Baseus Inspire XH1 vs Soundcore Q45

Budget pick

Baseus Inspire XH1

Battery, comfort and calls. About $100 new (Oct 2026).

Check price on AmazonTypical price: $100–$150

VS

Budget pick

Soundcore Space Q45

Blocks more noise. Renewed only in the US (Oct 2026).

Check price on AmazonTypical price: $100–$130

For most people, I’d buy a new Baseus Inspire XH1 at about $100 (October 2026) over the Soundcore Q45. I’d buy the Q45 only renewed, only at $99.99, and only if blocking plane and train noise matters more to you than comfort, battery and calls.

The XH1 is the only over-ear headphone in Baseus’s Inspire line (model A02036, first and only generation, launched September 2025). The Q45 here is the Soundcore Space Q45 (Anker model A3040, launched August 2022), three years older and a different pair from the Space One, Space One Pro and Space 2. If you meant the Space One Pro, read the XH1 vs Space One Pro comparison.

For the single-product details, see my Baseus Inspire XH1 review and my Soundcore Space Q45 review. Store prices on this page are from October 9, 2026, unless I give another date.

Quick verdict for each kind of buyer

Buy the XH1 if you want one pair for commuting, office calls and long days. It sold new for $99.99 at Amazon and Walmart on October 9, 2026 (list price $149.99). Owners report going a week or more between charges.

Buy a renewed Q45 at $99.99 only if quiet on planes and trains beats everything else and you’ll EQ the sound. It still blocks more noise than the XH1. If the only renewed unit left costs $129.99, buy the new Soundcore Space 2 instead (more in the alternatives below).

Baseus Inspire XH1 vs Soundcore Q45: Specs side by side

The table shows maker claims. Four rows need context.

• Battery. The two brands test under different conditions. Baseus rates the 100-hour figure at 50% volume with Bass Boost and Dolby Audio off (Baseus US), and the figure also assumes noise cancelling and transparency off and AAC instead of LDAC. Soundcore rates the Q45 at 60% volume (soundcore.com). The XH1’s 65-hour ANC-on figure comes from Baseus’s Amazon and Best Buy listings, not from the spec block on baseus.com.
• Mics. Baseus lists five call mics for the XH1. Soundcore lists “2 Mics with AI” for calls on the Q45. Neither brand publishes a total mic count on its US page.
• Weight. Baseus claims 275 g and Soundcore claims 292 g. Independent scales put the Q45 anywhere from 281 g (SoundGuys) to 298 g (GYMCADDY).
• Bluetooth and drivers. The XH1 has newer Bluetooth (6.1 vs 5.3) and the Q45 has bigger drivers (40 mm vs 35 mm). Neither shows a measured practical benefit, so I ignore both.

Price and value: A new XH1 vs a renewed Q45

On October 9, 2026, the Baseus Official Store sold the XH1 new for $99.99 on Amazon (Cosmic Black and Starlight Off-White), and Walmart sold it for the same price in Black. Baseus US listed it at $149.99, or $129.99 with the code on the page. The two limited colors cost more or don’t show up at all. Twilight Blue had only a used offer on Amazon ($134.99), Sunset Coral didn’t appear among the Amazon US color options, and Baseus US had sold out of both. Baseus covers the XH1 with a 24-month warranty (user manual).

The Q45 had no new stock at soundcore.com, Amazon US or Best Buy that day. AnkerDirect sold Amazon Renewed units for $99.99 in Black and $129.99 in White. Walmart showed “Restored Premium” units from a third-party seller at $109.99 to $139.99, and Best Buy listed a refurbished Black unit. The list price still reads $149.99, and Anker hasn’t announced a discontinuation.

The XH1 wins on price and value. The same $100 buys a new pair with a full warranty instead of a renewed one with a known headband problem.

The Q45 blocks more noise

The Q45 is the quieter pair, and it’s the one I’d pick for flights. It measured above average in every band, while voices leak through the XH1 in most reviews. Nobody has measured both on the same rig, so treat the numbers below as separate tests.

Q45. It quiets both engine rumble and office chatter, and RTINGS names it the best budget noise cancelling headphones it has tested. It edges the Space One Pro slightly in low bass and beats the Space One and Sony WH-CH720N. TechGearLab measured 19.1, 23.1 and 41.6 dB of reduction in the low, mid and high bands, against test-group averages of 15.6, 22.4 and 36.9 dB. Soundcore’s “up to 98%” claim refers to the deepest band only (38 dB in the SGS lab testing Soundcore cites, and 23 dB across the whole range, per its Quick Start Guide footnote).

The Q45 kept up with the Bose QuietComfort 45 and Sony WH-1000XM5 in the GYMCADDY review (at 10:08). That video also notes a noticeable amount of cabin pressure, which eases if you drop ANC to level 3 (10:38). Expect some hiss with ANC on, anywhere from a slight noise floor to strong hiss at the top level.

XH1. Away from planes it’s good enough, but reviews split on how close it gets to pricier pairs. Consumer Reports’ lab notes call its noise reduction excellent across the range and strongest in the lows (the full score is for members only). WIRED found it almost as effective as the Sennheiser Accentum Plus and Sony ULT Wear, and another review says it lets in a bit more than pricier Bose and Sony pairs. Others heard more leakage. CNET graded its noise cancelling B-, Digital Trends heard sirens, chatter and nearby phone audio get through, and one reviewer often couldn’t hear movie dialogue over the engine noise on two flights between the US and Germany. Notebookcheck rates it below the industry leaders, DHRME ranks it tier B in a video Baseus sponsored (at 15:34), and a detailed owner review scores it 5 or 6 out of 10, against 9 for Sony and Bose.

Both pairs adapt to your surroundings. The XH1 adds Indoor, Outdoor, Commuting and Traveling scene modes plus a custom level. The Q45 offers its adaptive mode or five manual levels.

Video review

The Q45 wins on noise cancelling, and that’s the main reason to buy one.

Sound: Bose tuning vs BassUp

What “Sound by Bose” means on the XH1

Bose licensed an acoustic tuning that Baseus ships as the XH1’s default EQ preset. Bose had no part in the noise cancelling (the CEONTHEMAKING video below covers this at 4:11), and the XH1 is a Baseus product. If you want Bose’s own noise cancelling, see how the XH1 compares with the Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2023).

Default tuning and EQ

XH1. The default tuning is warm, bass-forward and lightly V-shaped, with exaggerated bass, scooped mids and sub-bass extension better than many pricier pairs. The treble splits reviewers. Four reviews say it lacks sparkle, and three say the 8-band EQ can’t fix that. Consumer Reports’ notes call it a touch prominent and sizzly instead, and WIRED and 9to5Toys found that the Bose preset adds energy up top. Noise cancelling changes the sound too. It thickens the bass and turns everything up, and one reviewer listened mostly with ANC off because it veiled the sound. Turning on Dolby Audio switches off your custom EQ, and one Amazon owner says it can’t run with Bass Boost either.

Q45. It ships with BassUp on, and BassUp makes it sound shallow and muddy until you switch it off. RTINGS measured a warm sound with about 3 dB of bass emphasis and treble deviations that sharpen sibilants, and the treble can come across as harsh, even hissy. To fix it, turn BassUp off, then use the soundcore app’s custom EQ, a preset or HearID. Owners who have compared it with the Space One Pro call the Q45 the more balanced of the two.

Frequency response. An exact-pair overlay puts both on one graph, but check its settings before you compare the curves. The default pairing sets the XH1 with ANC on, the Sound by Bose preset and Bass Boost on against the Q45 with ANC on, and the graph also carries XH1 traces with Bass Boost off and in Normal mode, plus a Q45 trace in Normal mode.

Video review

Out of the box, the XH1’s default beats the Q45’s BassUp default, though no published review compares the two by ear. For the XH1 against Bose’s own flagship, read the XH1 vs Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) comparison.

The XH1 wins on out-of-the-box sound, narrowly. Plan to EQ the Q45 either way.

Comfort and fit

All-day comfort and glasses

XH1. A light clamp and soft protein-leather pads make it the more comfortable pair. Of 50 Amazon comfort mentions, 46 are positive, owners with large ears and glasses agree, and one reviewer calls it one of the most comfortable headphones he could name. The downsides are small. The left cup’s internal ANC mic can press on your ear after an hour, which shifting the cup forward fixes. The cups get warm after about an hour, and the headband material can tug hair.

Q45. It clamps harder and runs hot. The pads heat up fairly quickly, the clamp presses on glasses arms more than some, the headband padding is thin, and a headband hot spot can show up at about the one-hour mark. It’s still wearable for long stretches. RTINGS calls it comfortable, and TechGearLab’s testers wore it for about six hours with glasses and liked the pillowy pads, though Kuulokenurkka found them firm. One owner who tried both returned the Q45 and kept the XH1 “mainly due to comfort”.

Fit when you move

The XH1’s light clamp is also its weakness. Owners say it slides when they tilt their head, lie down or work out (24 of 40 Amazon fit mentions are negative), and it can shift when you lean far forward. WIRED says you could use it at the gym, but partly on the strength of an IP66 rating that Baseus doesn’t list for the XH1 (IP66 belongs to Baseus’s XC1 earbuds). The Q45 isn’t stable enough for sports either, and Soundcore lists no IP rating.

The XH1 wins on comfort, especially for glasses, big ears and long days. For the gym, I’d buy neither.

Calls, multipoint, iPhone and PC

Calls. I’d take the XH1 for calls, narrowly. Its voice pickup holds steadier than the Space One Pro’s in quieter places and fades only in very loud noise. CNET graded its calls B+ to A-, and in DHRME’s Baseus-sponsored mic test it stayed clear at about 70 dB of background noise but cut out in wind (15:03). Callers can hear your voice as slightly subdued. The Q45 gets mixed call reviews. It separates your voice from street, wind and office noise unusually well, but RTINGS rates its recording quality only passable, and real calls sounded muffled in one review and a little robotic in a quiet room in another.

Multipoint. Both connect to two devices at once. Only the XH1 keeps LDAC with two devices connected, and one owner reports the same. The Q45 turns LDAC off in multipoint, per Soundcore’s user guide. The XH1 also switches transparency off during calls.

PC and gaming. Two XH1 owners report PC trouble. One can’t enable the hands-free profile that carries the mic, and another calls PC connectivity a nightmare. I’d treat that as two reports, too few to call a defect. The XH1’s 80 ms Low Latency Mode (Baseus claim) can’t run alongside LDAC. The Q45’s latency is too high for wireless gaming.

The XH1 wins on calls and multipoint, narrowly on calls. Android owners who want LDAC on two devices at once have one choice here.

Battery life: Claims vs measured

Battery life is the XH1’s best trick, on paper and in owner reports.

The XH1 leads on every claim, and its best test results beat anything measured on the Q45, at about 70 hours with ANC off and 55 with it on. 9to5Toys found both Baseus claims largely accurate, a few hours short in some cases. The test results overlap more than the claims, though. CNET got about 48 hours from the XH1 with ANC on, less than SoundGuys’ 55 hours 48 minutes from the Q45. Owners back up the XH1’s lead. One owner gets a week of 7-hour days per charge, and 33 of 36 Amazon battery mentions are positive.

The Q45’s results run from 28 hours to more than 70 with ANC off, and the testers used different methods, volumes and ANC levels, so I wouldn’t crown any one figure. Even the low of 27.8 hours covers two weeks of an hour-each-way commute. The XH1 gives you more slack, and neither one plays while charging.

The XH1 wins on battery on every claim and in owner reports, though reviewer tests show a smaller gap than the spec sheets.

App, codecs, wired listening and extras

• Wired. Both have a 3.5 mm input and keep noise cancelling available over the cable. The XH1 also plays passively when you switch it off, though it sounds thin that way, so treat it as a backup. The XH1 has no USB-C audio, and nothing confirms it for the Q45.
• XH1 app. The Baseus app has the Sound by Bose preset and six others, an 8-band EQ, Bass Boost, a SoundFit hearing test (needs a Baseus account), Dolby Audio Music and Cinema modes (WIRED called both terrible), a sleep timer, a 75 to 100 dB volume limiter and Find My (also needs an account).
• Q45 app. The soundcore app has a custom EQ, presets, BassUp, HearID, five ANC levels, five transparency levels, Talk Mode and wind noise reduction. The NC button can cycle to Transparency or Talk Mode, not both.
• Wear detection. The XH1 has none. Soundcore doesn’t list it for the Q45 and reviews conflict, so assume neither pauses when you take it off.
• Controls and case. Both use physical buttons and include a carrying case. The Q45’s is a zippered hard shell. The XH1’s case doesn’t take the headphones folded, which one owner also complains about.

The XH1 wins on features, thanks to LDAC in multipoint, Low Latency Mode and passive wired listening. The Q45’s app adds five transparency levels and Talk Mode.

Durability and owner-reported issues

The Q45 has the one serious durability problem on this page, a headband that cracks near the hinge.

That cracking is the one owner pattern on this page I’d weigh heavily. From 2023 into 2026, owners have reported the plastic cracking near the hinge, sometimes on both sides. Several got free replacements under Soundcore’s 18-month warranty, and at least two say the replacement cracked in the same spot. Not everyone hits it. One long-term owner says the hinges and padding held up after two years. I cover the Q45’s headband problem in my Space Q45 review in more detail.

The XH1 is three years newer, so it has a shorter track record. Owners haven’t reported a cracking or dead-unit pattern yet, only loose-feeling hinges from new and one owner whose earcup loosened.

The XH1 wins on durability so far, though it hasn’t been on sale long enough to prove itself.

Pros and cons

Baseus Inspire XH1

Soundcore Space Q45

What I’d pay for each

Which should you buy?

Prices decide this one, and my pick moves with them. The prices below are from October 9, 2026.

Alternatives if neither fits

• Soundcore Space 2 (model D1402, April 2026). Soundcore’s newest Space over-ear at this price (the $199.99 Space 2 Pro sits a tier up). Anker hasn’t named a Q45 successor, but Japanese launch coverage treats the Q45 as its previous model, and it’s the closest replacement at this price. It cost $129.99 at soundcore.com and $106.99 at Amazon on October 9, 2026. Soundcore claims 70 hours with ANC off and 50 with it on, Bluetooth 6.1, LDAC, three call mics, wear detection and 264 g. It lasts notably longer than the Q45 in lab testing, though the Q45 still isolates better.
• Soundcore Space One Pro. $139.99 on October 9 (list $199.99). Its headband folds into a compact bundle (Soundcore claims 50% smaller when folded), though it comes with a soft pouch instead of a hard case. RTINGS measured 36.1 hours of battery against the Q45’s 27.8, with similar isolation (the Q45 slightly ahead in low bass) and a weaker mic. See the XH1 vs Space One Pro comparison.
• Soundcore Space One. $84.99 new on October 9 (list $99.99). It’s lighter (Soundcore claims 265 g), pauses when you take it off and comes with a pouch instead of a case. The Q45 beats it for comfort, isolation and mic.
• Sony WH-CH720N. 192 g and $72.13 to $88 new on October 9. The Q45 isolates significantly better. Sony launched the WH-CH730N as its successor in September 2026, but the CH720N still sells new. See my Sony WH-CH720N review.
• CMF Headphone Pro. $59 new on October 9. Stainless steel hinges make it the durable choice among budget noise cancelling headphones, which matters if the Q45 cracking reports put you off. Its isolation trails the Q45 a little.
• Soundcore Life Q20 (2024, USB-C). $39.99 on sale on October 9 (soundcore.com regular price $59.99). It nearly matches the Q45’s isolation and lasted about 49 hours in RTINGS’ test. Buy the USB-C version, not the older micro-USB one that Amazon still lists under the same name.

My verdict

If you’re weighing the XH1 against pricier pairs, read XH1 vs Sony WH-1000XM4, XH1 vs Sennheiser Momentum 4 and the XH1 vs Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2023) comparison. For every budget, start with my best budget headphones picks, or browse more head-to-head comparisons.

Written by Marius

Audio enthusiast. I've worn a lot of headphones, and I tell you which pair is worth your money and which one isn't.

I check every verdict against lab measurements and long-term owner feedback, and I update pages when prices or models change. How I judge headphones.