I had high hopes for the Anker Soundcore Space 2 Pro, but they left me disappointed

The Anker Soundcore Space 2 was an almost perfect pair of headphones. For only $130, they have strong noise canceling, a full workweek of battery life, and a feature list I’d expect at twice the price. But they had a few quirks with the sound quality that held them back from being great. Not as bad as the Soundcore Space One Pro, mind you, but still enough to notice. The new Soundcore Space 2 Pro brings Anker’s new Thus AI chip to improve mic and ANC performance, along with a few new features. But I’m here to tell you what you really want to know: do they sound any better, and are they worth the extra $70?

What’s it like to use the Anker Soundcore Space 2 Pro?

The Space 2 Pro is as comfortable and feature-packed as any Soundcore headphone, even if it’s the most anonymous-looking one yet.

Design

My first impression of putting on the Space 2 Pro lines up with what most Soundcore headphones do best: they are extremely comfortable. They have large earcups with ample plush padding that make it easy to get a good seal. The headband also has a generous amount of padding to help distribute weight, although they are not overly heavy at 262g. I can wear The Space 2 Pro for hours without issue and could easily see myself sleeping in them on a long-haul flight.

The Space 2 Pro is foldable, but unlike the Space One Pro, it folds in only one direction. I did find this made them a little less flimsy to handle, but also less flexible to quickly make compact and stow away. You also still only get a cloth pouch to stash them in, though Anker sells hardshell carrying cases at extra cost. Speaking of protection, the Space 2 Pro lacks an IP rating, meaning it isn’t water- or dust-resistant, and as such, I wouldn’t recommend them for the gym.

As part of Anker’s initiative to move away from the Soundcore branding and consolidate all its products under a single label, the Space 2 Pro does not have the signature Soundcore logo adorning the earcups. Instead, they are left blank, with minimal reflective naming along the outer rim. As for colors, the Space 2 Pro comes in only Black, White, and Grey, and none of the more vibrant options like the Space 2’s Seafoam Green. Overall, this makes for a rather boring-looking pair of headphones than I would expect from Soundcore, with no real design elements that stand out.

Controlling the headphones is fairly straightforward. You get four physical buttons: volume controls, pause/play, a noise canceling toggle, and a Bluetooth/power button. They are all fairly easy to find and use while wearing the headphones. One new feature is wear detection, which you will have to enable within the app. After a quick initialization, the headphones will automatically pause playback when you remove them from your head and resume when you put them back on. It’s a fairly convenient feature I like to have with headphones, and I’m glad Anker finally implemented it, as it is increasingly common among competitors.

Features

The Soundcore app is worth downloading for its variety of features. You can toggle ambient modes, selecting up to levels of noise canceling strength, as well as a wind noise reduction setting. You can also set a safe volume dB limit to protect your hearing and enable smart voice control if you would like to control your headphones via voice commands rather than the physical buttons – just know that this will significantly increase battery consumption.

Soundcore’s HearID – the hearing test that creates a custom EQ – gets the biggest makeover in the app. You can select a music genre and listen to a series of tones, choosing which sounds better or whether there’s no difference at all, and the app will produce a nice geometric representation and a curve of your custom tuning profile. I went through the test listening to Rock music, and found that making the upper mids and treble louder was much more enjoyable for that genre.

The rest of the EQ presets are now somewhat confusingly labeled as Sound Effects, but Soundcore has reduced the overwhelming 23 options to just 5. You can see how those measure in the sound quality section below, and there’s also the option to create your own custom profile using the 8-band equalizer.

How does the Anker Soundcore Space 2 Pro connect?

The Soundcore Space 2 Pro uses Bluetooth 6.1 with support for SBC, AAC, and LDAC, the last of which lets compatible Android devices stream higher-resolution wireless audio. Multipoint is supported, so the headphones can connect to two devices at once.

There’s no support for USB Audio, but there is a 3.5mm headphone jack and an included cable for wired listening. It’s worth noting that while you can still use ANC and Transparency Mode with a wired connection, the other physical buttons are inactive. You’ll need to control your playback volume via your source device.

How long does the Anker Soundcore Space 2 Pro’s battery last?

Anker claims 60 hours without ANC, 30 hours with ANC on, 25 hours with LDAC and ANC together, and 20 hours of talk time. Five minutes of charging is meant to give eight hours of playback. TKTK — confirm.

While that is quite a lot of battery, it’s less than the cheaper Space 2, which is rated for 50 and lasted 53 hours and 21 minutes in our testing with ANC on. So, you’re paying $70 more for TKTK fewer hours. TKTK — translate the result into work days between charges.

How well do the Anker Soundcore Space 2 Pro cancel noise?

With noise canceling on, the Space 2 Pro reduces the perceived loudness of outside noise by an average of over 88%, which is not only a step above the Space 2’s 84% average but also right up there with more expensive flagship headphones such as the Sony WH-1000XM6. The ear cups alone handle 72% of that with ANC off, so the strong seal from passive isolation is doing a lot of the work.

Wearing the Space 2 Pro in our office, I couldn’t hear the Sonos Beam Ultra soundbar at all, which my colleague Dave was testing on the TV across the room. Commuting home on the bus, the headphones quieted most of the hustle and bustle while listening to music, with only the back-up beeper of a large truck breaking through.

How good is the Anker Soundcore Space 2 Pro Transparency mode?

The Space 2 Pro’s transparency mode is just okay. It lets environmental sound through, but like Space 2, there’s an audible hiss when no music is playing. It’s easier to ignore when music is playing, but it’s noticeable when not, giving the sounds of the outside world an artificial quality.

How do the Anker Soundcore Space 2 Pro sound?

Can you use the Anker Soundcore Space 2 Pro for phone calls?

This is really the headline feature. Anker built the Space 2 Pro around its own chip, called Thus, and eight microphones, six of which handle your voice on calls. The company is marketing these as the world’s clearest over-ear headphones for calls, a Guinness World Records title it’s currently pursuing, as it did with the previous Liberty Pro 5 and Pro 5 Max earbuds.

Rather than leave it up to ol’ Guinness or even take my word for it, we’re handing that conclusion to you and your ears, dear reader, as you can hear for yourself how the microphones fare in our standardized recordings below, which include a variety of simulated conditions.

Anker Soundcore Space 2 Pro microphone demo (Ideal conditions):

Should you buy the Anker Soundcore Space 2 Pro?

Whether the Space 2 Pro is worth it comes down to what you want to use them for. If you spend your day on calls, the microphones are the best thing about these headphones, with excellent noise rejection. The noise canceling is also a real improvement, among the best we’ve measured from more expensive headphones.

But to the arguably more important question I asked in the intro, no, they don’t sound better. The tuning is overly dark and bass-heavy, and most people won’t enjoy how they sound out of the box. You can make the headphones sound somewhat better with the custom equalizer, but the fixed bands don’t line up to address the major issues.

As such, most people are probably better off buying the more affordable Soundcore Space 2 for . They have their own tuning quirks, but they are easier to work with using the equalizer and have good enough ANC and mic quality for everyday use. They also have longer battery life than the Space 2 Pro.

Another alternative I would recommend is the Sony WH-CH730N, which costs and claims 50 hours of battery life with ANC on, though its noise canceling is noticeably weaker, at an average reduction of 79%. The Nothing Headphone (a) is another option at the same price of , with more room to customize the sound.