Affordable ANC and Serious Battery Life

If you’re looking for an affordable set of over-ear headphones, there’s often a bit of compromise. The Soundpeats Space headphones offer solid ANC and great battery life, but there are some trade-offs, like comfort, worth keeping in mind.

Good Fit For Some, But Not All

Build quality isn’t guaranteed in headphones that retail for less than $100, but this is something Soundpeats nailed with the Space headphones. They’re lightweight, but still feel solid around any points where they pivot or move. How they’ll hold up over months or years remains to be seen, but they feel as strong as many of the best I’ve seen in this price range.

When it comes to fit, it’s something that will vary from person to person. I found the headphones fit me fine, but the ear cups are circular in shape, meaning if you have larger ears, the headphones could sit on top of them, rather than around them.

Clamping force is another aspect of headphones that can vary from person to person. The Space headphones fit me perfectly, snug enough not to move, but not so tight that they became uncomfortable after a few hours. That said, the clamping force may be a little on the heavy side for some people.

While some other headphones in this form factor ship with a protective case, the Soundpeats Space do not. The box they come in is well-padded, but if you’re taking them around with you, you’ll need to protect them on your own.

Decent Sound With a Little Sizzle

The Space headphones use 40mm dynamic drivers, similar to other wireless headphones in this price range. Unlike some other models, you get Bluetooth 5.3 complete with Multipoint. This worked quite well, letting me switch between my iPhone and a laptop running Windows 11 with zero effort.

Listening to John Coltrane’s “Naima,” I noticed something in the sonic signature of the headphones. While the bass carried well, the ever-so-light snare drum playing revealed a slight bit of distortion in the higher frequencies, as did some of the reed sounds from the saxophone.

I tried something a little harder driving with the Night Marchers’ “Loud Dumb and Mean.” While the headphones carried the aggression of the track well, there was still some notable high-end distortion, particularly on the sibilant sounds of the vocals and the cymbals. Here it worked, adding some punch to the track.

It turns out this distortion is highly variable, depending on what you are listening to. With the Bad Snacks song “Lift Off!,” I didn’t notice any distortion until an already distorted synth sound came in.

In general, it’s a pleasant sort of distortion, but certainly not desirable if you’re using the headphones for critical listening. On the other hand, it was never especially noticeable when I used the headphones for videos or gaming.

Good Noise Cancellation, Bad Microphones

Finding quality active noise cancellation (ANC) in affordable headphones is always difficult. In the case of the Soundpeats Space headphones, I was pleasantly surprised at how effective the ANC was. Not only did it block out the low rumble of a furnace, but also most of the sound of a loud TV, with only the treble range slightly audible with no music playing.

The Transparent mode—alternately referred to as passthrough mode—was also impressive. On many affordable headphones, you can tell this mode is doing something, but here there was a noticeable increase in clarity with the mode enabled.

On the other hand, the microphone array turned out to be a disappointment. While recording a sample indoors, I noticed that the mic added a noticeable echo that most headphones don’t. Outdoors, it was even worse, with wind noise making things nearly unintelligible at times.

Onboard Controls and Simple Software

Onboard controls are always handy with headphones, but they’re not always well-implemented. Here, you get a fairly logical layout, with the power and volume buttons on the right ear cup, with another button to switch between noise-canceling modes on the left ear cup.

The onboard controls are useful, but for fine-tuning, you’ll want to install the Soundpeats app, which is available for iPhone and Android. It only took a few moments after launching the app for it to recognize the Space headphones (already paired via Bluetooth), and I’ve noticed this with other Soundpeats models as well.

One of the main reasons to use the app is the EQ. You can choose from various presets, including the base Soundpeats Classic EQ curve, or you can create your own custom EQ. I found the classic preset fairly even-sounding, while some of the genre-based presets seemed to overhype certain frequencies.

Game mode lowers the latency to roughly 65ms, and while this isn’t quite as good as a wired headset, I was surprised at how well the headphones worked for gaming. Lip sync in games and videos was solid, and I never felt a disconnect between what I was seeing and hearing.

Soundpeats claims a maximum battery life of 123 hours, but as is often the case, this is an optimistic estimate, assuming no ANC and moderate listening volume. If you want to block out noise or use the passthrough mode, you can cut that to roughly 60 hours of listening time. Even so, that’s great battery life for the price.

Even assuming a slightly lower maximum battery life from louder volumes, you can still count on going a few days between charges. Once you do need to charge them, a 10-minute charge via the USB-C port will get you up to 12 hours more listening time.

Price and Availability

The review unit I received came in the Nebula Black color option, which is great if you’re looking for a low-profile look. That said, if you prefer your headphones on the brighter side, they also come in Creamy Beige and Ceramic White varieties. Regardless of which color you prefer, they retail for $89.99.

When it comes to competition, the Soundpeats Space match up fairly evenly with the 1MORE SonoFlow, with an interesting parallel. While those headphones’ ANC is more effective with higher frequencies, the Space headphones are better at blocking out lower frequencies. If you’re choosing based on ANC, think carefully about which types of sounds you find the most annoying.

Should You Buy the Soundpeats Space?

The Soundpeats Space headphones come close to being the perfect set of affordable wireless over-ear headphones. The ANC is positively impressive at this price, and the battery life is equally notable.

Where you may feel let down is the sound, but this is highly dependent on what you listen to and how you listen. While I noticed some high-end distortion with certain music, it was completely absent on more pop-oriented, bass-heavy music, which means the Space headphones will work fine for plenty of people.

If you’re looking for affordable headphones that are as useful for gaming and movies as they are for music, the Soundpeats Space will do the trick. Anyone looking for headphones for more critical listening will likely need to spend a little more.

Soundpeats Space

The Soundpeats Space headphones offer surprisingly good noise-canceling for the price with a great companion app and a handy low-latency game mode.