After the unboxing video last week, I’ve had a chance to give these new cans a bit of a workout on my phone, laptop, TV and PC. Can’t say we’re not thorough!
As noted in the video, the Q45s are a little heavier than the non-noise cancelling headphones I’m used to wearing. However, after a very short while this difference wasn’t noticeable and indeed I found them significantly more comfortable. The main difference is their “over ear” design where the pads sit on the skull rather than pushing on the ears. This made a huge difference while watching the TV as I use glasses and my older headphones can make this uncomfortable.
By coincidence, my dad bought a pair of these same headphones a couple of weeks ago and he made a similar comment but for different reasons. He’s wears in-ear hearing aids, and the headphones he was replacing used to push on them due to their fit which caused them to feed back and whistle. The Q45s provide more space between his ears and the ‘phones so this is no longer an issue. They also don’t distort the sound if you ramp the volume up which is another major plus point for him.
In terms of sound quality, they’re great. I’m no audiophile / snob, but I have no complaints. I’ve used them for TV, podcasts and music without any issues. Low ends are low, high ends are high and they’re as good as (at least) any headphones I’ve had in the past, with the added bonus of being noise cancelling – a feature I’ve never made any real use of before. The only other pair of noise cancelling headphones I’ve ever owned were some Beats that I won in a competition many years ago and they were rubbish. Far too bulky and heavy, and the sound from my existing £25 pair was better. Not what you want from something valued at 8 x the price, but pretty much what you’d expect from something owned by Apple… flashy, expensive and the kind of thing people buy for the label.
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Talking about price, the Q45s come in at roughly £140 depending on where you look (but note that you can get a discount if you purchase direct from them – see the end of this review). My dad did some research after buying his, and found them on the Which? site under the “mid-range” price bracket. I’d link, but their content is behind a paywall. Regardless, they were top of the pile and their rating put them above the lower-end “top range” models which were significantly more expensive. So there are cheaper options out there, but in terms of value they’re pretty damn good.
The noise cancelling works very well, and there are three modes: Noise cancelling, normal and Transparency. Even with “normal” selected, the seal around the ear through the very comfy pads does actually prevent a lot of sound leaking in. The noise cancellation actually filters out sounds like your own heartbeat and the rustle of hair against the cans themselves. Transparency is impressive and actually increases outside noise levels so you can be more aware of your surroundings. I assume it does this by using the microphones the Q45 uses to enable phone calls and voice assistant functionality. This is ideal when you’re walking outside, waiting for a call, etc. There’s even a conversation mode where voices are made clearer above other sounds so you can listen to people while your music plays in the “background”. Oh, and a setting to filter out wind noise.
How do you control all of these? Via a free app (Android and Apple versions available). I’ve never owned headphones that needed an app, or a firmware download, before! There’s a lot of other configuration in there including an LDAC mode (higher quality sound in exchange for shorter battery life), tweaking of the aforementioned settings, button configuration and more.
In terms of battery life, the box claims 50 hours and I’d not argue this. A full charge takes about 2 hours from empty, and it took ages for them to run down to the point where I was getting warnings. I confess I didn’t set a stopwatch, but if it wasn’t 50 hours then it wasn’t far off. Oh, and you can pair them to more than one device (specifically two devices) at the same time. I was assuming this would mean listening to two things at once, such as music from a phone and audio from a PC, but the headphones seem to bounce between them. Play a video on the computer and it pauses the phone music. Play the music and the video stops. I guess this makes sense given the limitations of Bluetooth.
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As well as the charging cable, a short standard USB A-to-C which needs something to plug into, there’s an audio cable if you have something you’d prefer to plug into. Handy if you have an old device without Bluetooth. This cable is very short, though, so I suspect if you’re going to use this facility you’ll end up spending a couple of quid on a longer one.
Before I was sent these, I was perfectly happy with the couple of £25-ish pairs I have in the house already. Now I feel spoiled. They are hands down the most comfortable headphones I’ve ever worn in my life. Sound quality and battery life are superb, and the app is simple to use – though I suspect that most people will just fiddle with it to set things up and then not touch it again. Now I’ve used them I don’t want to go back to my other ones.
The question is, though, would I spend £140 on headphones? A couple of weeks ago? No. Now? Argh. Maybe. It’s still a lot, but they really are good. And when I look at the other offerings at a similar or higher price at least I know that the Q45s are superb value. Assuming their build quality allows them to last for a reasonable length of time (the warranty is 18 months) then I think they’d be justified as a good investment, even if I only took the comfort into account.
Thanks to Soundcore for sending them to us for review. We’re happy to check out anything that anyone wants to send!
You can get £20 off the headphones if you pick them up direct from their website using the code Moshville2023UK.
