The "p" in equipment is quite soft, as it's in the middle of the word. However, you do need to move your mouth to make the "p" "ee-kwi-ment" sounds, and is, wrong symptom The "p" is there in American English as well, but if you said "sim - tum" it would sound correct.

1- The [p] is required in < equipment > for standard British and American pronunciation. 2 - The [p] is optional in < symptom > for standard British and American pronunciation. More information: The English /p/ has three versions: aspirated [pʰ] as in < pot > [pʰɑt], unaspirated [p] as in < spot > [spɑt], and unreleased [p̚] as in < top > [tʰɑp̚]. The Cambridge dictionary recordings for < equipment > and < symptom > have a clearly audible [p] in both the British and American recordings. The American recordings have an unreleased [p̚] which is often hard for non-native speakers to recognize, but native speakers have no difficulty recognizing the sound. As a futher note: The words < shop >, < shot >, and < shock > are difficult for non-native speakers to distinguish when pronounced with unreleased final consonants [p̚], [t̚], and [k̚]. The words are easily distinguishable when pronounced with released final consonants. Here is a recording to demonstrate. https://vocaroo.com/i/s0Twut25QKRm