Chances are you have heard or seen the name SoundPeats when you browse on the Internet. Their products are priced at the budget end of the spectrum which is a pretty crowded space. When I was approached to check out the SoundPeats Space headphones, I was very curious to how they would perform.
First Impressions
I am going to get the elephant in the room out of the way, the Space is plastic fantastic. There, I have said it. It is not a surprise at it’s price point, something has got to give.
I have the “Nebula Black” colourway of the Space. What is really appealing is the use of rose gold accents on the outside of the ear cups for the logo. Similarly the microphone ports are also accented with the rose gold. It is not garishly done. Personally I am not big into showing off the brand of whatever I have but SoundPeats have done this in a way that is not obnoxious.
For a bit of contrast, the ear cups and the padding at the top of the band are both in a mid-grey imitation leather, and the top of the band is a textured cloth material in the same colour way. The padding is generous.
Inside the ear cups are large markings to indicate left and right.
The adjustment band is reinforced by strip of metal.
The build quality is surprisingly good at this end of the price spectrum. Nothing creaks or bends unnaturally, the pivot points and turns all feels premium.
There aren’t a lot of buttons for control – volume, power, mic mute, along with a USB-C charging port and a 3.5mm aux port. Simple does it.
In Use
There is a SoundPeats app (of course), which will help keep firmware up to date. I have been testing the Space for a few weeks and at the time of writing, my firmware is being updated from v47 to v58 with some bugfixes.
This was my first time trying out SoundPeats gear and I was not sure what to expect. They are billed to hybrid active noise cancelling and being over the ears, I figured I could really put these to the test.
What’s the worse environment I could test the Space in at home? I stuck on the Space, loaded up a podcast and … fired up the petrol lawnmower. I did this with a pair of “on ear” ear buds and attempts to listen to anything was a waste of time (as expected).
With the Space though, in between the over the ear cups and the active noise cancelling, it went better than I imagined. I could still hear the mower a little, but mostly I was immersed in my podcast and blissfully zoned out from the noise.
There is a method to the madness in my testing. In the hour or so of wrangling my lawn into submission, I sweated, I manhandled the lawnmower along my lawn and obstacles. I frequently emptied the catcher, bending down to unload, lift it up and dump into the bin, and reload the catcher. The Space didn’t miss a beat. Occasionally when I didn’t quite adjust the band tight enough, they do slip forward some time to time. But they were never uncomfortable for me, I don’t feel that my head is in a vise, or my ears were squished. Excessive sweat is a bit meh, but I have the same problem with all the other headsets in this regard anyway.
Switching over to music, the Space was no slouch at the game. I ran through my esoteric playlist from K-Pop to classical, and the Space was stunning when you remember the price tag attached. There is some distortion at the higher frequencies that does creep fairly consistently but it wasn’t particularly offensive if that’s possible. I did have to pay attention to try and pick it up.
One thing I did find odd was that when a call came in, the music cuts out but I don’t hear any ring tones. I could pick up the call and the sound gets piped to the headset, but just no ring tone to tell me a call is coming in.
Speaking of which though, the microphone pick up could do with a lot of tuning. They were marginal indoors in a quiet environment and the other side could mostly live with the sound. But being outside in the garden with a bit of wind noise effectively wiped out any decent audio pick up.
Other Features
SoundPeats have included some features that aren’t commonly found at this end of the market segment.
For starters out of the box the Space has Bluetooth 5.3 with support for two connections.
The app is a little more than a delivery mechanism for firmware update. There is an Adaptive EQ feature that requires a minute of your time to test your hearing at different frequencies, then the EQ curve is applied to the playback.
Alternatively you can use a custom equaliser which can give you full manual control, or one of nine presets including classic, bass boost, bass reduction, electronic, rock & roll folk, treble enhancement, pop and classical music.
Noise reduction has ANC, transparent mode (passthrough in any other words) or normal (ANC off and not passthrough).
An interesting feature is Game Mode which lowers the latency to ensure the sound is sync with the image. I don’t game so this wasn’t something I could test but I suppose it properly works with movies as well.
Battery Life
SoundPeats rates the battery life at 123 hours. I didn’t test it to the max but I am sure it won’t hit that mark.
I ran the headsets solidly on and off for a few weeks, forgetting to turn them off and all that good stuff. They went on for a while, off the top of my head easily 90 hours or so. They did die on me when I had them in the garden a few nights ago after about 10 minutes of warning me of battery low.
My reservations on this is when I updated the firmware just now, I literally watched the app report 50% battery to 46% battery in minutes. It then further dropped to 43% about 20 minutes later, and I was not using them at the time. Then after power cycling them, it went back up to showing 50% power.-
Gripes
I have to keep in mind that the Space is a budget headset. Other than the performance of the microphone array, there isn’t anything that is particularly of note.
I would like a tiny indicator to tell me if the Space is powered on or off.
The only other thing I will mention, for the sake of completeness, is that the Adaptive EQ instructions tells you to listen for voices, when you are supposed to respond when you hear sound. I was completely confused the first time I ran the test because, I never heard any voices, and my flat was just an empty chart.
Arguably the Space is light in features, but they also pack a lot more than your average budget headset.
Final Note
The Space comes in a well padded box, but it does not come with a carry pouch so you need to look for one yourself.
Conclusions
The SoundPeats Space really took me by surprise. Other than the limitations around the microphone, the sound reproduction really punches well above it’s price tag.
They have a RRP of AUD$89.95 but at the time of publishing, Amazon has them for $74.99 (in black) with a further 20% off which brings them down to just below $60. The other two colourways are about a buck more. For the performance and comfort level, that is a staggering bargain.
DRN would like to thank SoundPeats for providing the review unit.
Specifications
Hi-Res Audio Certification (with inner cable)
40mm Dynamic Drivers with Punch Bass
123 Hrs Ultra Long Battery Life
35dB Hybrid Active Noise Cancellation
Bluetooth 5.3 for Stable Multipoint Connection
65ms Low Latency Game Mode
