5

Soundcore Space Q45

Soundcore has been great with their ANC headphones such as the Soundcore Life Q30 as well as the Life q35.

They have built their version of Sony XM5 for their followers.

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