Can a pair of $150 ANC wireless headphones outperform a $350 pair of ANC wireless headphones?
Anker certainly seems to think so with the release of the Soundcore Space Q45 headphones. So how do they compare against the award-winning Sony WH-1000XM4’s?
Well, the results might surprise you because they certainly did surprise me. Let’s find out!
| Soundcore Space Q45 | Sony WH-1000XM4 |
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| Check Price | Check Price |
Case Difference
Now it’s probably not too hard to guess where Soundcore got their inspiration from for their case because it pretty much looks identical to the cases of the XM4’s. There is a smooth sort of leatherette case on the Soundcore’s whereas the XM4’s are more of a fabric case. They’re both firm solid cases so they’re going to provide plenty of protection for your headphones inside.
So, in the case itself, both of them come equipped with a USB-C charging cable. They both also come with a 3.5mm audio cable because both of these have a 3.5mm audio jack. The extra here is the XM4’s also come with an airplane adapter. So, if you want to use that on an airplane you can. So while both cases are great, I do think the case on the XM4’s are slightly better.
Winner: Sony WH-1000XM4
Build & Comfort
The band on the Q45 has a reinforced metal band across the top to help keep your headband nice and sturdy so it’s got plenty of give for larger heads. There is padding across the top, although I would say it is a little bit thin. Certainly not as thick as the one on the Sony XM4’s. This one, across the top, has a lot more padding, which would make it a little bit more comfortable on the top of your head. The headband adjusts nicely and easily on the Sony’s and likewise on the Q45’s as well.
The XM4’s over here are nice and comfortable with a nice faux leather around the ear cups and that memory foam that cups on your ear feels nice and soft. It is however, I think, a little bit thin. So, they feel nice and comfortable to wear but your ears touch the inside of the ear cups. Which for some people is going to get a little bit annoying.
The Q45’s on the other hand also have a nice soft leatherette on the outside but you will notice that the ear cups and the ear pads here are a lot thicker than they are on the XM4’s. So, they’re actually a lot more comfortable to wear because there’s more thickness to them. That also keeps the speaker inside further away from your ear. Also, the inside of these are wider than the XM4’s.
So, the Q45’s are going to be better for a wider range of ear shapes and actually more comfortable than the XM4’s.
Winner: Soundcore Space Q45
Controls
On the Q45’s all of the controls are available via the buttons on the ear pads themselves. On the right ear cup you have the volume up and down buttons. There’s also a button for controlling the play and the pause. You can also hold and press the up and down button for a couple of seconds to actually skip to the next track, or skip back to the previous track.
On the other hand, the Sony has a touch panel on the right-hand side of the ear cup and that actually allows you to swipe up and swipe down, swipe forward and swipe back, to either increase the volume up or down, go forward or backward in a track. You can double-tap to pause and unpause the music. It is a really intuitive touch interface and starts to show where your extra money is going. The XM4 does have more features from a control perspective though because it also has speak-to-chat. So, if you start talking it will automatically pause your music until you’re finished and then you can start your music again. So, the XM4’s certainly have more controls, more features, than the Q45’s.
Winner: Sony WH-1000XM4
Connectivity
A strong connection is super important, especially for wireless headphones because you need a strong connection otherwise you’re going to get dropped audio, choppy audio, generally a bit of a crap experience.
The XM4’s here are equipped with Bluetooth 5.0 and the Q45’s are equipped with Bluetooth 5.3. The 0.3 Improvement should mean that the Q45’s are better with battery life. Both of these headphones support multi-point connection so you can connect to two devices at the same time, and as mentioned before both of these have a 3.5mm audio jack. So, you can use the 3.5mm cable that came with the headphones and plug it into whatever your 3.5mm audio jack source is. Big bonus here is that even if you are connecting over a cable you can still use the noise-canceling features that are on these headphones as well, and even if the power completely runs out you can still use your headphones with that audio source using that cable.
Both of these headphones do that. Great to see because there’s quite a few other headphones in the market that once you lose power they stop working completely, and these don’t do that.
Winner: Tie
Battery Life
The Sony XM4’s here were class-leading when they were first released, and with ANC turned on they have a battery life of 30 hours, which is really good. Now you can turn ANC off and you will get battery power up to 38 hours, and that’s even better.
However, the problem is that the Q45’s do this so much better. The Q45’s, with ANC turned on, will give you 50 hours of battery life, and that is so much more than the XM4’s. You can turn ANC off and you’ll actually get up to 65 hours of battery life, which is insane.
Charging wise, the XM4’s will charge up to full in about 180 minutes but it also supports fast charging so if you charge these for 10 minutes you’ll get 5 hours of playtime. However, the Q45 still does it better. It will charge up to full in 100 minutes and just a five-minute charge will give you 4 hours of playback.
Winner: Soundcore Space Q45
Sound Quality
Sound quality is probably one of the most important things in a pair of headphones. Both of these come equipped with 40mm drivers and they also both support AAC, SBC, and LDAC audio codecs. Now LDAC is a high-res audio codec. However, there’s a little caveat to that. If you turn LDAC on then you can’t get multi-point support as well. Pretty much because LDAC is high-res audio so it’s pretty much taking up all the bandwidth that Bluetooth has available to it just for audio. It’s got no room left to connect to a second device. It’s actually not an issue just with these headphones but with any headphone that supports high-res audio.
Now sound-wise I do think the XM4’s have the slight edge here and are better in that mid to high frequency than the Q45’s are out of the box. Having said that that’s a little bit of a mute point because both of them come with customizable equalizers in their mobile apps.
So the XM4, in the mobile app, comes equipped with a 5-band graphic equalizer and some presets. The Q45 comes equipped with an 8-band graphic equalizer and a whole bunch of presets that you can choose from as well. Once you’ve tweaked the sound now I do still think that the XM4’s are slightly better in the mid and the high frequencies. Q45’s are actually pretty good in the base area, and you can turn those up pretty loud without the bass distorting.
I would say that the sound profile on the Q45’s is definitely impacted as to whether you turn ANC on or off. There is a noticeable emphasis on the bass when you turn ANC on and a noticeable lack of it when you turn it off which really affects the sound profile. You can counter and adjust for that in the EQ settings. The Sony on the other hand, when you turn ANC on and off, really doesn’t change that sound profile. So, they control that a lot better than the Q45’s are.
Winner: Sony WH-1000XM4
Active Noise Cancellation
The XM4’s, when they were first released, were class-leading, and has adaptive noise canceling and 20 levels of customizable ambient noise cancellation so you can select the amount of noise canceling that you want to enable on those headphones. In comparison, the Q45’s only has five levels of ambient noise adaption.
But in actual tests, it was really hard to tell the difference between them both. I did find that the Q45’s trimmed some of the higher frequencies out better than the XM4’s, but I also found the XM4’s were slightly better at trimming out the lower frequencies.
Winner: Tie
Final Thoughts
So, a $150 pair of headphones versus a $350 pair of headphones. Which did you prefer? If you want a pair of headphones that sound great and have tons of features then the Sony WH-1000XM4’s are a really great pair of headphones to get. However, you do have to pay a premium for them at $350. If however you’re after a pair of headphones that just comfortable to wear, have great battery life, sound good, have good ANC, and are great to take a call, then the Soundcore Space Q45’s are a really good choice, and at $150 they’re a great buy.
