Soundcore Space One Pro review: A masterclass in how to shuck off a ‘budget’ stereotype

The Soundcore Space One Pro headphones are a bit of an anomaly in the audio world. Usually known for being a budget brand (demonstrated by the $99 original Space Ones), Soundcore has upped its game with the Space One Pros. Has Anker’s offshoot audio brand done enough to make one of the best headphones around today, though?

I think yes, easily. The Space One Pros are double the price of the first incarnation, but the increase in price has certainly paved the way for an increase in performance. The headphones not only sound excellent, but they’re paired with a super user-friendly companion app, sleek, comfortable design, and a phenomenal 60-hour battery life. For just $199, this is an impressive feat.

$199 is a lot for a budget brand to charge, though. Are the new Soundcore Space One Pro headphones as good as they seem? Find out in this full Soundcore Space One Pro review.

Soundcore Space One Pro review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A pair of mid-range headphones
• Who is it for? If $400+ for a pair of Bose headphones is too steep but you still want excellent sound quality
• What does it cost? $199 / £149
• What do we like? There are very few headphones at this price point with sound quality this good
• What don’t we like? You do lose a little bit of clarity, like paper rustling, in some tracks

Soundcore Space One Pro review: Specs

Soundcore Space One Pro headphones review: Price & availability

The Soundcore Space One Pro headphones are available in black and white, priced at $199 from Amazon U.S. and £149 from Amazon U.K.. This price is a considerable jump from Soundcore’s previous model, the $99 Space One, and places the Space One Pro headphones firmly in the mid-range category. It’s nice to see some premium features on the $199 cans, like LDAC, but the $99 Space One set had this feature, too.

Although $199 is a big price increase, the Space One Pro headphones are still some of the more affordable mid-range cans on the market. Other wireless headphones, like the Sonos Ace and the AirPods Max, will set you back $449 and $549 respectively. Similarly-priced headphones are the Sennheiser Accentum and the Sennheiser Accentum Plus, $179 and $229 respectively. The entry-level Accentum headphones lack LDAC, which the Space One Pros have for just $20 more. However, if you’re looking to save some money, it could be worth checking out the original Soundcore Space One headphones.

Soundcore Space One Pro review: Design & controls

• Foldable
• Not tactile buttons
• Well-made

You may or may not have seen that the Soundcore Space One Pro headphones are completely foldable. This seems to have been Soundcore’s leading marketing feature, even though I think it’s one of the tamest features on these headphones. Soundcore definitely should have focused on marketing the excellent sound quality Regardless, though, the Space One Pro headphones are foldable, so you could easily chuck them into your compact bag. The folding is much easier than the JBL Tour One M2 or the JBL Live 770NC, the former of which is $100 pricier than the Space One Pro.

Despite being flexible enough to earn a regular spot as an acrobat, there’s no creaking at all. I tend not to get on massively with JBL headphones for this creaking, but Soundcore has nailed it.

In terms of controls, there’s a range of buttons on the bottom of each cup. These buttons aren’t hugely tactile and I had to take off the headphones to know what I was doing when adjusting things like noise cancelation and volume. There are no touch controls, which is welcome — the touch pad on the JBL Tour One M2 headphones was unreliable and I much prefer tactile buttons. Another design qualm: unfortunately, there’s no waterproofing, which is relatively standard for over-ear headphones. I’ve never tested a pair of over-ears with any sort of IP rating.

No, they’re not going to win any design awards — that trophy will certainly go to the $349 Marshall Monitor III, in my opinion. For basic, inconspicuous, well-made headphones, though, the Space One Pro hit the nail on the head.

Soundcore Space One Pro headphones review: Features & connectivity

• Live volume monitoring for ear protection
• Good (not great) ANC
• LDAC hi-res streaming

The Soundcore Space One Pro headphones come with a range of features: personalized hearing EQ, live volume monitoring, LDAC, and ANC.

To test the LDAC, I connected to my colleague’s Google Pixel 7 Pro. I played ‘365’ by Charli xcx and was deeply impressed by the pumping (but not overpowering) bass and clear vocal. More on that in the ‘Sound quality’ section, though, naturally.

The Space One Pro have Bluetooth 5.3, which means the headphones have more range and higher-quality transmission than older Bluetooth versions. The range was over 700 feet in testing — I managed to get outside the office, across the car park, and to the main road outside without disconnecting.

Even when I was connected to my coworker’s Google Pixel 7 Pro, I was still connected to the headphones on my MacBook Air M2 and my iPhone 16 Pro. When I was using these as my primary headphones, I was able to switch seamlessly between Spotify on my laptop and phone without the headphones disconnecting. The multi-point connection is really sophisticated.

As the Space One Pro headphones have a 3.5mm jack, I connected them to my MacBook Air M2 for some wired listening. Obviously analog playback like this won’t drain the battery, so I was able to listen at home without worrying about needing to recharge the headphones. However, you naturally lose access to the app settings when connected via aux cable, so bear that in mind.

Soundcore Space One Pro headphones review: ANC

The ANC is good, but not excellent. It’s not as good as the Bose QuietComforts, or my AirPods Pro 2. I could still hear traffic noise as I walked through my city’s downtown area, and the wind whistled over my music. However, this didn’t massively affect my music listening. When I wore these cans in my quiet office, my colleagues still had to wave their hands in front of my face to get my attention.

Soundcore Space One Pro headphones review: Audio quality

• Fantastic bass, but not overpowering
• Balanced mids and treble
• Clear vocals

Much like the JBL Live 770NC headphones I reviewed recently, the Soundcore Space One Pro cans are very good for bass, although if you’re a detail listener, these might not be the headphones for you.

That’s not to say that the bass performance overshadows sounds across the rest of the frequency range. There’s still a fantastic balance between highs and lows, but the lows are more punctuated, more arresting, more final.

This bass performance was incredibly apparent on the track ‘Nissan Altima’ by Doechii. I didn’t have the bass booster EQ enabled, but the pulsing bass squelched through the headphones. When I activated the bass EQ, it pumped up the bass (as one would hope), but it muffled the treble a little. I switched back to my ‘HearID sound’ (a personalized EQ — more on that in the ‘App’ section) and listened to the rest of my testing tracks with this EQ enabled — obviously, I switched it off for comparison testing, too. After spending hours with these headphones, I can report that HearID truly made every song sound better.

I played something a little different to test the low-frequency sound effect capabilities on the Space One Pros. I switched to Deezer, which streams hi-res tracks, unlike Spotify. I veered to ‘Money’ by Pink Floyd, as I know it’s chock-full of jingling change, cash registers, and stereo sound effects. The tune was as stuffed with sound effects as I remembered, and the money jingle sounded as notable as I remembered.

However, when I played ‘Fat Bottom Girls’ by Queen, the chorus sounded a touch muffled. The track likely sounded muffled because it’s an older recording with deep, low-end bass and a punching kick drum, which somewhat overshadowed the mid- and high-range of the track.

To test this theory, I played The Doors, one of my favorite vintage bands with minimal bass in their studio recordings. ‘The End’ sounded clear (well, as clear as a fifty-eight-year-old recording can), and the sporadic bass notes didn’t overpower the rest of the track.

In ‘TRUST’ by Rebecca Black (yes, the same woman who did ‘Friday’ — she actually makes great music now), there’s a little sound effect of a whip cracking. This whip effect was still audible through the Space One Pros, but it wasn’t as prominent as when I listened with my AirPods Pro 2. This is likely because the Space One Pro headphones excel at bass performance.

Next, I wanted to test the wired playback. While linked up via aux, I listened to ‘Chez Moi (Waiting For You)’ by CC:DISCO!. The nostalgic ‘90s house intro was atmospheric as ever, with a swirling synth chorus and a thumping house beat translated competently over the Space One Pro.

I switched to a more hazy, shoegaze track to test the nuance in wired mode. ‘I Want You (Fever)’ by Momma was the perfect testing track; it’s heavy on the layering and haze, and can feel quite muted or muddled with the wrong set of cans. Thankfully, with both wired and wireless connection on the Space One Pro, the hazy song did not dissipate into the ether. Of course, there’s some quality loss in Bluetooth versus wired, but that’s just the nature of wireless playback.

Although I noted the JBL Live 770NC headphones for their bass-hungry playback style, the Soundcore Space One Pros are markedly better. Better at not just bass, but the mids and treble range. There’s no overpowering or overshadowing the rest of the track like with the JBL Live 770NCs. As the Space One Pro and the Live 770NC headphones are the same price, I think it’s a no-brainer: Space One Pro all the way.

For just $199, the sound quality on the Space One Pro headphones is astronomically good. I’d say it’s almost as good as the $349 Bose QuietComforts, almost infinitesimally so. And they’re much, much better than the $299 JBL Tour One M2. If you appreciate layered, balanced tracks with a little oomph of extra bass, the Soundcore Space One Pro cans will delight you.

Soundcore Space One Pro headphones review: Call quality

• Decent call quality
• Clear speech
• Need to turn up volume for calls

To test the call quality on the Soundcore Space One Pro headphones, I called my boyfriend. He reported that I sounded just as good as, if not better than, my AirPods Pro 2. He said my speech was clear and audible, and although he could hear a little background noise, it didn’t obscure my speech.

Soundcore Space One Pro headphones review: App

• Great personalized EQ
• Safe volume settings
• Clean UI

While I’ve been relatively unimpressed with other brands’ ‘personalized EQ’ settings, Soundcore’s HearID seems to actually benefit users. HearID is basically a personalized EQ designed to suit your hearing ability and your personal preference. Everyone’s EQ should be a little different.

After participating in a gamified hearing test, I received a choice of ‘this or that’ of custom EQs. I was asked to choose between six EQ settings and eventually the Soundcore app made me an EQ based on my answers.

I’m not sure if it’s just a placebo, but my music actually sounds great with this custom EQ. It increases the bass without turning the low-end muddled and muffled, and focuses on the treble without becoming tinny. It’s much better than Soundcore’s preset EQs like ‘bass booster’, which just muffled the bass, and the ‘classical’ genre EQ, which made the music sound warped.

There are loads more customization options in the Soundcore app: Dolby Audio, wind noise reduction, ‘Easy Chat’ (like Apple’s Conversation Awareness), and one of my favorite aspects, safe volume. This is a real-time volume monitor to ensure you won’t accidentally cause hearing damage over time.

The Soundcore app is more aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly than other audio apps I’ve used, like JBL and EarFun.

Soundcore Space One Pro headphones review: Battery

• 60 hours without ANC
• 40 hours with ANC
• 3 days listening, still at 90%

Although I tested these headphones for three full work days, they’re still showing as 90% charged. Soundcore claims the Space One Pros last up to 60 hours without ANC and 40 hours with ANC, but I doubt this claim.

Our best headphones for battery life are the $349 Marshall Monitor III cans, which are rated at 70 hours. Considering the Monitor IIIs will set you back an extra $150, the Space One Pro offers a great deal here.

Soundcore Space One Pro headphones review: Verdict

All things considered, the Soundcore Space One Pro headphones are a great deal of bang for a decently cheap buck. No, they don’t look as striking as the AirPods Max or the Marshall Monitor III, but they are a good deal of the way there. I’d go as far to say that the sound quality is equal to that of the Bose QuietComfort, which I think don’t sound as good as their reputation would have me believe. The Space One Pros are prone to a touch of muffled bass, but so are the QuietComforts — and the Space One Pro will only cost you $199, as opposed to $349. I know which one I’d rather go for. While the ANC is merely good, that price is so much more appealing.

I can’t believe Soundcore has not only manufactured an excellent pair of headphones, but made them so much better than the already-fantastic predecessor. No, they’re not as good as, say, the $799 Focal Bathys, and the audio quality isn’t as good as the Marshall Monitor III, but for $199, I’d say these are a steal and a half.