Review on 🎧 Soundcore by Anker Life Q35: Hi-Res Wireless Audio & Active Noise Cancelling Headphones with 40H Playtime, Comfort Fit, and Clear Calls (Obsidian Blue) by David Norwood

I'm a big fan of Anker. I have owned their cords and cables for many years as they have always been good quality items at reasonable prices. A few years ago, Anker launched its speakers and headphones under the Soundcore brand. Soundcore is following in its parent company's footsteps by making really high quality stuff at a great price. While not as cheap as their predecessors, these Q35s are amazing. These are the first Soundcore headphones to feature Sony's LDAC codec, which allows for less compressed, high-fidelity audio. You can listen to Spotify in very high quality, or better yet, really hear Tidal Masters the way they're meant to be heard. I'm not a huge over-ear guy. I have a lot of headphones. My wife has an excellent Sony WH-1000XM3 which I have traveled with extensively. I owned the Soundcore Q30 for a few days, loved them and gave them to my eldest who whimpered he needed a pair. I currently have a Microsoft Surface 2 which I got mainly for working from home. I love them but the sound is just average for music. So enter the new Q35. I've had these for about a week. Here's the breakdown: - Sound/Application: This is amazing. One of the reviews complained about the dirty sound. I'm not an audiophile, but that's not what I'm hearing here. It sounds clear and bright. Yes, Soundcore tweaks them to emphasize the low frequencies a bit. They are preinstalled in the "Soundcore Signature" profile. However, Soundcore offers you a very reliable application to work with. Just go there and customize them to your liking. You can use one of the many presets or create your own sound. When you get this with a high-quality stream, it's stunning at the risk of being overly dramatic. Hearing The National, The Eagles and Metallica on Tidal sounds incredible. Excellent bass, full mids, crisp highs, everything well separated and balanced. It's nice to hear. Also, there is no noticeable lag when watching videos. The voices match what you see. Well done. Battery Life / Connectivity: Really as good as it gets. 40 hours or so with noise canceling on and 60 hours without. Almost the best in class. Bluetooth 5.0 is easy pairing, stable range and stable connection. - Active Noise Cancellation: If there's a place for it, it's here. ANC is good. The sound core has been steadily improving in this area for some time. It's not Sony/Bose good. However, I believe that for most this ANC will be more than good. It needs to handle planes and travel. The only thing that really stands out is the sudden high-pitched noise. Good overall here too, but not as impressive as everything else Soundcore has to offer here. Form Factor/Controls: The build quality of the Q35 is outstanding. They feel great in your hands. Not how $129 headphones should feel. I don't feel a noticeable difference in quality with the Sony headphones. Management is via physical buttons on the right bank. There's power and an ANC switch on the left bank. A neat feature Soundcore borrowed from Sony is that you can bring in transparency simply by placing your hand on the right can. That's great! Something new that I like is Autopause. All my buds have this, but I've never seen them used over the ears. Just remove the cup from one of the ears and whatever you hear will stop. It's really helpful. My son came up to me and started talking. I didn't miss anything he said and didn't have to worry about interrupting my content. Great addition! Soundcore also offers a 3.5mm audio cable if you want to connect to a wired network. Haven't tried it here yet, but it worked great on the Q30. Call Quality: The Q30s were nothing special in the way they handled calls. The Q35 is still nothing special, but it seems like a big improvement. They've added an artificial intelligence algorithm to beamforming mics that seem to isolate your voice more effectively, especially in noisy environments. I still get way too much wind noise outside, but overall the bells here are solid and very effective. I'll update when I'm here. For $129, Soundcore has a tremendous value proposition for you. Hi-Fi sound, good ANC, great battery and amazing build quality. If you don't like high-fidelity sound, get the Q30. Same build, same ANC, same great app for about half the price. However, if you really want to listen to music, buy it, find uncompressed (or less compressed) music, and enjoy it. That's really what you need to hear. They are lightweight and very comfortable for long-term wear. I'm a naturally hot guy (sweaty not physically) and they are warm but too hot like many other headphones I've worn. Today I wear them for about two hours. All is well. I'm warm there, but not too much. Solid. ***Update for future Samsung users*** One very important note that I just noticed while testing the new B&W PI7s is that you really want to make sure that HD audio is enabled (LDAC in this case ). on your device. Samsung disables it by default. If you go into the developer options, you can enable it. Go to "About phone", go to "Software options" and look for the Android build number. Click on it 7 times. Sign out and go to developer options. Plug the Q35 into your phone (or any LDAC-enabled headset), then scroll down in Developer Options and you should see an HD Audio button. Slide it to activate and it should automatically connect to your highest possible streaming option the headphones offer. Don't worry, you won't damage anything here. Fire up your Tidal account or change Spotify's quality to "very high" and you're good to go. Game changes for me and my S21 Ultra!