Soundcore House One: Specs
Worth: $99 / £89 / AU$169
Colours: Jet black, latte cream; sky blue
Battery life (rated): 40 hours (ANC on); 55 hours (ANC off)
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.3 (codec assist: SBC, AAC, LDAC)
Measurement: 6.38 x 3.62 x 7.32 inches
Weight: 9.1 ounces
The Soundcore House One are the newest headphones in Anker’s revamped House lineup. They boast quite a lot of premium options, together with adaptive energetic noise cancellation, Bluetooth 5.3 with LDAC codec assist, customizable sound, multipoint expertise, and among the strongest fast charging on the market. Prolonged playtimes, personalised listening modes, and secure quantity settings additionally assist to make them a attainable finest worth contender for the perfect headphones at their $99 value.
Setbacks in name high quality and controls convey them down a couple of pegs although. Nevertheless, their general efficiency needs to be lauded, as they surpass a number of sub-$100 rivals in key areas and stand out as among the finest low-cost wi-fi headphones you should buy proper now. Maintain scrolling to learn my full Soundcore House One headphone evaluation.
Soundcore House One evaluation: Versatile audio and ANC
These anticipating monstrous bass from the House One may be somewhat disenchanted. It’s nonetheless deep, however Anker tweaked their sound profile to steadiness mids and highs, however listening with ANC on upticks the low finish.
The Signature EQ is the default and has extra well-rounded sound than Anker’s different 20+ EQs within the Soundcore app. Every of them is fitted to totally different classes and functions, however are hit and miss, relying on the choice. Latin and Jazz served effectively for his or her respective genres, although Bass Booster muddied up tracks. You can too create your personal sound profile by manually adjusting frequencies on Anker’s 8-band EQ. The opposite choice is enabling HearID Sound, a proprietary expertise that tailors sound to your listening to based mostly on listening assessments. My outcomes emphasised the midrange, which made ballads and dialogue-centric content material (e.g., podcasts, speak reveals) extra participating.
The grinding, exhausting rock riff on Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love” was reproduced beautifully and didn’t dip all through the hear. There was some nice reverb that easily decayed after each strum. Drums sounded wealthy and sharp, whereas the wailing vocals have been crisp and invigorating. Switching to one thing extra upbeat, Bruno Mars’ “24K Magic” maintained its swaggerific bop that was introduced on by hyper-funky synths, punchy snares, and clear 808s. One of many House One’s huge promoting factors is LDAC, Sony’s hi-res audio codec for clean, clear-sounding streams at sooner bitrates than aptX. It’s as dependable on these headphones as it’s on Sony’s flagship WH-1000XM5. Music streamed rapidly on Apple, Spotify, and hi-res platforms like Tidal, and I heard extra particulars on complicated recordings.
There’s additionally a Secure Quantity setting to watch, refresh, and restrict the decibel fee in actual time, making sound output gentler in your listening to.
Complementing the House One’s dynamic sound high quality is adaptive ANC that may be personalised and utilized in other ways. There may be Adaptive Noise Cancelling for adjusting efficiency to your surrounding noise ranges or Customise Noise Cancelling for setting noise neutralization to 1 of 5 ranges. Adaptive outperformed Customise throughout the sound spectrum. Low and mid frequencies have been fully blocked out, and excessive frequencies, whereas nonetheless audible, have been diminished significantly in order to not have an effect on listening. Transparency Mode turns out to be useful for rising environmental consciousness and listening to conversations clearly. Anker tossed in a Wind Noise Discount setting, nevertheless it does nothing to attenuate wind interference.
Soundcore House One evaluation: Attractiveness however an outdated management scheme
The Life Q35 and House Q45 have been important upgrades to the cheaply constructed Q20, and the House One borrows components from their predecessors to kind an elegant, well-built exterior. Arduous metallic plastic makes up many of the headphones’ composition, with fake leather-based wrapping across the headband and earpads.
Construct high quality is sturdy, which means you possibly can toss the headphones round in your bag and never fear about hinges breaking. They supply good consolation and received’t weigh you down after a number of hours of listening. The popping colorways additionally make them much more enticing; the sky blue choice I used for testing is beautiful in individual.
If solely Anker found out a strategy to downscale these beauties. They give the impression of being monumental on anybody’s head. Different equally priced fashions just like the 1More SonoFlow, probably the most underrated noise-cancellers on the market, are extra elegant.
Extra problematic than the scale is the management scheme. I discover it odd that Anker built-in movement detection sensors to mechanically pause content material when eradicating the headphones or mute playback when talking or inserting your hand over the left earcup by way of Simple Chat function, but they use bodily buttons for primary playback management. These are awkwardly positioned on every earcup, and their low profile makes it tough to find features. Moreover, you possibly can solely customise the NC button to allow totally different listening modes.
Soundcore House One evaluation: A prolonged function set and lengthier battery life
Anker has generously introduced over signature options to their most inexpensive headphones. The House One takes benefit of a number of perks, together with the aforementioned Ambient Sound (ANC/Transparency), Simple Chat, EQ, Secure Quantity, and Wind Noise Discount. Just a few others are sprinkled all through the Soundcore app.
Controls enables you to assign the single- and double-press gestures for the NC Button. Sound Mode presents the choice to both prioritize the mix of audio and connection high quality or stream music over Bluetooth utilizing LDAC. There are additionally settings to allow auto-power, firmware updates, and put on detection, together with a battery stage indicator on the homepage.
Exterior of the app, there’s Bluetooth multipoint to pair to 2 gadgets concurrently, which operates effectively.
Including to the House One’s in depth performance is excessive battery life. A full cost generates between 40 to 55 hours, relying how you utilize the cans. These are correct playtimes. I used the headphones for five to six hours day by day over the course of every week and nonetheless have about 40% of energy left. A 5-minute fast cost can web 4 hours of use.
Soundcore House One evaluation: A poor calling headset
Previous experiences with Anker’s name high quality have been higher than the House One. Vocals have been muffled and unclear throughout indoor and outside chats. My spouse was capable of make out most of what I stated in gusty circumstances, although there have been occasions I needed to repeat sure phrases. The headphones carried out higher in quieter settings like my house, granted there have been nonetheless complaints about muffling from shoppers and mates on Zoom calls. It’s a disgrace since noise discount performs surprisingly effectively, retaining background interference to a minimal.
Soundcore House One evaluation: Verdict
Anker continues to launch nice cut price ANC headphones. The House One are their most spectacular up to now, backed by clear sound and sturdy noise neutralization that retains distractions to a minimal. Battery life ranks among the many class’s highest and can entice you to maintain the headphones on for lengthy listening classes.
It’s not stunning to get disappointing name high quality from cheap headphones. Nevertheless, there’s better frustration to precise over the button management scheme, particularly when seeing Anker engineer intuitive sensible options like speak-to-chat.
These won’t be essentially the most comfy headphones to lug round, however should you’re working with a restricted price range and need high-end efficiency at an attractive value level, the House One provides you with simply that.
