Soundcore Space Q45 Review: Is It Good Value?

I’d still buy the Soundcore Space Q45, but only renewed and only for about $100. Nothing in the budget class blocks more engine rumble and office chatter, which is why it still tops RTINGS’ budget noise cancelling list (updated September 24, 2026). Amazon Renewed had the Black Q45 from AnkerDirect for $99.99 on October 9, 2026, and that’s the price I’d pay. At $129.99, what a renewed White one cost, I’d buy a new Soundcore Space 2 instead.

You can’t buy the Space Q45 new in the US anymore, so I judge it at renewed prices in this Soundcore Q45 review. On October 9, soundcore.com showed it sold out at its $149.99 list price, Amazon listed all three new colors as currently unavailable, and Best Buy said it’s no longer available in new condition. Only renewed and refurbished units remained.

The headphone here is Anker’s Space Q45 (model A3040, launched August 25, 2022). Don’t confuse it with the Bose QuietComfort 45 or Soundcore’s newer Space One, Space One Pro and Space 2. It’s the pair to buy if you fly or ride loud trains, will spend two minutes in the EQ, and can live with a renewed unit’s shorter coverage.

Soundcore Q45 review: The short version

The noise cancelling is the reason to buy the Q45, and it measured above average for noise reduction in every band. Out of the box it sounds boomy and sharp until you fix the EQ. It’s heavy (Soundcore lists 292 g), the pleather pads run warm, and the most common owner complaint is a cracked headband.

Other reviewers’ scores run from 63/100 to 4.4/5.

On Amazon, the new Black listing held 4.3 stars from 14,262 ratings on October 9, 2026 (66% five-star, 10% one- or two-star), and Amazon’s review summary marks durability negative. The renewed listings have their own pool of 935 ratings at 4.2 stars.

Can you still buy the Space Q45 new? (US, October 2026)

No. On October 9, 2026, no major US store had a new unit, and Soundcore’s own page data marked all three colors unavailable. Anker hasn’t announced a discontinuation, so call it sold out new.

A few things to know before you order:

• Soundcore’s Quick Start Guide gives new units an 18-month limited warranty. Soundcore doesn’t say whether that covers renewed units, so count on the return window only.
• Check Best Buy’s refurbished price on the listing before you buy.
• Ignore the undated $89 to $139 prices in Google’s AI Overview. soundcore.com, Amazon and Best Buy had no new stock on October 9, 2026.

Which Q45 is this? Key specs and what’s in the box

The box holds the headphones, a hard-shell case, a USB-C to USB-A cable and a 3.5 mm audio cable (unboxing at 2:24).

Four specs change depending on where you look:

• Weight. Soundcore lists 292 g (10.3 oz). Reviewers’ scales read 281 g, 294 g, 295 g (two reviews), 297.5 g and 298 g.
• No auto-pause. The Q45 has no wear sensor. Soundcore lists none, and auto-pause is one of the Space One’s extras. TechGearLab’s spec table says yes, which I think is an error.
• Mics. Soundcore lists two call mics, and audioXpress’s launch story describes a four-mic hybrid ANC system. Soundcore doesn’t publish a total count.
• Release date. The US launch was August 25, 2022. RecordingNOW’s FAQ says July 5, 2022, and Google’s AI Overview repeats July 2022 from a snippet of that page. Neither matches the US launch.

The Q45 uses physical buttons, laid out in the user guide. The left cup has power and an NC button that cycles noise cancelling, transparency and normal mode. The right cup has play/pause (double-press for your voice assistant) and volume (hold to skip tracks). In the app, you can pick which modes the NC button cycles and whether a double-press toggles BassUp.

How good is the Space Q45’s noise cancelling?

It’s the Q45’s best trick and the whole case for buying it.

How much noise it blocks

Isolation is excellent across the range, from bus and plane engine rumble to office keyboard clatter, and no budget pair has beaten it. TechGearLab publishes its decibel figures, and the Q45 beat its test-group average in all three bands:

Soundcore’s “reduces noise by up to 98%” is a maker claim. The Quick Start Guide’s footnote ties it to the deepest band (up to 38 dB in SGS testing) and puts general reduction at up to 23 dB. SoundGuys is the least impressed. It calls the ANC fairly solid but short of the Sony WH-1000XM5’s, and scored it 6.5 on its scale.

Pressure, hiss and how it compares with flagships

It gets close to flagship noise cancelling. GYMCADDY found it kept up with the Bose QC45 and Sony WH-1000XM5 (10:08), while Kuulokenurkka puts it roughly level with the Sennheiser Momentum 4 and below Sony’s XM4 and XM5.

Turned all the way up, the ANC can cause noticeable cabin pressure, and dropping to level 3 eases it at the cost of some blocking. The top setting also hisses, enough that Kuulokenurkka mostly stuck to level 4, and there’s a noise floor with ANC on.

New owners sometimes hear little difference between ANC and normal mode. One owner’s NC button only toggled normal and transparency, and picking ANC in the app fixed it. Other owners call the ANC impressive for the price.

Settings worth changing

• Pick the mode. Use adaptive ANC or one of five manual levels, and try level 3 if your ears feel pressure.
• Check the NC button. Make sure it cycles through noise cancelling, not only normal and transparency.
• Keep transparency low. Level 5 of 5 adds hiss and static, and there’s a noise floor from level 3 up. At maximum, it’s more open than the Space One Pro’s transparency.
• Choose Talk Mode or transparency. The NC button takes one or the other.
• Turn on wind noise reduction in the app if you walk outside a lot.

Video review

Sound quality: Turn BassUp off first

Stock tuning

Out of the box the Q45 has extra bass and edgy treble. RTINGS is the mildest about it. It calls the sound warm, with about 3 dB of bass emphasis, and says treble deviations can sharpen sibilants. Other measurements show slightly exaggerated sub-bass, a dip in the mids around 200-500 Hz, heavy upper-bass boom with BassUp on, and uneven, hissy treble with a sharp, narrow peak near 6 kHz. The treble gets harsh enough that TechGearLab scored it 3.4 and heard piercing sibilance on podcasts. With ANC off, Kuulokenurkka found it sounded better in places than his own EQ.

BassUp muddies the bass, including on a review unit Soundcore supplied. Check the BassUp switch on the EQ screen before you judge the sound. Kuulokenurkka (2023) says BassUp is on by default, and Android Central (2023) says Soundcore’s Signature preset is. Both can be true, because BassUp is a toggle that sits on top of a preset.

The EQ fix and the audiophile question

The soundcore app is where you fix the sound. It has an 8-band custom EQ, about 20 presets and HearID. BassUp only works with presets, not a custom EQ. A frequency-response comparison shows the curves with BassUp on and off.

It isn’t an audiophile headphone. RecordingNOW scored the Q45’s sound 7.9, a hair above the Life Q30’s 7.8 (11:31), and said only the Space One Pro starts to satisfy him as an audiophile (12:34). LDAC on Android adds a little clarity. There’s no spatial audio.

Comfort, weight and fit

The Q45 is heavy for a budget pair. Of six Soundcore models weighed on the same scale, it came out heaviest at 297.5 g.

Comfort splits reviewers, and the Q45 fits big heads best. The cups suit big ears, there’s room to wear it over a hat, and RTINGS rates it comfortable and well built. TechGearLab wore it for about 6 hours, even with glasses, though it found the shallow cups hot and pressing on glasses arms.

Heat and pressure are the downsides. The headband can build a hot spot at about the one-hour mark, the pads heat up quickly, and the wide cups swing when you turn your head. The headband padding is thin, the clamp is strong and the pads are firm.

It’s no gym headphone. It can fall off with moderate head movement, it has no IP rating, and one owner found it too loose on a small head at the gym. The cups swivel flat and fold in, though not as compactly as the Space One Pro’s.

Battery life: Claimed vs measured

Plan on 28 to 56 hours, depending on volume and settings, which still covers several days of commuting.

The tests used different volumes, ANC levels and test signals, so no single number is the Q45’s battery life. RTINGS calls its 28 hours respectable, but the Space 2 and Life Q20 (2024) last much longer in its tests (49 hours for the Q20).

Three more limits:

• You can’t use the Q45 while it charges (user guide).
• LDAC drains the battery faster.
• The headphones switch themselves off after 20 minutes idle (user guide).

Calls, connectivity and iPhone or Android

Microphone

The mic keeps noise out of your calls better than it captures your voice. It’s decent for calls, and it separates speech from street, wind and office noise unusually well for what was a $150 headset in 2022. Recording quality is only passable, though, and your voice can sound slightly robotic in a quiet room. It still beats the newer Space One’s and Space One Pro’s mics. TechGearLab is the outlier. Its real calls sounded muffled, as if through a sock.

Multipoint and LDAC

The Q45 connects to two devices at once, though switching between them is clunky. LDAC needs Android 8.0 or later and a switch in the app (Settings, Sound Mode, Preferred Audio Quality), and it turns multipoint off (user guide). There’s no aptX, so a Windows laptop has to settle for a lower-quality codec.

Wired listening and gaming

The 3.5 mm input sits on the right cup, and plugging in turns Bluetooth off. Noise cancelling works over the cable once you press and hold the NC button, and the Q45 still plays passively with a dead battery. Soundcore doesn’t list USB-C audio, so assume the port only charges. Bluetooth latency is too high for wireless gaming.

What owners report after months of use

The headband crack

The most common owner complaint is headband plastic cracking near the hinge, often within two to six months. About a dozen owners have reported the same crack from 2023 into 2026. Those reports show a pattern, but they can’t give you a failure rate.

• Several owners got free replacements under the warranty, one through a claim in the soundcore app. At least two say the replacement cracked in the same place (one owner, another).
• One owner’s hinge broke at about 20 months of light use, outside the 18-month warranty, and that owner says Anker offers no spare parts.
• One owner re-glued cracks on both sides of the headband more than once and still likes the sound.
• Amazon’s summary rates durability negative and mentions units that stop working. The renewed listings’ summary says the same about reliability.

Some owners report no trouble. A two-year owner says the hinges and padding held up, and he prefers the Q45 to his Sony WH-1000XM4 for comfort, ANC and app control. RTINGS flags the crack reports too, so treat the headband gently either way. See the Q45’s headband problem compared with the Baseus XH1 for a newer alternative.

Pads, fit and the rest

Some owners report pad covers tearing or peeling after heavy use. One YouTuber swapped to cooling-gel pads because the pleather made him sweat, and the hard-to-remove clips warped in the process (2:35). His video says “2 Years Later”, but he’d had them about a month. Amazon reviewers split on fit, and some find the Q45 too loose.

Soundcore Space Q45 vs Space One

The Q45 is the better headphone. The Space One is the one you can still buy new.

The Q45 is more comfortable, isolates noise better and has the better mic in RTINGS’ comparison, though that comparison mixes methodologies (v2.3 for the Q45, v1.5 for the Space One), so some numbers don’t line up directly. SoundGuys measured 55 h 48 min of battery for the Q45 and 42 h 57 min for the Space One.

The Q45 also comes with a hard case where the Space One gets a drawstring pouch, plus aluminum hinges, a metal headband and thicker cushions. The Space One adds auto-pause and Easy Chat. In CEONTHEMAKING’s side-by-side, the Q45 sounds a little more open and has slight edges on ANC, transparency and the mic (5:46 to 6:47), and he says the Space One isn’t its successor.

RecordingNOW, who bought both, gave them the same 8.0 for noise cancelling (7:23), and the Space One’s sound tied for the lowest score of the six Soundcore models he tested. Owners report cracked hinges on the Space One too, so neither one is the durable choice.

On October 9, 2026, the Space One sold new for $84.99 at Amazon, soundcore.com and Walmart (a deal running to October 12; regular price $99.99). Buy the renewed Q45 at $99.99 for flights, calls in noisy places and the hard case. Buy the new Space One at $85 for a lighter pair with auto-pause and a new-unit warranty.

Video review

Space Q45 vs Space 2, Space One Pro and Life Q30

Space Q45 vs Space 2 (2026)

Above $100, the Space 2 is the pair I’d buy instead. The Soundcore Space 2 (model D1402) went on sale in the US in April 2026 and is Soundcore’s newest Space over-ear under $150 (October 2026). Anker hasn’t named an official Q45 successor, but Japanese launch coverage compares the Space 2 with the Q45 as the previous model.

Specs come from Soundcore, and a video review shows the Space 2’s soft bag.

The Q45 still isolates noise better. Battery life is where the tests split. RTINGS says the Space 2 lasts notably longer, but SoundGuys ran its tests years apart and found no such gap, with 53 h 21 min for the Space 2 (ANC on) and 55 h 48 min for the Q45. The Space 2 also keeps LDAC on in multipoint, which the Q45 can’t do. RecordingNOW scored the Space 2 8.7 to the Q45’s 8.2 and calls it better in every way at $130 (16:47). Wirecutter (September 2026) judged the Space 2 not worth $130 and kept the Space One as its budget pick.

Buy the Space 2 if you want a new unit that’s lighter and newer, with a full warranty. Buy a renewed Q45 at $100 only if maximum isolation and the hard case matter more.

Space Q45 vs Space One Pro

The Space One Pro (2024) replaced the Q45 as Soundcore’s flagship, and its noise cancelling is similar. In RTINGS’ tests, the Q45 stays slightly ahead in low bass such as airplane engines and has the better mic, while the Pro lasts longer (36.1 hours to the Q45’s 27.8) and has the better build.

The upgrades are small. Loud and Wireless lists a smaller fold, slightly better ANC, a gentler clamp and Dolby Audio, and says Q45 buyers won’t miss out on much. Owners comparing the two find the Q45 more balanced and the Pro more bassy, which matches RTINGS’ bass measurements (+7 dB for the Pro, +3 dB for the Q45).

The Pro sold new for $139.99 at Amazon, soundcore.com and Best Buy on October 9, 2026 (list $199.99). It ships with a pouch; a hard case costs extra. See how the Space One Pro compares with the Baseus XH1 for a non-Soundcore option.

Space Q45 vs Life Q30 (and the Life Q35)

The Life Q30 gets you most of the Q45 for about half the price. RecordingNOW, who bought both, gave each a total score of 8.2, calls the Q30 about 97% the same headphone for half the price and puts its noise cancelling a step behind (7.5 to the Q45’s 8.0). The Q45 has a slight edge in detail and clarity, and once equalized it sounds a little tighter than the softer Q30.

The Q30 lacks adaptive ANC (it uses three preset modes) and LDAC, and its bass measures heavier (+7 dB). Its headband is prone to breakage, and owners report the same hinge cracks. Current stock is the “Upgraded” revision with Bluetooth 5.3, while the lab data come from the original revision. Amazon had the Q30 new for $55.99 to $58.99 on October 9, 2026.

The Life Q35, the Q45’s direct predecessor, has sold out on soundcore.com too, so skip it.

Better buys if you want new (and Soundcore or JBL?)

None of these beats the Q45’s isolation, but each sells new, with a full warranty, and wins on something else. The measured battery figures and isolation comparisons come from RTINGS’ tests.

Soundcore or JBL depends on the model. At this price, the JBL Live 680NC matches the Q45 on isolation, but it sits on your ears instead of around them and its mic is weaker. One owner who moved from a JBL Live 660 to the Q45 felt let down even after EQ, but that’s one report.

The 1MORE SonoFlow Pro ($73-$90 on Amazon in October 2026) is one more option. TechGearLab picks it over the Q45 for better sound, comfort and calls, with ANC close to its group average.

You’ll find more in my Sony WH-CH720N review, my Baseus Inspire XH1 review and how the Q45 compares with the Baseus Inspire XH1. Under $50, read my Edifier W80 review. For every budget, start with my best budget noise cancelling picks or browse all my headphone reviews.

Written by Marius

Audio enthusiast. I've worn a lot of headphones, and I tell you which pair is worth your money and which one isn't.

I check every verdict against lab measurements and long-term owner feedback, and I update pages when prices or models change. How I judge headphones.