New Soundpeats Air5
Back in March, 2024 I posted about my Soundpeats Air4 Pro. I did like them, but one of the earbuds ended up not working, and Soundpeats gave me a full refund. Soundpeats, by the way, is a nice company to work with. The prices are low, but they try hard to make good quality items and they provide good customer support.
For a while I debated what to do. I also have a Soundpeats Space (over the ear headphones) which I really like, especially for long (i.e. 14 hours) plane trips. The active noise cancelation (ANC) completely cuts the noise and has fantastic battery life. It’s not really suitable for daily walks though.
I also have a Shokz OpenRun bone conducting headset. I do like them, and since they are not in-ear they don’t bother me to use. But after a while it does seem a bit irritating around my neck – especially if I’m wearing a knit cap in the cold weather. When I get home from a long walk it feels like a relief when I take them off.
I don’t really like sticking things fully in my ear, which is one thing that attracted me to the Air5; it’s just partially in ear.
Last week there was a 22% off promo for the Soundpeats Air5, so I decided to give them a try. They are always easy to return on Amazon if I decide I don’t like them.

These were my impressions after a couple of days.
- User Manual – At first I thought there was no manual! But I found it in the box tightly packed in the top cover! Wasn’t obvious. 🙂 Learned one new tap (3 taps to activate Siri) from the diagram. It’s written well considering how many languages it supports!
- Fit – They are quite comfortable. You barely even know they are there on your ears. The shape design it really thoughtful.
- ANC but no passthrough – At home I really can’t tell the difference. It’s not obvious. And the ANC (since the ear canal isn’t completely blocked) is not completely noise canceling, like with the Air4. But it’s fine for walks. And in certain conditions – like a crowded supermarket – it does help. If there is construction work outside (and there always is) it’s a big help. Still, it’s just “some” noise canceling. I’m ok with that. Even with the Air4 I rarely used complete noise canceling because that’s dangerous when outside on walks.
- Sound quality and EQ testing – “pretty good.” They have different EQ settings in the new Peats app. The default “classic” setting, to me, sounded quite muffled. Of all the ones I tried the “add bass,” to my surprise, sounds the best.
- Dictation and mic – One problem with the Shokz OpenRun is that the mic quality (there is only 1 mic) is not that great. In fact, I can’t dictate with Siri which I do all the time. But the Air5 has 6 mics with extra background noise cancelation and the quality is much better. Siri dictation works great. And I left myself a test voicemail and it sounded fine.
- New app – The new Peats app is very nice with interesting features. I haven’t tried them all yet, but they apparently put lot of effort into it.
- Walking test – I’ve gone on walks every day since getting them and there were no problems with them falling out. That rather amazes me since they aren’t stuck inside my ear and I can’t really tell they are there.
- Touch controls – I actually like the buttonless touch controls better than the physical buttons on my OpenRun. Most of the time they work fine, but sometimes when trying to pause (double-tap) it skips to the next song (triple-tap). Still, most of the time the touch controls work well and are elegant to use.
- The case – Opening and taking ear buds out and putting them back into the charging case is a bit awkward. Why did they change the cover like that? I think I’m getting used to it, but preferred the Air4 case. Still, it’s quite portable – easy to carry in a pocket – unlike the OpenRun.
And an update from today – after a week, for my morning walk – I thought I might put my bone conducting OpenRun on for comparison. But it felt a bit uncomfortable compared to the Air5, so I switched back.
While I still have a couple of weeks to decide about returning them I believe I will keep them. The music I was listening to on my long morning walk today sounded especially nice.
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