SoundPEATS Air6 HS Review: Finally a Proper Air-Line Upgrade

The Pros and Cons

SoundPEATS Air6 HS features discussed in my review

How comfortable are the SoundPEATS Air6 HS?

The Air6 HS is a semi-in-ear design, so it rests in the ear without an ear tip going into the ear canal. I find myself reaching for this style more often because I do not always want to shove ear tips into my ear canal.

Against the Air3 Deluxe HS, the older bud is still slightly more compact, but the Air6 HS gets close and both weigh about 4 g each. To my ears, the Air6 HS is more comfortable: its smooth glossy plastic and smoother, less-protruding driver nozzle give it a lighter feel in the ear.

If you are choosing between these and an open-ear option such as the SoundPEATS Pearl Clip Pro, the Air6 HS gives you the more complete sound. Open-ear buds make more sense only if keeping the ear canal open matters more to you than bass and overall richness.

Battery life, controls and multipoint are meaningful upgrades

Battery life is a major step forward. The Air6 HS offers 9 hours in the earbuds and 45 hours in total with the case, compared with 5 hours and 20 hours respectively on the Air3 Deluxe HS. The slightly thicker case is still pocketable, and fast charging gives 3 hours of earbud playback from 10 minutes in the case.

Touch controls remain familiar for SoundPEATS, with single, double and triple taps plus a long hold. I can customise functions independently for each earbud, including access to game mode. The Air6 HS loses wearing detection from the Air3 Deluxe HS, but I turned that feature off on the older model anyway because it activated randomly and did not work that well.

Bluetooth 6.0, SBC, AAC and LDAC are here, while multipoint is the more noticeable upgrade over the Air3 Deluxe HS. I can connect two devices at once, then pause playback on one before playing from the other. Single-earbud use also works in mono mode, with both channels coming through either earbud.

Air6 HS call quality is better where the Air3 struggled

The Air3 Deluxe HS still holds up very well for calls in a quiet room and with simulated crowd noise. Its weak point is the windy city test, where I found it basically unusable.

The Air6 HS improves that situation. It is not amazing call quality, but call performance that works well in my windy city test is rare at this price.

The SoundPEATS app is cleaner, but still frustrating at times

SoundPEATS now recommends the SoundPEATS app rather than the older PEATS app. The newer app has a cleaner layout, but it still requires a login, which I know many people, including me, are not a fan of.

There are movie and music Special Audio modes, but neither was great in my testing: both lose a lot of bass and make the sound slightly harsh. The app also includes EQ presets, an adaptive EQ hearing test that works quite well, an eight-band EQ, control customisation, quick toggles and a find-my-earbuds feature that can beep the earbuds and use location.

It can be buggy. Sometimes an option would not activate for me, although resetting the app got it working again.

Does the Air6 HS sound better than the Air3 Deluxe HS?

Yes, I prefer the SoundPEATS Air6 HS sound overall. The Air3 Deluxe HS had a clean presentation, crisp treble, smooth mids and decent mid-bass, but it had almost no sub-bass. The Air4 improved deep bass but lost clarity, while the Air5 had less bass than the Air4 and clarity that was just as bad.

The Air6 HS finally surpasses the Air3 Deluxe HS in most areas. Its bass gets surprisingly close to a regular in-ear earbud with ear tips, giving kick drums more impact and making electronic music, rap and hip hop sound fuller and richer. That added upper-bass body also benefits percussion, guitars, distorted guitars and vocals.

Vocals are very clear and well separated, although the mids are boosted enough to sound slightly unnatural. The upper mids are forward without going too far, so keys, percussion and distorted guitars have good presence.

I do have two sound complaints. The mid-bass can be a little muddy and boomy, though not distractingly so. Upper treble also falls behind the Air3 Deluxe HS, so hi-hats and crashes sit slightly further back in the mix.

For the best sound, I need to enable Dynamic EQ in the app. It delivers the rich, deep bass that makes these earbuds so good, but I cannot then use the eight-band EQ. I would like to reduce the bass and mids slightly and add upper treble, but that is not possible with Dynamic EQ enabled. Turning it off and boosting bass through the eight-band EQ does not get close to the same bass performance.