Soundpeats Air6 HS Review

Design

• AirPods-style look
• Larger and cheaper-feeling case
• Solid water resistance for workouts

Design-wise, Soundpeats has opted for an AirPods-adjacent look for the Air6 HS, with the buds featuring a similar kind of fit where they rest in your ears, rather than a classic twist-and-push. Compared to older editions of the Air HS earbuds, it constitutes a slight redesign, with a grippier in-ear feel to make for a more secure fit. The fit is secure enough by default, but other buds may provide a tighter seal.

These buds are available in a range of colours, with black, white, beige, blue and pink on offer. My sample shipped in the former. It’s a pretty generic look and means these Soundpeats buds are quite unassuming to passers-by.

The case is surprisingly large for such a small set of buds, constituting the brand’s typical oval shape. The plastics used in its construction admittedly feel a little cheap against the grippier and power-coated finish of the likes of the Final ZE300, but it serves a purpose nonetheless.

Frills come in the form of a USB-C port for charging and a status LED on the front, plus a metallic panel on the rear with a Soundpeats logo. Opening the case reveals a smooth hinge and a secure fit with its magnets to stop you from accidentally losing the Air6 HS buds themselves.

These Soundpeats buds carry an IPX5 rating for water resistance, protecting them from splashes of water and sweat, meaning you can use them for workouts if you wish.

Features

• No ANC is a shame
• LDAC support is pleasant
• Easy Bluetooth connectivity

Unlike some other earbuds at this more affordable end of the price spectrum, the Air6 HS lack any form of active noise cancellation, which is a bit of a shame, as some cheaper buds offer some surprisingly effective ANC.

That said, the passive noise isolation by default is fine, although it’s no substitute for proper noise cancellation in any guise. It dulls down voices and mid-range noise a tad, but that’s about it.

As for connectivity, these buds up the ante to Bluetooth 6.0 connectivity from the older Bluetooth 5.3 standard found on other headphones.

As with other iterations of the Bluetooth ‘standard’, the latest 6.0 variant adds niceties such as lower latency, longer range, and potentially better sound quality thanks to the new LC3+ codec where supported. It is only in its infancy, as there’s also only a handful of phones and devices that support it, too – my Honor Magic V3 isn’t one of them.

In addition, these buds can connect to up to two devices at once thanks to multipoint connectivity.  With supported Android devices, the Air6 HS supports Google Fast Pair, which makes pairing over Bluetooth a little bit easier, with the buds recognised as soon as they’re taken out of their case.

Codec support is well-rounded, with the more basic AAC and SBC supported, and there is room for LDAC, unlocking the potential for high-res listening with streaming services such as Tidal or Qobuz.

Soundpeats provides a companion app for these buds, which requires signing in with your email and allows you to do everything from toggling features such as the aforementioned LDAC support, spatial audio and multipoint Bluetooth. It also allows you to check on battery life, fiddle with EQ settings and sort any firmware updates that need doing.

Without ANC as a potential battery drain, it means the Air6 HS has strong endurance. The brand rates these buds to last for up to nine hours on a charge, with up to 45 hours when using the charging case. What’s more, a ten-minute quick charge provides up to three hours of runtime when you’re caught in a pinch.

Sound Quality

• Bass lacks some texture and detail
• Mids can sound a little flat
• Sharp and clean top-end

A key thing to note is that depending on how far you push the Air6 HS into your ears affects the overall sound. Doing so reveals a fuller sound with more bass, rather than leading to some of the music feeling a little far off, if that makes any sense.

Despite a seal that isn’t as tight as other styles of earbuds, I was pleasantly surprised with the strength of the low end afforded by these Soundpeats buds out of the box. It has decent extension when spinning up Marillion’s The Invisible Man or Rush’s YYZ, although I did find it to lack some discernible detail and texture compared to other earbuds I’ve tested. It’s more of a thump in places.

The mid-range for vocal and guitar elements in the likes of James Taylor’s October Road and Jack Johnson’s The Horizon Has Been Defeated is decently clear and full-bodied, and there is good detail retrieval for the inflexions of acoustic guitar and the threadbare arrangement of both tracks. I don’t think the Air6 HS are the last word in overall warmth when it comes to vocals – the two strong male lines in these tracks feel a little cold and dry at times.

That said, the treble in Steely Dan’s Do It Again is bright and offers decent sharpness and bite in the competing percussion intro. It’s clean and lacks sibilance.

A live cut of George Benson’s Affirmation demonstrated a decently wide soundstage with pleasant breathing room for the inflexions of percussion, electric guitar and the song’s distant handclaps in the intro. The slightly more open nature of the way these Soundpeats buds fit lends itself to this presentation, in my book.

Should you buy it?