I did say a few months ago I would absolutely not buy another pair of earbuds like the Apple EarPods (mine only lasted a month past the warranty date) or the Samsung Earbuds, as they just seem so overpriced for something where you can’t replace the battery. That said, my cheaper BlitzWolf earbuds have lasted a few years now.
So, I did a few days searching and watching of various reviews and saw these Soundcore Liberty 4 NC’s scored quite well above their price bracket. They just work out to be very good bang for the buck, providing some quite similar high-end features compared to devices double their price. They’re certainly not better than the top end Sony or equivalent earbuds, but they are certainly good mid-range earbuds, and tick all my boxes:
- Proper adaptive active noise cancelling – I know they claim up to 98.5% but many reviewers highlighted specifically their excellent ANC which compare with the best.
- I like the long touch to switch between ANC and transparent modes (latter mode allows you to hear what is going on around you).
- Taking out an earbud auto pauses the playing, and it auto resumes when you put it back in. This is also useful to alert you in case one falls out accidentally. It will also play using just one earbud.
- 10 hour playing time on a single charge, and around 8 hours with ANC on. They claim about 10 mins charge will give 4 hours play time (I’ve not tested that yet). It uses Lithium Polymer batteries.
- The app can test for noise leakage due to a bad fit, and can compensate for that too. I’m certainly finding the fit very good because even just fitting them in my ear, cuts out most of the outside sound. I’ve worn them for up to a 6 hour stretch and hardly notice I’m wearing them – so much lighter than my over-the-ear headphones.
- Audio profiles include a hearing test to create a custom audio profile for you.
- Amazon shows 2,834 ratings with an average score of 4.3, with 64% being 5 star ratings.
- Bluetooth 5.3 multipoint (so I can connect to phone and computer) with LDAC.
- The ANC using 6 beamforming microphones seems to work pretty well for phone calls too – for one review comparison against the AirPods I could not discern much difference.
- The case supports wireless charging, and I tested that my Galaxy S23 Ultra is able to provide power to the case.
- Good bass boost. I think their Liberty 4’s have more treble as well as the heartrate measuring.
- On the price they were selling in South Africa (with free shipping) at slightly under the US selling price. I also don’t have to pay cash as my medical insurance awards me award miles for exercising (this gives me a further 10% discount if I pay using those miles). But despite this the SA price was about US$89 (I used around US$80 miles then).
Not so important on my list were the following:
- Only IPX4 water-resistance, so you can’t shower or swim with them, but normal exercise should be fine.
- Would have been nice to have a digital battery percentage read out on the case, but that would have pushed the price up a bit more.
- Interesting colours like Clear White, Navy Blue, Light Blue, Pastel Pink, and Velvet Black.
- It has backlighting in the case when the buds are stored – one or two reviewers raved about this… but it was not on my check list
All in all, I think they’re an excellent set of earbuds and the sound is noticeably clearer than my BlitzWolfs. I must say too, once you’ve used ANC it does make quite a difference as you can listen to softer music, or use lower volume, because you don’t need to overcome any outside sounds.
See their site https://us.soundcore.com/products/liberty-4-nc-a3947z11
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