Anker Soundcore Space One headphones review – A jazzy Space Odyssey

If you want to see something funny, just mention the words ‘budget headphones’ around the Stuff offices and wait for the looks of abject terror to spread across our faces. Unless those words are preceded by Anker, that is. See, Anker has made a name for itself in the high-end budget audio space (it’s a thing), and the Soundcore Space One is continuing that legacy.

You’re getting a whole lot of headphone here for the R2,000 asking price. Active Noise Cancelling (a must when stepping foot into Stuff’s bullpen), an exquisite battery that’ll leave Eskom wheezing, and some killer looks. Pity about all the plastic, though.

Dr. Dre, is that you?

If there wasn’t already a huge chasm between the two in terms of audio quality, one might just go ‘round wearing Soundcore’s Space One and give Beats all the credit. Fortunately, looks are where the similarities end. Nobody ever said Dre. Dre didn’t know how to make a stylish pair of cans.

Beats’ inspiration is most egregiously inflicted upon the Space One’s very circular cups that would look right at home around the neck of the BFG. What we’re so crudely getting at here is that the Space One comfortably fits around our larger-than-average lugholes. And when they’re padded – like these are – it’s all the more comfortable.

You’d be forgiven for thinking the Space One wasn’t covered in a smattering of plastic. That all adds to the ‘budget’ vibe (and price tag) Anker’s going for, all while making for a light and relatively portable (they fold) pair of headphones that’ll easily survive a trip to the office in a backpack slung around your shoulder.

Hotter days may yield some sweat build-up inside the cups and around the similarly stitched headband thanks to the soft silicone padding. Anker reckons the ports have a “high risk of water and sweat ingress” around the ports and 3.5mm audio hole, though we never had any issues. Leave these at home during a jog, we guess.

Port placement has been kept light. Expect to see all the staples; USB-C, 3.5mm audio jack, and a slew of tactile-enough buttons that left us… wanting. The basics are all covered, at least. The right cup houses a barebones play/pause button and volume rocker that’ll switch to being a track-skipper with a long press. On the left is the power button and a place to cycle between ambient sound modes. Some fiddling in the Soundcore app can turn this into a toggle between ANC and a transparency mode. More on those later.

In short, Anker’s thrown together a cheap set of headphones that don’t commit the cardinal sin of looking the part. That’s a big win in our books. The Latte Cream colourway our review model is sporting and matching travel bag only accentuates that.

Under promise, over-deliver

Turn up to Anker’s party expecting the sound quality of R6,000-and-up headphones, and you’re bound to be disappointed. Lower those expectations a smidge, and the Space One’s warm and compelling audio will immediately blow you away. It did for us, anyway. It wasn’t without faults, however. Upon a first listen, you’ll be treated to slightly off-balance bass that turned out to be easily remedied in the Soundcore app.

Anker’s packed in 40mm dynamic drivers into those earcups that didn’t do all that much to show off the nuances of Radiohead’s bass-heavy ‘I Might be Wrong’, prompting a quick visit to the Soundcore app in search of some sort of bass booster. We eventually found lodged among a packed bouquet of EQ presets a Bass Booster/Reducer.

While hitting the Bass Booster worked wonders, the Soundcore app was clearly ravenous to get customers messing around with the built-in HearID feature. This is essentially a five-minute-long hearing test that’ll find your “sound” by choosing between several pitches and audio tracks that sound best to you.

Once we had personalised EQ on our side (which can be paired up with those presets we mentioned), it was smooth sailing. We were suddenly hitting new heights with a more balanced sound profile overall. Throw higher frequencies its way, and it’ll handle them with the clarity and elegance you’d expect from a more competent set of cans. For all the talk of being ‘budget’, we were left quietly and unironically impressed.

The Space One’s noise-cancelling capabilities are equally impressive. A lot of credit goes to the headset’s over-ear earcups, which did a decent enough job of blocking out sound before we’d even flicked the ANC switch on. That’ll come in handy if you’re longing for battery life, but nothing can beat true noise-cancelling. The Space One offers that up in spades, with five levels of strength to choose from and an adaptive setting to best match your surroundings.

That adaptive noise-cancelling proved to be… fine, adapting just well enough that we weren’t desperately looking for the off button, though it isn’t where we spent most of our time. Crank up the manual noise-cancelling setting to a five and background noise disappears as long as your surroundings aren’t too busy. Sure, the odd truck rambling past might still penetrate your ear canals, but it’ll keep out those distracting conversations from the cubicles around your desk without much ado.

Feature-full

Unfortunately, if it’s the strongest noise-cancelling setting you’re after, sacrifices are in order. Namely, battery life. Anker claims these can get up to 55 hours of use without ANC, and around 40 hours or so with it turned on.

Our tests put the Space One’s battery life closer to 35 hours when on the best ANC setting, which was more than enough to be getting on with. We only let these hit 0% once, though a twenty-minute charge was enough to squeeze out five hours more usage.

We’ve already mentioned how the Soundcore app handles EQs, but it’s capable of plenty more. Some digging unearthed a couple of features usually seen in more expensive headsets, such as wear detection, basic button customization, and a transparency mode. These are all off by default, and we think we know why.

Toggle wear detection on, and the Space One will automatically play/pause your music depending on whether you’re taking them off or putting them on. At least, that’s the idea. What we found was an extremely hit-or-miss experience that had our audiobook running on well after they’d been sheathed, tanking our battery life even further.

Hi-res audio and LDAC support are included, though if Spotify is still your primary source of music, that extra bandwidth is wasted here. We opted to stick with the SBC and AAC codecs that offered up an extra point of connection, something that’s lost when LDAC is at the forefront.

Anker Soundcore Space One verdict

Anker’s delivered some of the best budget cans we’ve ever had the pleasure of wearing in the Soundcore Space One. If you can put up with the slightly too-warm fit and hit-or-miss sensor capabilities, you’ll be treated to excellent sound quality, extremely competent ANC, and more than enough battery life to get you through a few days in the office. All for R2,000. No, that last bit isn’t a typo.