Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro Review vs the REST! 🤔 (Nothing, Earfun)
Now this is new...
I’ve tested many Soundcore earbuds over the years, and they’ve always been some of the most feature rich. But Soundcore’s next generation flagship, the Liberty 4 Pro, takes it even further.
The case itself has a screen, which right off the bat, displays detailed info like battery levels for both the earbuds and the case. There’s also a handy Touch Bar that lets you adjust the transparency and noise cancelling on the fly. You can even add more control options through the Soundcore app, like toggling through different sound modes, and optimizing the noise cancelling in your current atmospheric pressure. You also get new features like Easy Chat, which engages transparency when you start conversing with someone. It also has Spatial Audio with head tracking, and one of the most seamless multipoint pairing. I could easily switch the music between my iPhone and my Pixel without needing to pause first.
The touch control experience has also been improved on the earbuds. It incorporates squeeze controls on the stem, and you can even swipe to control the volume. This makes it much easier to operate, because even if you are just using one earbud, you’ll still get all the controls you need, which I couldn’t do on the Liberty 4 NC. Another improvement over the 4 NC is the dual driver setup in each earbud, while the 4NC only has a single driver.
Mic Quality Comparison
In terms of microphone quality, although its mic pickup doesn’t have the best noise reduction in noisy situations, my voice came across as pretty clear. In my opinion, it is an improvement over the 4NC, where my voice sounded bloaty. Compared to the others, the Earfun Air 2 NC made my voice sounded softer, and the Air Pro 4 wasn’t able to noise gate as well. So I would say, its mic pickup is pretty decent.
👉 Let’s listen to the mic pickup samples.
(Microphone pickup in both quiet and noisy conditions using really loud cafe noise, and wind noise from a fan.)
Active Noise Cancelling Comparison
When it comes to active noise cancelling, the Liberty 4 Pro has a powerful noise canceller. With 7 noise canceling sensors, it did a fantastic job dumbing down the background noise, including people chatting and public transport sounds. It’s a little weaker in cancelling the midrange than the Liberty 4 NC, but it stands up pretty well to the others in terms of delivering silence.
(Another note about the Liberty 4 Pro’s noise canceling. To some people, it could seem stronger than the Liberty 4 NC’s but that is because it’s much easier to get a good fit on the 4 Pro which has a flatter shape to the earbuds’ housing.)
👉 Listen to the ANC samples recorded.
Transparency Mode Comparison
As for transparency, the Liberty 4 Pros are okay. It does sound quite transparent in the mids and highs, so you can use it for quick awareness, but I’m noticing a bit too much brightness in the upper mids, making the ambient sounds feel brittle and slightly hissing as well. Conversations might feel a little unnatural, as my voice sounded a bit occluded. In my opinion, the Liberty 4 NC has better transparency, followed by the Nothing ear. The Earfuns are more or less similar to the Liberty 4 Pro in terms of transparency.
Sound Quality Comparison
Based on the sound quality of their default tuning, they more or less have have classic Soundcore signature. Very V-shaped tuning with big emphasis on bass and LFE. After spending some time away from Soundcore, I remember why i enjoyed them so much. The energy in my music is just so addictive.
The dual driver setup is also helping to prevent any sort of bleed over from the bass into the mids, keeping tracks, vocals and instrumentals separated cleanly. There’s more layering and background details, making certain elements in my music more obvious, I started to notice stuff in my music that I could barely hear with most single-driver earbuds. But how they differ to previous Soundcores like the Liberty 4 NC is they have darker highs. In fact, if we compare them to the Earfun Air Pro 4 and the Nothing ear, the Liberty 4 Pro has more aggressive upper mids, so vocals present brighter and more vibrant, but it doesn’t have as much air or reverb in the soundstage even if it’s in the recording.
👉 Have a listen to the sound quality samples.
Custom Sound Options?
A quick and easy fix for sound preference is to take the HearID test, which calibrates the earbuds to you hearing sensitivity. After doing this, music sounded more vibrant, which is more to my tastes. You can also manually adjust to make your own EQ or choose one of plenty EQ presets that Soundcore offers. Either way, there are plenty of options to make them sound how you want them. Something that’s worth highlighting is that these are some of the loudest earbuds Soundcore has ever made. At 50% volume, they easily sound like 60% on other earbuds.
Final Thoughts…
So in many ways the Liberty 4 Pro is a tangible improvement over the existing Soundcore line, but I can’t help but feel there’s a lot more they could have done with the case. They could have made the case far more useful if they added music and volume controls. It’s not a small case so it would have been a good reason to carry this case with me. Also, having to open the lid every time to access all the settings isn’t ideal. Would be better to have the screen on the lid, although that would be a challenge for this particular form factor.
Despite that, the Liberty 4 Pros are indeed one of the best budget premiums available, because they’ve got most things covered. They have good sound, great noise cancelling, decent mic pickup, seamless multipoint, and a whole range of very useful features. It is also worth mentioning that compared to the Liberty 4NC, the earbuds nozzles are now more narrow, so you can fit a wide variety of aftermarket eartips, which wasn’t possible with the 4 NC.
If you want some foam tips for them, you may consider Comply. They’re offering my viewers 15% off with this reusable promo code “LOUDNWIRELESS”, which, full disclosure, also helps support the channel.
Anyway, that’s how the Liberty 4 Pro performs compared to the rest, let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Check latest price:
Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro - https://amzn.to/3TVWDfj
Soundcore Liberty 4 NC - https://amzn.to/3UG0vlx
NOTHING ear - https://amzn.to/3TS0KJn
Earfun Air 2 NC - $69.99 (Amazon link TBA)
Earfun Air Pro 4 - https://amzn.to/4duKXaF
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