I was wrong — these budget earbuds sound way better than their $79 price

Soundpeats isn’t exactly a famous brand in the world of audio, so I was skeptical when I picked up the brand-new (as of June 2025) Air5 Pro earbuds. Considering they’re just $79, I didn’t have high hopes for the sound quality.

However, the Soundpeats Air5 Pro quickly proved me wrong, and made me wonder if they could be some of the best earbuds for the price. The soundscape is expansive, ideal for detail listeners on a budget. While the bass can get a little overbearing and the mids thin in some genres, overall, the Air5 Pro were a solid listen.

The pros don’t end there, though: these buds also have an awesome IPX5 rating, some premium features, and are very comfy to wear. I’ll go through all the specs in detail in this Soundpeats Air5 Pro review.

Soundpeats Air5 Pro review: Cheat sheet

• What is it? A pair of budget earbuds
• Who is it for? These are definitely for wannabe audiophiles on a budget, but might not impress more seasoned audio gear lovers
• What does it cost? $79 / £79
• What do we like? The sound is great for the price
• What don’t we like? The ANC is pretty poor

Soundpeats Air5 Pro review: Specs

Soundpeats Air5 Pro review: Price & availability

The Soundpeats Air5 Pro earbuds are just $79 from Amazon U.S. and £79 from Amazon U.K.. This makes them some of the cheapest (decent) earbuds available at the moment, only bested by the EarFun Air range: the EarFun Air 2 and Air 2 NC, respectively, are $49 and $69.

For earbuds with LDAC, aptX, and a Snapdragon processor, this is a very reasonable price. However, being loaded up with hi-res streaming codecs doesn’t guarantee pristine sound quality, which I’ll discuss in full in the ‘Audio quality’ section below.

Soundpeats Air5 Pro review: Design & controls

• Look just like AirPods
• Small nozzle, perfect for little ears
• Touch controls a little delayed, but not annoyingly so

As someone who didn’t realize she had small ears until some earbuds gave her cartilage ache, I was so happy to find the Air5 Pros are relatively small. The earbud nozzle (the part that sits in your ear’s concha) is nice and narrow, so it doesn’t push on my cartilage.

The earbuds come with three tip sizes: small, medium, large. Because of the smaller nozzle, I found that medium suited me perfectly. Other earbuds, like the Skullcandy Method 360 ANC and the Belkin SoundForm Flow, required me to use the smallest ear tip.

For budget earbuds, the Air5 Pros don't look too bad. They look like black AirPods, with a similar size tip, stem, and nozzle. The main design difference is the outside of the stem; it’s got a brass-colored flourish embossed with the Soundpeats Logo.

You’ll find the touch controls housed in the aforementioned brass-colored flourish. I found the controls a little counterintuitive, but not as unresponsive or laggy as other budget brands.

It’s very odd that increasing the volume is just one tap on the right but, but skipping songs is a long press — I found myself accidentally deafening myself when I was moving hair out of my face or trying to remove the buds.

I was able to change what the controls do with the Soundpeats app, but you’re forced to use the defaults while in a call.. I found adjusting the volume quite annoying, as there’s no tone (unlike AirPods) to alert that the adjustment has been activated.

Soundpeats Air5 Pro review: Features & connectivity

• No wear detection
• IPX5 rated
• Hi-res streaming codecs like aptX, and LDAC

If you’ve got a phone compatible with hi-res streaming codecs (Android phones, sorry iPhone users (me included)), then you’ll be able to take advantage of the Air5 Pro’s Snapdragon processor and activate LDAC and aptX codecs.

Unfortunately, I am a poor, unfortunate iPhone user, so I had to dig out the office Asus Zenfone 12 Ultra to test these hi-res codecs. If you’re going to buy a new phone, find out what you need to know about Bluetooth codecs before you buy your next phone.

I’ll talk more about the hi-res codec playback in the ‘Sound quality’ section below, but the long and short is that it’s nice to have, but I don’t think it did that much.

A misfortune is the lack of wear detection and easy multipoint connectivity. There’s a ‘Dual Device Connection’ toggle in the PeatsAudio app, but it’s frustrating to have to download an app to enable this feature.

Lack of easily-accessible multipoint and ecosystem integration is one of the main things holding me back from using anything but AirPods. Even high-end buds like the Final ZE8000MK2 ($349) struggle to seamlessly connect to my phone and laptop.

Wear detection I can get over — pausing the music requires just a tap, anyway — but it’s still not great for a pair of $80 earbuds. The $99 EarFun Air Pro 4 have wear detection, so I’d like to see this feature on Soundpeats’ future offerings.

However, I love to see the IPX5 rating. This is the same as the aforementioned EarFun earbuds, and means the buds can withstand rain or sweat.

Soundpeats Air5 Pro review: ANC

• ANC is nothing to write home about
• Pass through mode
• ‘Normal’ mode

ANC at this price point isn’t going to be Bose-beating, let’s be clear. However, I’d expect it to be just a little better, especially seeing as Soundpeats shouts about it. The EarFun Air Pro 4 earbuds I mentioned earlier have good ANC for budget earbuds, so it is possible.

In my quiet apartment, I could still hear myself typing even while listening to Nirvana. I could hear myself rustling paper as I worked, and I could hear my mouse clicking over Kurt Cobain’s chugging grunge guitars, which, if you don’t know, are pretty heckin’ loud.

Walking around the city, I could still hear traffic noise. So, considering these buds are just $79, the ANC is about as good as you’d expect. No, it won’t shut out the rest of the world, but it also (hopefully) won’t get you hit by a car, so swings and roundabouts.

There are three ANC modes: 1) pass through, which is basically just ambient aware mode, 2) ‘normal’, which is no ANC or ambient aware, and 3) ANC. Honestly, I found ‘normal’ mode was better at blocking out surroundings, which probably isn’t the intended purpose.

Soundpeats Air5 Pro review: Audio quality

• Very bassy, but quite muddy
• Expansive soundscape
• Some mids tinny

To test sound quality, I listened to a variety of music on Qobuz, the best streaming service for audiophiles. Seeing as the Air5 Pro buds are loaded up with hi-res codecs, a Snapdragon processor, and 10mm drivers, I was excited to get stuck in and test some (hopefully) great budget buds.

Don’t get me wrong, the Air5 Pro earbuds don’t sound awful. They’re a far cry from the Belkin SoundForm Play buds I’ve reviewed recently. But would I say they’re audiophile-quality? No. Absolutely not.

That doesn’t mean they’re trash, though. The Air5 Pro earbuds are very bassy, almost too much so. On the heavier tracks I listened to, a few moments made me grimace. I’ll chat about everything in depth here.

With aptX activated, I listened to ‘Money’ by Pink Floyd and ‘If She Could See Me Now’ by Lorde. While these tracks both sounded good, and the immersive cash register sound effects of the former were impressive, I didn’t notice a huge difference between the standard and hi-res codecs. I think you’d need higher-quality hardware to take full advantage of this.

On standard AAC codec, I listened to ‘Milky Sleep’ by Brian Eno, which is an ambient, spacey track with gentle strings and bass. It’s a very sparse soundscape, which can be a challenge for some budget earbuds. However, I found the soundscape to be quite expansive; the warbled motifs sounded as if they were coming from all around me.

Next, I switched it up massively and went for ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by Nirvana. The grunge guitars were throbbing and messy, but there was a touch of tinniness in the percussion. Still, the vocals were arresting and raw, just as they sound on much pricier earbuds.

After the heavier track, I switched back to a more minimal sound. I played ‘Innadream’ by Pretty Girl, which is a house track with a syrupy, sticky vocal. The synth notes were clear, with no hissing in the treble, and the bass was groovy. This song was one of the most impressive tracks I listened to on the Air5 Pro buds.

I switched back to something heavy to re-analyze the muddy bass situation. I played ‘Strange to Be Here’, a song by HotWax that I know really well, which has punky, grunge guitars. The chorus was definitely a little muddy and unclear, like the guitars were fighting for dominance rather than living together harmoniously. In the second verse, there’s a scratching guitar effect in the left ear, which sounded pretty good, but not as affecting as it usually is.

After this, I played ‘Unravelling’ by Muse, which has a metal breakdown at the end of the track. Strangely, the vocals were quite fizzy across the track. I’ve listened to this song enough times to know that this isn’t in the music itself. I wondered why this lack of clarity was on this track and not others, so I listened to a few more Muse songs to test this.

Of the tracks I listened to, this fizzing vocal happened on ‘Won’t Stand Down’, ‘Will of the People’, and ‘Propaganda’, but no tracks on pre-2018 albums. Either this strikes me as the earbuds struggling to catch up with the hi-res streaming quality, or a new mixing technique that the earbuds don’t like. Muse are my favorite band, so I know their tracks well enough to immediately notice when something doesn’t sound quite right.

I will say this, though: in ‘The Dark Side’ (no fizzing vocals), I could hear the background whispered vocals really well. I was surprised, as my AirPods Pro 2 sometimes can’t translate this subtlety as competently.

Soundpeats Air5 Pro review: App

• PeatsAudio app
• Quite easy to use, but looks pretty bland
• Requested access to my music and video library (which I denied, of course)

The Air5 Pro buds are compatible with Soundpeats’ PeatsAudio app. It’s pretty boring looking, but it’s relatively easy to use. I guess that’s a valid trade-off.

However, it did ask for access to my entire music and video library, which has never happened before with other music apps, and I’m always wary of accepting such sweeping permission requests.

As you can see, there’s a range of features, such as a custom EQ, presets, and a personalized ‘adaptive’ EQ. This is basically just a hearing test that plays a series of sounds in various frequencies. However, I could hear all of these sounds instantly (unlike the JBL Live 770NC personalized EQ, which really pushed my hearing to the edge of its ability), which just meant my ‘personalized’ EQ was a mostly flat line.

You can also adjust touch control settings in the app and change the ANC modes, but honestly, I think this app is pretty pointless once you change the touch control settings. I deleted it promptly after testing.

Soundpeats Air5 Pro review: Call quality

To test the call quality of the Soundpeats Air5 Pro, I called my boyfriend and recorded myself reading on my iPhone’s Voice Memo app. The mic is fine — you’ll be heard, but you won’t sound good. It’s a little metallic and quiet, and has a tendency to clip out momentarily, which is annoying.

Soundpeats says the earbuds have wind resistance and a Snapdragon-powered AI ambient noise reducer, but honestly? This felt very minimal to me. They’re just budget earbuds with a budget level mic.

Soundpeats Air5 Pro review: Battery

• 7.5 hours in the bud
• 37 hours in the case
• I tested for 5 hours, buds died

With the standard AAC codec, Soundpeats says the Air5 Pro earbuds should last for up to 7 ½ hours on a single charge. In reality, I found this was more like 5 hours.

This is a pretty meh battery life: yes, the notoriously poor AirPods 4 ($129) have just 5 hours, but the aforementioned EarFun Air 2 ($49) have a whopping 9 hours. While this seems like just an extra 1.5 hours, it’s enough to do a full day of work and a half-hour commute in either direction. The Air5 Pros will have you recharging before the end of the shift.

If you use one of the hi-res codecs, too, the battery life will certainly be less than 7 ½ hours. Considering these buds are $79 and the EarFun offering is $49, I think the Air5 Pros can do a little better than that.

Soundpeats Air5 Pro review: Verdict

Considering these earbuds are just $79, the sound quality is excellent for the price. I could hear elements of ambient tracks I wouldn’t usually hear, and even louder tracks managed to perform quite well.

No, they can’t rival Bose, Sony, or Apple audio gear, but they’re also a fraction of the cost. Some bass is trying a little too hard and results in muddiness, and some of the treble is tinny. thankfully, these issues didn’t raise their heads too often.

For the price, the Soundpeats Air5 Pro are decent earbuds with great sound. The buds are mostly let down by middling ANC, a boring app, and lack of premium features. However, all that being said, if you need a pair of cheap and cheerful earbuds that won’t have you wincing at the sound quality, the Air5 Pro are the ones for you.