Soundpeats H3 Wireless Earbuds Review

About the Soundpeats Hi-Fi H3 Earbuds

• Price: $149.99
• Battery life: Up to 7 hours per charge, 38 hours with case (400mAh case)
• Fast charging: Yes, 2 hours from a 10-minute charge, type-C charging
• Colors: Black/gold
• Ambient sound modes: AI-Powered ANC with four modes (Adaptive, Indoor, Outdoor, Traffic)
• Speakers: 2 armature drivers with 12mm dynamic driver
• Microphones: 6 built-in microphones with noise reduction
• Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.4
• Dust/water resistance: IPX5
• Weight: 6g per earbud, 53g with case and both earbuds
• Special features: SBC, AAC, LDAC (enabled by app), aptX, aptX Adaptive, aptX Lossless

Note that while LDAC is supported, it must be activated in the app, and turning it on or off requires restarting the earbuds. When using LDAC, Game Mode, dual device connectivity, dynamic EQ, and movie mode all become unavailable.

What we like

They are fast charging and have a great design

I love the H3’s design. While most earbuds copy Apple’s minimalist, austere design approach, the H3s loudly proclaim that they are awesome and that you should take notice. The case even features a small tagline—“hear the difference”—right on the front in scripted font. While I don’t think all products should put their marketing taglines front and center, it’s clear Soundpeats is proud of its products and not afraid to be bold.

The package is otherwise not unlike other top-end earbuds. You get 37 hours of charging in total with the case and earbuds combined, including 7 hours per earbud—both numbers that held up in our testing. As someone who almost always wears only one earbud at a time so I can hear the dog, delivery drivers, or my kids, I can just swap earbuds for days on end before I have to think about recharging.

And when it does come time to charge? You can top up the whole case in just two hours, with a 10-minute fast charge providing 2 hours of juice. While I have approximately 700 charging cables at my house, I somehow always forget to charge my headphones, so this was ideal when I had inadvertently drained them to nothing and wanted to head out for a quick run.

The sound quality is next level

Even in the $100ish range, most true wireless earbuds are geared towards convenience rather than sound quality. The H3s are different, with a true flagship experience including support for a wide range of codecs, LDAC, noise cancellation, custom EQ settings, and a rich, bass-forward soundstage that works for just about every kind of music or audio you’ll use them for.

For music, I was particularly impressed by how rich the bass was with these earbuds. Even the default EQ presets do justice to classic hip-hop, R&B, electronic, and other music genres that rely on it. And if you don’t love how they sound out of the box, you can tweak the EQ settings to lock in more of what you want.

Some of my favorite recordings on these earbuds were live ones, especially when you use both earbuds and the volume is up. “Folsom Prison Blues” by Johnny Cash has exceptional separation, and the bass guitar and timbre of Cash’s voice really work with how bass-heavy these earbuds are.

The noise canceling and call quality are superb

Like other “flagship” earbuds, the H3s offer active noise cancellation in several modes—adaptive, indoor, outdoor, and traffic—but you can turn it off if you want. There’s also a transparency mode, which lets you hear more of what’s going on around you when you want.

A lot of the noise cancellation is aided by the fact that the earbuds fit very snugly in your ear—more on that later—and block a lot of ambient noise on their own. The ANC won’t blank out all sound around you even when at full blast—you’ll need to play music to get that effect—but it helps dramatically dull everything going on around you so that you can focus on whatever you’re listening to.

The fit is snug and secure

The H3s fit a lot of tech into each earbud, and that does take up some space. They also skip the bud-and-stem design used by many other true wireless earbuds, which means more of the weight is directly on the earbuds.

This can sometimes mean a heavy bud that wants to wriggle free from your ear. The H3s stayed remarkably snug in my ear, though, even when being used while running and warming up for a soccer match. However, it is a design that may not work for everyone, especially if earbuds tend to fall out of your ears easily.

What we don’t like

The earbuds stick out just a bit, which can be uncomfortable at times

While the H3s are snug, they protrude a bit more than the stems on other earbuds. It doesn’t look bad—some earbuds look like Frankenstein’s monster’s neck bolts sticking out of your head—but it does protrude a bit.

Overall, it’s a small thing—my daughter didn’t even know I was wearing them during testing—but if you don’t like this design, you may not be converted by the H3s.

The app needs a bit more work

Using the Android version of the Soundpeats app, I was able to change some settings on the headphones, but many (such as EQ presets) didn’t seem to have much effect at first. Over a couple of days of usage, the sound profile did seem to change, but I’m not sure if that’s just the headphones breaking in or the app’s changes finally locking in.

Some settings were immediately obvious, others were more subtle, and it was difficult to tell if anything had changed. It would be great to get a little more signal that things are working. And while the fit testing and adaptive EQ profile functions are neat, it is difficult to hear the difference over the default profile.

The single earbud experience is notably worse

The H3s are at their best when you’re using both earbuds and able to appreciate the work being done by both sides simultaneously. The earbuds do a good job of crafting a soundstage that feels centered right around you, but with only one earbud in, you don’t get the full effect, and it can feel unbalanced.

While they will operate just fine, the sound really feels muddled and compressed with just one earbud in. I found “Bulls on Parade” by Rage Against The Machine so odd when it came on with just one earbud in—like the vocals were miles away—but it comes alive when you pop the second one in.

I regularly use cheaper earbuds that don’t feel as jarring, mostly because they sound mediocre. The H3s don’t ever sound poor, but the quality drop-off when going from two buds to one was notable.

Should you buy the Soundpeats H3?

Yes, these mid-range earbuds offer excellent value

The answer is a resounding yes. The Soundpeats H3 (available at Amazon) are an excellent addition to the “mid-range price, flagship performance” part of the market, where you can tell every effort was put into maximizing sound quality and design, but the company has resisted the temptation to slap a $200-plus price tag on it.

In fact, on sale, these have already dropped into the $130 range, possibly lower, making them one of the best all-around values in that part of the market, given their high-end design, superb noise cancellation, excellent call quality, and genuinely shocking connectivity. They have all the marks of a high-end headphone, without the high-end price. And it’s not like Soundpeats is some new player in this space, having turned in excellent older headphone series like the Opera earbuds, which the H3 feels like a natural successor to.

It once again puts Soundpeats in an enviable position: the H3 have way more features than the base-level Apple AirPods but cost far less than other flagship-level noise-cancelling earbuds from Sony, Bose, and Apple.

Is the design a tiny bit gaudy? Sure, especially compared to the sea of monochrome pillboxes that make up the rest of the wireless earbud market these days, but headphones are supposed to be fun! We don’t need our headphones to be all-business, all the time. Let down your hair, live a little, and consider the H3 if you’re in the market for a pair of earbuds that can go with you and handle anything you need.