soundcore by Anker Space A40 Auto-Adjustable Active Noise
soundcore by Anker Space A40 Auto-Adjustable Active Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds, Reduce Noise by Up to 98%, 50H Playtime, Hi-Res Sound, Comfortable Fit, App Customization, Wireless Charge
From the brand
Speakers
| Dimensions: | 6.78 x 4.41 x 2.85 cm; 18.14 Grams |
| Model: | A3936021 |
| Batteries Included: | 3 Lithium Polymer batteries required. |
| Manufacture: | Anker |
| Dimensions: | 6.78 x 4.41 x 2.85 cm; 18.14 Grams |
| Origin: | China |
The only downside is that the controls aren’t that great, but they get the job done.
Noice cancelling feature is good too.
Tried lots of others but these are on a different level. Forget the extra cost you will not be disappointed, fully charged they last 8 hours plus and once fully set up through the app ( which is simple to do ) the sound is exceptional.
Not totally noise cancelling but unless you want to pay a lot more they are pretty close .
These are not and do not
The active noise cancelling is better than anything I’ve known. Ambient noise is killed but if someone says something the mic picks it up and you can hear them. Likewise, oddly, if you need to hear something select Transparent in the app (or tap tap the bud) and you have an ear aid that amplifies sounds. They are incredible.
These fix that and come with a wealth of additional features for only a bit more money.
Noise cancelling is superb, well on par with earphones twice the price.
Hearing profiling works really well so does the ear tip fitment testing.
LDAC support does make a notable difference to music quality.
For the price, these are hard to beat.
Would recommend to buy
Comfort – excellent.
Sound quality – excellent (plenty of EQ settings to play with)
Noise cancelling – ridiculously good, keeps out the noise of the neighbours partying til late at night – these are actually small enough to wear at night.
Battery life – excellent.
Transparency mode surprised me too, sounded very natural.
Haven’t checked out voice quality, but would expect it to be okay.
Soundcore have done it again, their range is consistently equalling products 2 or 3 times the price.
For listening to music, I use the A40 pods every time:. The sound is noticeably clearer and has a better frequency range, so is actually pretty good for classical music. By comparison, the AirPods, good though they are, have a muddy sound and lack bass.
For listening in a noisy environment, though, I generally pick the AirPods, whose noise cancellation in the Series 2 iteration is quite remarkable. By contrast, noise cancellation on the A40s is merely good.
The A40s are slightly more fiddly to hold and insert or remove from the ear, and the case is slightly more awkward to hold and open than for the AirPods. On the other hand the A40s beat the AirPods Pro for battery life, both of the pods and of the case.
Given that the AirPods Pro cost about 3 times the A40s, I’d suggest that these SounCore pods are
a complete no-brainer compared to the AirPods unless you absolutely *must* have the superior noise cancellatio
Noise cancellation great even when mowing a lawn with a petrol mower.
Read reviews in Which, had to get them, tried and tested, absolutely brilliant, bonus being the price. Highly recommended
Had issue.
Anker sorted. Thank you for the help.
Love the earbuds
Slightly confused at first as the paper instructions had every language except English.
However, once you download the app (soundcore) onto your phone/ tablet, everything is in English and pretty easy to set up.
I took the apps hearing test so the sound adjusted to my ears. Set the mode to noise cancelling and played Dark Side of the Moon, 2023 remastered version. Oh gosh, without any exaggeration the sound is marvellous, deep smooth bass, soaring singing and well controlled high notes.
Tried other music, all sounded as good as I had ever heard them.
Comfort? Not bad, select the right size ear cushion for your ears, it comes with 5 differing sizes. This is important for the sound as well as comfort.
Noise cancelling, not had a chance to really test it but it certainly cut the TV sound out so I think it will be pretty good. Looking forward to trying it on a flight in three weeks time. I’ll try and remember to update this review.
I have to commend Which Magazine for drawing my attention to these earbuds, I only expected this sort of sound if I spent considerably more.
Active noise cancelling is performing well. It is cancelling the majority of the unwanted noise, which is definitely fine. When I talk on the phone using these earbuds, people are happy with my voice quality and they say that there is so less background noise. There are tons of positive reviews about this product on Youtube and I believe they are all correct. After my long term usage, I decided to buy another one for my family. I believe this is one of the best earbud purchases I made so far and I am happy with its price tag vs quality.
bought these as a present and the recipient is chuffed. The noise cancelling is fantastic
These are great for the Price. Sound good. The noise cancelling is decent.
These are super easy to use and comfortable, how durable they will be remains to be seen but the sound quality is amazing and the app enhances the experience!
Great bass and amazing sound and battery life
I love good quality music, but I don’t use them more than that so I couldn’t justify the price of Apple Ear Buds.
These had a great review from Which, the consumer magazine, so I went for them.
The sound quality is absolutely first class.
The rest I won’t know until I’ve used them for a few months.
Great earbuds with lots of features you find on a lot more expensive ones. Good quality at a good price.
I really wanted iPods but read a review in Which? and these scored so highly that I bought them and I’m so pleased that I did.
They are probably OK for pottering around a fairly quiet house – but then I’d use my bluetooth speaker. So, overall, pretty disappointed.
UPDATE: I thought that I’d give them a second chance on another flight. This time, they were more effective. Perhaps there was more vibration on the first flight which went straight through my bones? Anyway, I’ve increased the score to 4 stars.
I purchased these firstly to drown out noisy neighbours. I am using them daily for pleasure also. Music podcasts & tv. Excellent investment.
I bought these for my emo-teen who hates Apple but loves music. So it’s Spotify and these amazing little headphones and they’re away! Bravo Anker – another brilliant product.
Bought these after reading Which review as a best buy. Not the highest rated at 77% (7th out 199 in-ear type) but not far behind. Exceptionally good value for money. Not sure about the noise cancelling as I’m still getting to grips with it. Comes with selection of different sized buds to choose. Fit well. Cracking good sounds.
Soundcore have managed to pack in so much here for 67 (on offer)
You get duel drivers, LDAC, Great ANC and fantastic battery life! The sound for the size of these is unbelievable! LDAC paired with Quboz is fantastic! The bass is great although not too thump which is fine for me! Mids and Treble are very clear! i use the customer setting “Acoustic” this seems to be a good balance for my ears!
Soundcore’s app allows you to tailor the sound to your ears using HearID, and you can customise the touch press on each bud!
ANC is great although some highs get through – but if you have your music at 80% you cannot hear anything!
The fit is great too, using the medium tips provided and the seal is great!
50 hours battery life in the case is just incredible! i did a lot of research before buying and im glad they live up to most of what i read/watched!
If your on the bench considering these, you have nothing to fear!
Use in gym, good noise reduction, battery lasts about 4 days using for 2hrs at a time
I have only been using these buds for the last three day and have not had chance to fully test the adaptive ANC against a noisy enviroment. But the sound quality is fantastic. My last headphones were a primium type which I got on sale but now out of my price range. After reading a lot of reviews I decided to take a chance on these and wow. I will see how they are in the long ru
I love these Anker Space A40 ear phones, I already own a pair of Anker Life A1’s, I even tested the Anker Liberty 3 and the Sony XB700 which were more expensive plus the Anker A3i, the cheapest but in my opinion “the best sound” (lots a deep bass and high top end) but these A30’s suited me perfect for fit so took the slight hit.
Sadly however after 3 months the RIGHT plug has started to intermittently omit a high frequency whistle type.
This whistling is occurring on its own when wearing out and about or indoors, it is not the “feedback” type sound you sometimes get when you have covered the plug with two fingers when pressing into ear.
I also believe the overall volume has decreased in this RIGHT plug chucking the balance out. The supposed “centre” is now towards the Left Side.
I would like to return these as faulty for a new pair but typically they seem to have gone faulty 3 weeks after the cut off date.
I ordered these on November 17th 2022 so just 3 months old!
How do I return these please.
Update: Seller never responded or any help via this review so I returned via Amazon Customer Services who were extremely helpful for a full refund. I immediately purchased another pair which did sadly cost more.
The noise cancelling was also pretty poor–it had almost no effect on steady-state noises like a home air filter or vacuum cleaner, which it should be good at. This may have been related to the fit issues. There’s a fit test in the app; I tried it with all 5 included ear pieces, and it told me to try a different size or adjust the fit with all of them.
I eventually gave up and returned them. I replaced them with their Soundcore “Sport X10” model for about the same price. The new ones have hooks behind the ears.
I tried the Bose earbuds, but those rubber tips were uncomfortable, didn’t fit, and blocked zero sound. These tips work a lot better, at a much lower price. I still need to swap them around more, to make sure I have the best fit, but they block sound better and feel much better.
The earbuds are light, don’t stick out, don’t feel like they are going to fall out. They don’t make a lot of noise and start up random music when I put them in, as the Bose Quiet Comfort did. They swap fairly easily between my iPhone and my iPad, too.
So far, I like them.
I’d get the Apple earbuds but those are too expensive and look silly and pretentious.
The earbuds are light and unobtrusive, and having picked the right silicone tips, are comfortable to wear for a couple of hours or more, and don’t fall out. The combination of passive and active noise cancelling blocks out low-frequency continuous sounds very well, even without any music playing. Even higher-frequency sounds are deadened somewhat, so that nearly all the trolley noises, announcements and ambient music of a large supermarket were eliminated, at only a moderate music volume. I’m not a sound expert, but the quality seems very good, and can be modified to a degree using the equaliser in the app.
I had no problems in setting up the app, connecting to my phone, and running the ‘fit test’ and ‘HearID’ personalised frequency program. The interface is clear and easy to use. The earbuds provide touch controls, and I liked the ability to use the app to tailor the play/pause/volume/back/forward/volume functions available with one tap, two taps or long taps, on the left or right earbuds. The bluetooth range covers the whole of our semi-detached house, and even outside too. I’ve not tested the battery life, but it seems very good. The microphone also gave acceptable call quality on a phone call.
The only minor niggles are that (a) the app/phone sometimes ‘forgets’ to connect to the earbuds, especially if they’ve been left out of the case for a time, but this is resolved by closing and reopening the app; (b) when playing music from an app you’ve just returned to, the volume comes in at mid-level by default, which is way too loud; (c) the increments between volume levels are too coarse, although this seems to be an issue with my (android) phone rather than the earbuds; (d) on a windy day, I did get a fair bit of ‘whistling’ through the earbuds, which the ‘wind noise reduction’ option did nothing to reduce, but I’m not using them outside that much, so I’m not bothered by that.
Overall, a very good choice, and much more affordable than some on the market.
I returned them, which was a palarva, did some research, which I should have done first anyway. My research introduced me to Anker Space A40.
I ordered them. They arrived the next day. They are snug in my ears. They paired easily and immediately. They sound good. They cost much less than the Apple Air Pods. They do exactly what I wanted….in fact, to use an old phrase; ‘they just work’.
Bit by bit my 20 year love affair with Apple is coming to close.
There are better, cheaper and cooler products than Apple products almost everywhere these days.
Sound quality is decent once you’ve run through the HearID process and you can EQ them as you like. For top dog sound quality then yes that extra 170 on the Sony XM5, Bose 2, Sammy beans 2 pro is worth it. But out in the real world these are pretty good. My Father is a retired Sound Engineer and I have some pretty serious HiFi at home (some from his old Studio). So I do have something to compare with. My daughter has the overear Q30 and Dad was reasonably happy with the sound signature (pointing out the consumer V and where she had EQ’d for her liking) . He can tell you which mike something was recorded with and likely which headphones someone mixed with
ANC is pretty good at deeper lower freq stuff but is a little light at the higher freq end – so not totally isolating. There are two transparency modes which means you can reduce the loudest sounds while still hearing around you or you can set the buds to vocal mode which attenuates most other sounds. It is a little weird and yes the top end models are a bit better at it. There is also an ambient mode which will react automatically on most sounds or you can set the ANC to high and remove most sounds pretty well. I have it set to vocal in most places.
[As an aside back in the early 90’s my Masters dissertation was on Active Noise Control. I could simulate 1 channel for 4 seconds using 200k equipment that was as big as a filing cabinet. Now we have multichannel ANC in earbuds that last hours! I was interviewed by Sony Research Labs in Japan for the ANC stuff.]
I’ve not had any issues with battery life and the case is pretty small and gives extra charges.
Comfort – probably the most difficult to deal with as we all have different ears. The HearID test helps you choose the correct tip size for each ear as it tells you if they seal or not. Very useful – I thought I needed larger tips than I actually did. I have had SoundMagic E10s, Sennhieser CX300, FiiO FH1, Moondrop Chu and various other earbuds over the years and once the tips are correct and you twist them properly into place the A40’s are pretty comfortable. They stay in my ears when walking out and about, cooking etc. I’m not a gym rat so no idea if they would stay in on a treadmill. They are splashproof rather than waterproof so no swimming.
Overall – absolutely worth the money. I’m not certain that I would gain so much extra with spending 250 on the big boys – though now I have a handle on what these can do and a deep pocketful of cash I might 😀
After reading the reviews I decided to buy the A40 as I needed something more portable and easier to use.
Overall…
1. The packaging is good and everything was present and in place. First impressions positive.
2. The earbuds connected with no issues, they power on as soon the case is open
3. Soundcore app prompt me to update the firmware prior of proceeding, again positive experience
4. The app is good and all settings are clear and easy to use
5. Sound quality is good – surpised to see LDAC support
6. Noise reduction is astonishing for earbuds!
7. Buttons are customisable but… Double tap issue, not always responsive, maybe it takes time to figure how to double tap.
8. Microphone is good and recorded voice sounds clear – better than expected.
9. HearID makes a noticeable diffeerence on sound quality
I can recommend them for daily use and seems they can be used for calls/ teams meetings.
Sound quality and noise blocking without any enhancements is exceptional at only 50-55% volume so no issues there – full marks!
They’re the perfect amount of tiny to not be a bother when in the ears, even to the point of actually forgetting they’re in at times.
The app and amount of control and settings you have to tinker with are second to none (barring the low battery alerts – more on that later):
+ HearID to tune the buds to your own ear profile and/or one of the many pre-set equaliser settings (or your own of course).
+ The ability to customise the various button presses to your own preference (or turn them off altogether).
+ Setting the ANC and transparency.
– Why do headsets like the Q30s have a setting for playing relaxing/sleep sounds when they’re too bulky to sleep in, yet these have no such option when they’re perfect for it (barring the low battery nagging – soon).
Dual Pairing ends up being more of a hindrance than a help depending on how you’ve got everything set up – taking them out of the case to change a setting on the app caused my PC to have a seizure because the A40s were immediately trying to take over from my in-use Q30s because there was sound there and not on my phone, making the audio jump back and forth and glitch out – I’m not sure if Dual Pairing impacts the battery at all yet as that’s on my ‘things to test’ list; but while we’re here – why is my device list history populated with five ‘king bory 8868’ entries?!
Speaking of the battery life – the claims are that they have (up to) a 10h battery life, that’s without anything hip and happening turned on, but I only got 8h on Normal at 55% volume before the low battery harassment begins – how can you have a device with so many options and settings but no low battery warning toggle?
Unfortunately, I have to call the maximum life at the first sign of harassment on any earbuds/headset as you’re spending the rest of your battery life anticipating the next warning rather than enjoying what you’re wanting to listen to, which is a shame as there was another potential hour of use there…
Despite the annoying warnings, I persevered, and the initial test showed that the first low battery warning kicked in at 7h52m, followed by another 5 at 10m intervals giving a potential 8h50m runtime (which is when the left bud expired) – no small feat by any means, but it’s 10% off the claimed time; then take another 10% off for the low battery botherment and you’re getting less than 80% of what’s advertised, I dread to think how much worse it’d be with some bells and/or whistles enabled…
I’ll do some more tests but I may have to return them if the best I’m getting is 80% before the woman pipes up for the first of many warnings – I mean, I could get two pairs of A3is for a combined ~14h+ (sans warnings) and still have change for what I paid for these.
Edit: More tests…
Game Mode just makes everything sound like it’s being played down a telephone, and Dual Pairing on or off appears to make no difference to the battery life so it’s a redundant option.
Battery life with ANC on and volume at 35% gave the battery warning at 6h45m and every 10m thereafter until the left bud died at 7h45m (thankfully before the last warning came through).
In short, for the extra hour these offer over A3is, Game Mode sounding so poor there’s no benefit to it, and Dual Pairing that’s never sure which device it wants to connect to, these aren’t worth the extra ~40 more than the their cheaper counterparts – they’re going to have to be returned.
Edit 2: I’ve returned these and bough the A3i buds… I’ve left a base review for those and, simply put, even for the price, they’re worse for battery use.