Anker SoundCore Life 2 Wireless Headphones Review

The SoundCore Life 2 are decently good looking headphones but have a plasticky feel. They have dense cups and thick-looking hinges as well. Also, the headband and the cups are well-padded. They don’t stand out too much due to their all-black design, and they don’t have any other color schemes.

The SoundCore Life 2 are comfortable and lightweight headphones. The padding on the ear cups is plushy and is very soft. That said, the cups may feel a bit small for bigger ears. The padding on the headband is also comfortable and distributes the weight of the headphones effectively. However, the headband is also very large and, even at the smallest size adjustment, these headphones might be too large for people with smaller heads. If you find these too large, you may want to check out the upgrade model, the Anker Soundcore Life Q20, as they have a slightly smaller headband.

The SoundCore Life 2 have an easy to use control scheme and offers multiple common functionalities like play/pause, manage calls, track skipping, and volume control. On top of that, you also have a dedicated button for the noise cancelling feature. These headphones also have a bass boost that you can trigger by double tapping the middle button twice. The buttons are clicky and offer good feedback, but you don't know on which bass setting you're on.

The SoundCore Life 2 are one of the least breathable headphones we’ve tested so far. The soft and pleather ear padding creates a good seal around your ears, which doesn’t let airflow cool your ears. Heat is trapped under the ear cups, which will make you sweat more than usual. This means they won’t be a great option for sports and you will notice a big difference in temperature, even when casually listening.

Like the Anker SoundCore Space NC, the headphones are quite bulky and aren’t the easiest to carry around. However, the cups swivel to lay flat, which makes it easier to wear around your neck or to slide in a bag. Also, you can fold them into a more compact format and fit them inside their great carrying case.

The Anker SoundCore Life 2 come with a great hard case. It protects the headphones against physical damage from falls, water exposure, and scratches. There is no wiggling room once the headphones are in the case, which is great. The case doesn’t add too much bulk and can easily be stored in a bag. It also has a pocket to help you carry your accessories and cables.

The SoundCore Life 2 are mostly made out of plastic, and their overall feel is slightly cheaper than the similarly designed SoundCore Space NC. The hinges feel plasticky and hollow, which could be a weak point of the overall build. On the upside, the headband is reinforced by a metal sheet and the padding used on the headphones isn’t stiff. The cups are fairly dense and should still survive an accidental drop without too much damage.

The SoundCore Life 2 are fairly stable headphones, so you could jog with them. They have a good clamping force and they fit nicely on the head, but their design isn’t really suited for sports. Also, if you have a smaller head, the headphones may not have a secure fit and will wobble around easily, especially during physical activity. On the upside, their wireless design gets rid of the risk of the headphones being yanked off if a cable were to get stuck on something.

• Anker SoundCore Life 2 headphones
• 1/8" TRRS audio cable
• Micro-USB charging cable
• Carrying case
• Manuals

The Anker SoundCore 2 have a mediocre frequency response consistency performance. These headphones are prone to consistency issues throughout, especially in the bass range. The maximum variance measured across our five human subjects was more than 10dB at 20Hz, which is noticeable. We also noticed that certain types of glasses could break the seal on these headphones and cause a drop in bass. However, the other test subjects had a fairly consistent bass delivery. In the treble range, the maximum amount of deviation below 10KHz, is about 9dB, indicating that these headphones' treble delivery is rather sensitive to positioning.

The Life 2’s bass is good. Their LFE (low-frequency extension) is at 10Hz, and low-bass is overemphasized by more than 4dB. This indicates a deep and extended bass with quite a bit of excess thump and rumble. Mid-bass, responsible for the body of bass guitars and kick of drums is also overemphasized by about 4dB. Overall, their bass is quite heavy and thumpy, without being boomy, and it may please fans of bass-heavy genres like EDM and hip-hop due to their excess thump. You can also enable their BassUp feature by double tapping the middle button.

Also, their bass delivery varies across users, and is sensitive to the quality of the fit, seal, and whether you wear glasses. The response here represents the average bass response and your experience may vary.

Their mid-range performance is great. The response throughout the range is flat and even, but it is entirely underemphasized. A 4dB dip in low-mid will make vocals and lead instruments sound thin, and the slight recess in mid-mid will nudge them to the back of the mix.

The treble of the Life 2 is great. The overall response is fairly flat but slightly uneven. This results in some S and T sounds lacking a bit of detail, and others may feel sharp and piercing for some. Not everyone will hear them as sibilant as others.

These headphones have great imaging. Their weighted group delay (GD) is 0.29, which is very good. The GD graph shows that their group delay is almost entirely under the audibility threshold. This ensures a tight bass and a transparent treble reproduction. Also, the L/R drivers of our test unit were well-matched in frequency and amplitude, but showed a slight mismatch in phase response. This is important for accurate placement and localization of objects, such as footsteps and instruments, in the stereo field. However, these results are only valid for our unit, and yours may perform differently. The the subtle mismatch in phase won't be audible to most.

The soundstage of the Anker SoundCore Life 2 is sub-par. They show a decent amount of PRTF accuracy and activation, which should translate into a relatively large soundstage. However, there is no notch around the 10KHz region, suggesting a soundstage that is perceived to be located inside-the-head, as opposed to in front. Also, because of the closed-back design and ANC, they tend to sound less open than open-back headphones.

The Anker SoundCore Life 2 have a mediocre isolation performance. With the ANC (active noise cancellation) enabled, they achieve about 7dB of isolation in the bass range, which is disappointing. This means they won’t do a great job at blocking out the rumble of airplane and bus engines. In the mid-range, important for blocking out ambient speech, they isolate by 15dB, which is good. In the treble range, occupied by sharp sounds like S and Ts and fan noises like A/C systems, they isolate by 36dB, which is also good. If you want similar headphones that isolate more, look at the Anker SoundCore Space NC or the TaoTronics SoundSurge 60 Wireless.

The leakage performance of the SoundCore Life 2 is good. The significant portion of leakage sits between 400Hz and 5KHz, which is a relatively broad range. This results in a leakage that sounds fuller and more comprehensible than the leakage of in-ears and earbuds, but not as much as open-back headphones. However, the overall level of leakage is not too loud. With the music at 100dB SPL, the leakage at 1 foot away averages at 37dB SPL and peaks at 47dB SPL, which is just under the noise floor of most offices.

The recording quality of the SoundCore Life 2’s integrated microphone is okay. LFE (low-frequency extension) is at 261Hz, which means transmitted/recorded speech with this mic will sound noticeably thin. The HFE (high-frequency extension) of 3.5KHz indicates speech that lacks detail and is noticeably muffled. This will have a negative effect on the intelligibility of speech, but it should still be understandable in quiet environments.

The noise handling of the integrated mic is passable. In our SpNR test, it achieved a speech-to-noise ratio of about 21dB. This makes this microphone suitable mostly for quiet environments, and not great for moderate and loud environments as it will have difficulty separating ambient noise from actual speech.

The SoundCore Life 2’s battery is great. You get over 28 hours of continuous playback with a 2 and a half hour charge time. They offer more battery life than the Space NC and take less time to charge fully, which is great. You can also use them passively with the included audio cable, even if the battery is dead. You can also use the ANC feature while wired, but only if there’s battery left.

Anker doesn’t have a mobile or PC app to give you customization options or controls.

These headphones are Bluetooth compatible. However, they can only connect to one device at a time and don’t support NFC for a quicker and easier pairing procedure.

With 149ms of delay, the SoundCore Life 2 have slightly less latency than most Bluetooth headphones, which is good. Some may still notice a small delay between audio and video while watching TV or any video content. On the upside, some devices and apps seem to offer some sort of compensation, so you might not notice the delay as much. You can also use the headphones with the audio cable to get rid of the latency.

You can use the included 1/8” TRRS audio cable to use these headphones with any platform that has the appropriate audio jack. You’ll also be able to use their in-line microphone.

The Anker Soundcore Life 2 do not have a dock.