Soundcore Sleep A30 review: I have insomnia and these are the only sleep earbuds I'll be using from now on

I’m seriously crap at sleeping. Always have been, probably always will be. I’ve suffered with bouts of insomnia during difficult periods of mental health. And even during periods when I’m finding sleep easy, I’ve long had to use earplugs to block out external noise and prevent me from being woken up by the slightest of sounds.

The thing is, I also like drifting off to podcasts, which is tricky with earplugs. Taking earplugs everywhere is a pain in the butt, too, and the only ones able to block out serious noise are the foam disposables, which are wasteful. “What about using normal wireless earbuds,” you ask? Anyone that’s ever tried to sleep in those can tell you how uncomfortable and impractical it is.

Soundcore knows all of this, which is why its Sleep line exists — buds designed to block out noise, play audio and be comfortable enough to wear all night long. I’ve been using the Soundcore Sleep A20 buds (predecessor of the A30s) for over a year, and they’re fine… but not perfect.

The Soundcore Sleep A30 buds address all the major problems I had with the A20… in theory. They introduce ANC to the line, address snoring concerns and solve (as far as they need to) the A20’s sound quality issues, too. So are they the best earbuds for sleeping? Nearly.

Find out more in my full Soundcore Sleep A30 review.

Soundcore Sleep A30 review: Specs

Soundcore Sleep A30 review: Price & availability

• $229, so $80 more expensive than predecessor
• Extra cost in large part justifiable

As I always say: ANC don’t come for free. Alright, I’ve never actually said that before, but I’m going to start because it rhymes, and on multiple levels it’s true. One of those levels is price. At $229 / £199 the A30s have received a significant bump in price over the A20s, which cost $149 / £119.

To be fair, the A30s feature vastly improved noise cancelling, sound quality and sleep features. Is $80 extra really a huge cost for ensuring a better night’s sleep? If your answer to that is “no” then fret not: Soundcore as a brand regularly offers hefty discounts around trading events, so you can definitely save some money over MSRP if you time it right.

Soundcore Sleep A30 review: Design & comfort

• Extra width for ANC can cause some discomfort
• But still very comfortable buds for side sleepers
• IPX4 waterproofing

The Sleep A30s’ build quality is typical Soundcore (good), and they now have IPX4, making them suitable for workouts. They come in two tranquil colors to hint at their purpose — white (more of a beige) and light green. The case has had a moderate redesign since the A20 and now looks less like a pebble, more like some kind of therapeutic hockey puck. But as you’d expect from anything aimed at encouraging inner peace, the A30s are about as statement-making as a bashful nun.

The Sleep A30s share much in common with the A20s. The core design principles have remained the same: super thin buds with heaps of silicone padding to make them: a) viable for side sleeping; and b) generally comfortable enough to avoid troubling anyone’s sleep — side sleepers, back sleepers and heathens front sleepers alike. You may get away with wearing your Apple AirPods 4 on your back or front, but shift to your side and you’re in for a world of pain.

Each earbud uses a wrap-around silicone thingy, just like the A20s. This has a pad that cushions the inside of the earbud where it meets your ear’s concha, plus a wing that extends backwards to buffer your antihelix. The inner earbud tips are doubled up, for increased in-ear comfort. The result is a supremely comfy set of buds that should keep your ears padded and pain-free regardless of sleeping position.

“Should.”

See, there have been some changes. Unlike their predecessor, the A30s have ANC. And, as I always say, ANC don’t come for free. There was always going to be some sacrifice to the buds’ dimensions. Soundcore has inevitably had to make the surface of the buds wider to accommodate the larger chip. They’re still just as flat and don’t protrude any further out the ear, but I can definitely feel the extra plastic digging into my antihelix and helix when lying at certain angles, forcing me to readjust — something the ANC-less A20s never did.

Is it worth it for the ANC? I suppose it depends on your needs. If you’re going to be kept awake by discomfort, what good is ANC? On the other hand, the A30s block out sound to a much greater degree than the A20s, making them much more versatile. And I’ve still been able to sleep in them at most angles, including on my side.

Soundcore supplies several sets of differently-sized pads and tips, so you can theoretically increase the cushioning with a larger pad to help. In reality, though, a pad that’s too big means the buds simply fall out.

Soundcore Sleep A30 review: Controls, connectivity & app

• Touch controls a little fiddly
• Lots of customization in Soundcore app

The Sleep A30s use touch controls, which aren’t especially noteworthy. Two taps for this, three for that, you know the show. They’re not the most responsive, especially when compared to my EarFun Air Pro 4 daily drivers, and repeat inputs are a regular necessity.

Touch commands can be customized in the Soundcore app, which is solid, providing plenty of control over the earbuds and enabling sleep features otherwise unavailable. Taps are also how you flick between Local mode (for playing locally-stored snore masking ambient sounds) and Bluetooth mode (for audio playback and white noise).

Soundcore Sleep A30 review: ANC & PNC

• Decent-enough ANC
• Double-sealed tips for strong PNC

One of the major updates to the A30s over their predecessors is the inclusion of ANC. Honestly, it was really needed. The A20s were fine in quiet environments but flummoxed by moderately loud snoring, noisy neighbours and even my wife whispering next to me.

ANC remedies this. Admittedly, it isn’t the strongest earbud ANC in the game — we’re not talking Apple AirPods Pro 3 or Bose QuietComfort Ultra Gen 2 territory here. And I’d probably rather put on my over-ear Soundcore Space One Pros or the EarFun Air Pro 4+ buds on a plane or train.

Alongside audio playback though, and especially in quieter environments like a home/bedroom, it blocks out snoring, outside traffic noise, music, pretty much everything. At one point during testing my neighbors’ kid had a birthday party, after which his friends decided to play basketball right next to my window. At 6am. No problem for the A30s.

The same PNC system is still there, and still extremely effective thanks to the double silicone sealing at the eartips. This and the ANC naturally complement one another’s efficacy. Soundcore also includes foam tips in the box, which block more noise than the default silicone ones, but I found these too firm and uncomfortable to sleep in.

Soundcore Sleep A30 review: Sleep features

• ANC extremely helpful for sleep
• Dynamic Snore Masking works well
• AI features a gimmick

Despite the aforementioned issues I’ve had with sleep detection and slight discomfort at certain angles, the A30s are utterly fantastic sleep earbuds and a massive step up over the A20s.

A lot of this comes down to the inclusion of ANC, as I touched on above. I’ve been testing the A30s for a couple of months now and haven’t once been woken once by my wife snoring when using either the ANC or ambient snore masking noise modes. In fact, she’s even had trouble waking me up when it's my turn to let one of the dogs out for a 2am pee.

I’ve referred to ambient noise a few times already, but that needs a little more explanation. It’s actually called “Dynamic Snore Masking”, and it works. The A30s don’t just play rain sounds, à la the A20s — no, the earbuds listen out for snoring and adjust the volume of ambient noise tracks to mask it. Even with ANC off, this has been enough to stop me being woken by my wife’s snores. Indeed, I know I've been getting good sleep, because the Soundcore app has allowed me to track my individual sleeps on the app.

Snore masking doesn’t work over Bluetooth, so the sounds are stored locally on the buds themselves. There are several to choose from (rain sounds, a babbling brook, a plane engine hum, etc) but you can only store one at any given time.

Bluetooth audio

You can also switch to Bluetooth and play white noise from a bank of tracks. These are actual white noise, meaning they’re pretty heavy on fuzziness and distortion versus the snore masking stuff — this becomes an issue with tracks that are supposed to sound delicate, like the rain sounds white noise track, which sounds low-quality and scratchy.

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Naturally, you can also simply play audio via Bluetooth from whatever playback app you like. And there’s now also a supposedly AI-generated “Brainwave Audio” mode for sleeping, meditation or focusing/productivity. You choose a base song, then select elements for the “AI” to build into it — think singing bowls, bubble sounds, and guqins.

Unfortunately, whatever “AI” it’s using must’ve spent its teenage years huffing spirits, ‘cos boy is it stupid. The feature merely consists of whatever sound you select being inserted into the backing track every few bars. Goofy, but fun to play around with for a few minutes I guess.

Like the A20s, the A30s tend to get dislodged in the early hours. This may be unique to me and how much I move around, but the happy side effect is that I haven’t missed an alarm yet. Thankfully, there’s an in-earbud alarm anyway to remove any risk of missed meetings or flights, plus a device location beeper to track down lost buds.

Automatic sleep detection

As I’ve always said, ANC don’t come for free, and battery life has accordingly taken a bit of a hit. To eke out as much life as possible, the A30s feature automatic sleep detection that turns off Bluetooth audio once they realize you’re away with the fairies. By default, they’ll disable ANC and switch to locally stored ambient sleep masking sounds, but you can tell them to stop all audio and leave ANC on, or do nothing and keep playing via Bluetooth until they die.

Most of the time, I’m happy to continue with the sleep masking sounds or simply ANC on its own. Sometimes, though, I do want the “do nothing” mode, and unfortunately, it’s a bit temperamental. I regularly wake up after an hour or so and the buds are playing ambient sounds or in ANC-only mode despite me telling them to do nothing once I drop off. This wakes me up more as I have to switch back over and grab my phone to restart an audiobook.

It could be a firmware bug and isolated to my unit. The thing is, it doesn’t happen every time, so I suspect it’s actually the larger touchpad causing commands to trigger while I’m sleeping on my side — A.K.A a design flaw. I’m in touch with Soundcore to get to the bottom of this.

Soundcore Sleep A30 review: Sound quality

• Vastly improved audio over predecessors
• Bass performance surprisingly good
• Not for detailed listening

Audio quality is a big step up over the A20s. Soundcore has gone from not even bothering to mention the drivers in the A20s (and even posting an FAQ on its product page troubleshooting — read: “low-key admitting to” — the terrible audio) to now boasting about the A30s’ 4.6mm drivers. Ooh!

Audio on the A20s was tinny and deeply affected by environmental sound when using them outdoors. This has been remedied with the A30, helped massively by the ANC of course.

Bass response in particular has been given plenty of attention, and there’s an impressive amount of extension into low frequencies. The massive, elongated bass notes in Ikigai by Burn Water sounded surprisingly clean — perfectly relayed even down to the sub bass, with plenty of warmth and no distortion.

Likewise, the staccato tubular lows and thumping kick drum of i couldn’t hold back by Logic1000 & George Riley sounded fantastic, punctuated by the bright, slightly wavy synth chords up top. Vocals, treble and detail all felt a little subdued, though, which appears to be symptomatic across genres.

Isaac Gibson’s vocals, usually the most impactful element of 49 Winchester’s Russell County Line, felt disappointingly muted. And the song in general, typically so delicate and spacious, this time felt rather claustrophobic — the ethereal, celestial piano lick during the first verse, for instance, found itself buried under acoustic guitar.

They aren’t awful, though. I had a good time with the A30s. I found myself tapping away to Glyders’ Geneva Strangehold, its pressing baseline and scratchy, minimalist strat riff feeling mostly as it should and sounding pretty good.

The A30 acoustic profile is all about bass rather than detailed listening, and there's no custom EQ in the Soundcore app. But it’s important to remember that these are sleep earbuds. Their primary purpose is to listen to podcasts, audiobooks, white noise and snore masking ambient tracks. Decent sound is a welcome bonus, but a bonus all the same.

Importantly, thanks to the acceptable audio and waterproofing, the A30s are suitable for use as all-round earbuds in ways the A20s simply weren’t. Perhaps not as everyday buds, but certainly when on a trip or vacation. Previously, I would take the A20s and my EarFun Air Pro 4s away with me on trips — one for sleep, one for waking travel, daytime and music. These days, I’ll happily just take the A30s.

• Listen along to this Soundcore Sleep A30 review with my testing playlist on Qobuz:

Soundcore Sleep A30 review: Call quality

• Microphone isn’t tinny
• Feasible for daily use

I was quite surprised at the Sleep A30 call quality. As you can hear in the clip below, my voice comes through cleanly with the low frequencies of my voice captured nicely, meaning I don’t sound tinny.

Some wind and background noise has made it through but nothing serious, and my wife had no issues with understanding me when on a test call. I’d be happy using these buds for phone calls on a regular basis. It’s another example of Soundcore having made these buds applicable for everyday use.

Soundcore Sleep A30 review: Battery life

• Won’t last a night with audio playing
• Up to 45 hours for five nights of use
• Charge to 80% in 30 minutes

The inclusion of ANC has naturally impacted the battery life a fair bit. The A20s could last 10 hours or so playing local ambient sounds, but they’d also manage a full night with Bluetooth at low volume and still have plenty to spare.,

The A30s are only rated for eight hours with ANC on, with the major caveat that only one of those hours is with Bluetooth on and at medium volume — this rating is assuming you’re using the sleep detection mode (that I lambasted a little earlier on) which disables audio after an hour or so and leaves only the ANC running. In most cases, this feature works well.

If you want ANC on and play audio via Bluetooth at low volumes, you can expect around six hours max. I started my battery test at 10.30 pm with a long audiobook playing. I woke up a few times during the night and checked on them. After three hours they’d lost over 40% of charge, and at 05.00-ish they were dead. In fairness, by 05.00, I don’t usually need the buds anymore.

With the case, Soundcore promises up to 45 hours of charge, which tallies up to my experience — a couple of charges usually knocks the case battery indicator down by a third. That equates to four or five nights of use and enough for short trips away from power sockets.

The A30s also feature rapid charging. After only a few minutes back in their case I’d reclaimed 10%, and after around half an hour they were back up at 80%.

Soundcore Sleep A30 review: Verdict

Soundcore had to do something with the A20s. They were alright, but simply not good enough at their core job to justify the price outright. ANC is undeniably the most important addition to the A30s and works extremely well, helping to reduce sounds the A20s couldn’t possibly hope to mask. ANC has naturally affected size, so the A30s can dig occasionally in ways the A20s didn’t. But overall, with their highly padded design, the new buds are still phenomenally comfortable and the best option out there for side sleepers.

Then there’s the audio, where the A20s were laughably weak. While far from the epitome of fidelity, the A30s are suitable for everyday use, with strong bass performance and a pleasing-enough general sound. In conjunction with the passable microphone performance and IPX4 waterproofing, it’s clear that Soundcore has focused on making the A30s less of a one-trick pony than their predecessor — you can feasibly take only these buds on vacation and come back with no complaints.

Finally, there’s the price. It’s a steep increase over the last model, for sure. But one I think is reasonably well justified — if you need earbuds to cure your troubled sleep, these are the best option by a country mile. And after all, ANC don’t come for free.