Soundcore by Anker Life Q35 Multi Mode Active Noise Cancelling Bluetooth Headphones with LDAC for Hi Res Wireless Audio, 40H Playtime, Comfortable Fit, Clear Calls, for Home, Work, Travel

I’ve been rocking a pair of Skullcandy Crushers Wireless (the og 2016 edition) for five years. They still work fine, and I love them dearly, but I’ve had to super-glue one of the hinges after the whole ear cracked and fell off (thankfully the sound travels through a separate thick cable on those, so functionality was unharmed). The other hinge is on borrowed time, so I no longer feel like I can really travel or skate/have fun with my Crushers. I can’t even fold them into their bag anymore.These, for less than half the price those old Crushers were (as well as the newer Evos which I was also considering getting), are an upgrade in every possible way. USB-C charging, nice hard case, more swivel in the cups and better apparent build quality (they feel premium instead of like a kid’s toy), longer battery life if ANC is off, I can pair them to both my phone and my laptop at once, a dedicated app that’s actually good AND includes white noise, slightly more helpful battery info on bootup, they stay on my head a little better, and have better sound quality. Plus, they’re a nice navy blue that lends some “cool” factor to them to replace the fun punk aesthetic of my Crushers, while also looking professional enough that I can use them shamelessly in a workplace.In addition, unlike the popular $300-400 cans out there, these have button controls (and the few touch-controlled features can be turned off in the app!!) and a headphone jack to plug in a wire when the battery dies! That’s huge these days. I’m blessed to still have a phone with a headphone jack, so I can make use of this, but it’ll also be nice for my laptop, tablet, Switch, whatever else.I’ve never had ANC headphones before, so my expectations weren’t high, and these are perfectly fine with or without it enabled. I’m listening to them as I write this. The default sound signature seems fine to me, but then my phone’s EQ is set up for the Skullcandys (lowered bass), and I hope it goes without saying that I’m not an audiophile. Most of my music is punk, so while I am discovering more details of my tracks, it’s not going to be mind-blowing as the songs themselves are not always recorded/mixed super professionally. That or the distorted guitars dominate so much it always sounds a little fuzzy and noisy (cough Rise Against cough).I’m now using the “boosted bass” setting in the app to bring the bass back (plus the “best sound quality” bluetooth setting), and they sound great to me! There’s a definite thump/punch in the bass that even my Crushers can’t do with their bass slider on, and the music fills my ears so much I don’t know how to process it all. Not much treble in what I listen to, but cymbals aren’t killing my ears, so it’s good in my book. Mids are acceptable for me as well. The bass doesn’t drown them out, but it seems to sit closer to my ear than the mids. I’m sure some more fiddling with the app’s eq will happen eventually.I’ve got only one complaint so far, and it’s that I haven’t been able to figure out the NFC function at all. Is my phone case too big? Is my phone too old/janky to detect it or something? It’s on Android 9 and I enabled NFC on it, so I don’t know. It’s not the biggest deal to me, but I’d hoped it would be a quick way to switch between my second and first paired devices. Oh well. These are still fantastic for the price I paid. I hope they’ll last me at least as long as the Crushers did.

I am a giant Anker fan. I have owned their cords and cables for years as they have always been high quality items at reasonable prices. A few years back, Anker branded their speakers and headphones under the Soundcore label. Soundcore follows in the footsteps of their parent company in making really high quality stuff at a great price point. These Q35’s, while not as inexpensive as their prior models, are simply amazing. These are the first Soundcore headphones to offer the LDAC Sony codec which makes them capable of HiFi less compressed sound. You will be able to take advantage of listening to Spotify on the very high quality setting or, better yet, really hear Tidal Masters the way they are meant to be heard. I am not a giant over ear guy. I have a ton of ear buds. My wife has the world class Sony WH-1000XM3’s which I have traveled with a great deal. I owned the Soundcore Q30s for a few days, loved them, and gave them to my oldest who was whining that he needed a pair. I currently own the Microsoft Surface 2s that I got primarily for working from home. Love them but the sound is just average for music. So, enter the new Q35’s. I have had these about a week. Here is the breakdown:-Sound / App: It is amazing. One of the reviews complained about sounding muddy. I am no audiophile but I just don’t hear that here. These are crisp and vibrant sounding. Yes, Soundcore does tune these to emphasize the low end a bit. They come preset to the “Soundcore Signature” profile. However, Souncore gives you a very robust app to work with. Just get in there and tune these to your liking. You can use one of their many presets or make your own custom sound. When you get these going with a high quality stream, at the risk of sounding overly dramatic, it is breathtaking. Listening to The National, The Eagles, and Metallica on Tidal all just sound incredible. Great lows, full mids, crisp highs, all of which are nicely separated and balanced. Beautiful to listen to. Also, when watching video there is zero discernible latency. Voices match what you are watching. Well done.-Battery life / Connectivity: Really as good as it gets. 40 hours or so with ANC on and 60 hours without. Just about best in class. Bluetooth 5.0 is here so easy pairing and rock solid range and stable connection.-Active Noise Cancellation: If there is an area to ding these, it is here. The ANC is good. Soundcore has been steadily improving in this arena for some time. It is not Sony / Bose good. However, for most, I believe this ANC will be more than fine. It should handle planes and traveling. The only things that really get through are sudden high frequency sounds. Again, overall good, but just not as spectacular as everything else Soundcore offers here.-Form Factor / Controls: The Q35’s build is outstanding. They feel great in your hands. Not like $129 headphones should feel. I feel no discernible difference in quality from the Sony headphones. The controls are handled via physical buttons on the right can. The left can has power and the ANC toggle. One nice feature that Soundcore borrowed from Sony is that you can enter transparency by simply resting your hand over the right can. It’s great! Something new I love is autopause. All my buds have this but I have never seen over ears use this. Simply slide a cup off of either ear and whatever you are listening to pauses. It is really helpful. My son walked up to me and began speaking. I didnt miss anything he said and didn’t need to worry about pausing my content. Great addition! Soundcore also gives your a 3.5mm audio cable if you want to go wired. I haven’t tried it here yet but it worked great on the Q30’s.-Call Quality: The Q30’s were nothing special with how they handled calls. The Q35’s still aren’t special but seem to be vastly improved. They have added an AI algorithm to the beam forming mics that seems to be more effective at isolating your voice especially in loud environments. I still get too much wind noise when outside but calls are solid and very capable here overall.I will update as I go here. For $129, Soundcore is offering you a tremendous value proposition. HiFi sound, good ANC, great battery, and tremendous build quality. If High Fidelity sound isn’t your bag, get the Q30’s. Same build, same ANC, and same great app, for about half the price. However, if you want to really hear music buy these, find some uncompressed (or less compressed) music, and enjoy. It really is something you need to hear.*Update* I have really been pounding these and didn’t really say anything about comfort. They are lightweight and very comfortable for long term wear. I am a hot guy (sweaty not physically) by nature and these are warm but overly hot like so many over ears I have worn. I have had them on now for about two hours tonight. All good. I am warm in there but not too much so. Solid.***Update for later model Samsung users***So one really important note I just figured out thanks to testing the new B&W PI7’s is that you really want to make sure you have HD Audio (in this case, LDAC) enabled on your device. Samsung actually deactivates it by default. If you go in to developer options, you can turn it on. Go to “about phone”, go to “software options”, and find your Android build number. Tap on that 7 times. Back out and go to “developer options.” Connect your Q35’s to your phone (or any LDAC capable headset) and then scroll down in developer options and you should see an HD Audio button. Slide that over to activate it and it should automatically connect to your highest possible streaming option that headphone offers. Don’t worry, you will not hurt anything here. Get your Tidal account going or move your Spotify quality to “very high” and you will be off to the races. Game changer for me and my S21 Ultra!

I did a lot of research before choosing a pair of noise cancelling headphones. I am an autistic adult who uses ear defenders and/or earplugs often in public and wanted to invest in a pair of headphones with ANC, but definitely couldn’t afford Bose’s Quiet Comfort or Sony’s NC headphones. I’ve been using them over a month now, here’s my thoughts.Shape/Fit/Comfortability: I have a fairly small head and most headphones are a bit big on me. These fit pretty well. If I’m wearing them for a long period of time while laying down, the headband will start to slip towards the back of my head- similarly if I’m bending forward, it’ll start to slip towards my face. Even when this happens, the ear cups stay in place. The padding is really comfy, both on the headband and the ear cups, and I can wear them all day long without any pain or discomfort. The padding is firm enough to do a good job assisting with noise cancelling, but soft enough that it doesn’t press my glasses into my face.Active Noise Cancelling: The ANC is as good as it can be considering the price point. Overall about an 8/10 in the ANC market. If I wear my earplugs underneath, the noise cancelling is easily as good as a pair of high-end headphones. The three different modes do vary a little bit, but I haven’t had the chance to use them all in their correct environments. The transparency mode is pretty good as well, and the hand gesture on the ear cup is a really really nice feature rather than needing to find the button super quickly.Sound Quality: I definitely agree with some of the other reviews that say the default “SoundCore Signature” EQ setting is garbage – but the app customization is great and made it easy to fix that issue. I use these really often while watching videos/movies/TV and the sound quality is really good. I prefer them over my other headphones and again, the EQ customization is a super helpful feature.Microphone: I’ve been told the mic quality is average, and I can be heard well/clearly. The only issue is that I believe the microphones are only on the right ear cup, so if I’m laying down and want to roll over onto my right side, I can’t be heard at all, but since they have the ‘beam forming’ microphones, I also can’t flip the headphones around because my voice then gets considered background noise and muffled. This is a really minor issue though, since I’m not usually laying down with these on.Battery: the battery life is pretty consistent with what it claims to be, and it charges quickly. Every time you turn the headphones on it tells you if your battery is High, Medium or Low.Overall they’re a really great option for their price, and provide some really nice ANC. Highly recommend 🙂

This is my first set of headphones in many years (as opposed to buds) so I don’t have experience to make comparisons but I am very pleased with my purchase. The quality is great, the case is super too. Everything was packaged nicely and it all made a great first impression. And now I’m happily using my headphones. I’ve clocked many hours in just a few days.My only complaint is the automatic sound-off feature (supposed to stop sound when you remove the headphones from your head). I recommend turning off this feature in the settings (and Soundcore, if you are reading this, probably you should set the default to be off – but to be honest I do not remember whether or not it was on or off when I first set it up). When this feature is turned on, you risk having sound cut off randomly, especially if you are moving about. I first thought that my headphone was defective but no, this feature just does not work all that well based on others’ reviews. It is not a deal-breaker for me so I’m still keeping my headphones. My guess is that it would be fine if you are mostly sitting still in a teleconference or something. But I was walking with this feature turned on, and that just does not work well. And not really needed. I mean it is not hard to turn the sound off with one of the handy buttons. Speaking of buttons, I really like them. It is easier and more pleasant for me than having to remember and use various touch gestures.My other suggestion to Soundcore is to make accessories or replacement parts for this item be easily available from Soundore brand (so that we can be assured of the quality). I am anticipating needing to replace the pads at some point and I was curious how available and how expensive they are and they are all from the weird made-up-word fake brands, which I distrust, especially for something that is going to spend hours touching the skin on the sides of my face. I don’t want some cheap quality plastic touching me. Having accessories from the manufacturer is a huge selling point for those of us who keep our stuff for many years and wish to maintain them. I know that this brand is known for good prices but it is still a lot of $ for me, so it would have been reassuring to see long-term support in the form of accessories. But overall I am a very happy customer and will probably purchase other things from this brand in the future.Edit: Soundcoure does offer accessories on their site, so that’s cool. But for these earphones, there were only the blue pads available, not my rose colored ones. I still bought them because I’m worried that even the blue ones won’t be available indefinitely. Because for the other colors, they did not just say “out of stock” which suggests they will never be available. Which is too bad. In any case the replacement things and accessories are reasonably priced, and at least I got the blue ones which will probably look okay when it comes time to do the replacement.

So I was looking for quality at a good price. These headphones pop up and I decide to give them a try. I cannot talk about product-lasting because I just got them yesterday, BUT the sound quality is nice, the app was really easy to use, I have an iPhone so the NFC IS NOT GOING TO WORK, but I did read that is not available for IOS, so I knew that before purchasing. The pairing is easy to follow and I love you can pair them to multiple devices, so my computer and phone are paired, and is convenient. On the other hand, the app has extra gadgets that I loved, like you can custom your headphones while listening to music if you want more base, etc. The color and packaging were cool, It comes with cables and an airplane adapter. I used them the entire day, and I can say, the ear cushions are perfect if you’re planning to use them the entire day. I use headsets for work so I can compare this one and yes, you can use them for hours without feeling a headache or pressure around your ears. Hopefully, they stayed as good as they feel now and they don’t break like I saw in other comments. Also, mine were really sensitive to the auto-pause feature, so I did turn off the ear detection and help 100% for the headphones to not pause what I was listening to every time I was moving my head or looking down.