Soundcore Liberty 4 vs the KING 👑 AirPods Pro 2
The Soundcore Liberty 4 ($149) are one of the most feature rich earbuds you can buy at this price. It’s got spatial audio with head tracking, a heart rate monitor, Multipoint pairing, Hi-Res streaming with LDAC, and app support with sound customization. So they aren’t fooling around. If you look at the landscape there’s not a single competitor (that I know of) that has all of these features at this price. Even at higher price points it’s competitive, which is why Soundcore is pitching these as an alternative to the AirPods Pro 2. We’re going to go into all of those features in much greater detail when we talk about its pros and cons. But first, we’re going to benchmark its sound, its call quality and noise cancelling against the AirPods Pro 2.
Sound Quality
In terms of sound quality, it follows pretty much the same V-shaped frequency curve as previous Soundcore Liberty products. Bass is tight and loud, clean track separation, lots of detail in the mids. To be honest it sounds about the same as the Soundcore Liberty 3 Pro (see FR curve below), only that it’s a little more brighter sounding on its default tuning.
Fun fact. I took the HearID sound calibration test in the Soundcore app, just to see if it could give me something better for my ears, and nope, there was practically no difference compared to the classic default soundcore tuning. So by default these are already tuned to the way I prefer my sound. So, at least for me, it requires no further tuning.
In terms of bass, the Liberty 4 is punchier than the AirPods Pro 2, but I do find that the AirPods have a fuller, richer sound in the mid range frequencies. So you get more detail and a bit more gravity in the vocals. You can listen to the difference here.
Call Quality
Tested in both quiet and noisy conditions using simulated cafe background noise and some wind noise coming from a fan, the Liberty 4’s mic pickup isn’t as clear as on the AirPods Pro 2 in quiet conditions, but in noisy conditions it was doing a better job at reducing the background noise. Listen to the difference here.
Noise Cancelling Performance
In this test running the same simulated background noise, the AirPods Pro 2 are more effective in terms of cancelling low frequency noise, but the Liberty 4 isn’t too far behind at all. You’re still going to get very effective noise cancelling in most situations, be it on the train, in the bus, or at the cafe. In this test, HearID ANC calibration was not applied, so the Liberty 4s were on their maximum noise cancelling strength. Another thing to note is that since the Liberty 4 isn’t able to cancel mid range frequencies as effectively, it seems to apply a heavy dose of white noise masking to simulate silence, more so than AirPods Pro 2.
Spatial Audio - does it work?
Let’s circle back to the Liberty 4’s features because I think there’s a lot worth mentioning here, like Spatial audio with head tracking. It is similar to what’s offered on the AirPods, but the advantage with the Liberty 4’s spatial audio is, it isn’t limited to a specific platform or to specific apps unlike the AirPods.
The AirPods’ Spatial audio can only be used with certain apps on iOS. With the Liberty 4s, you can simply turn on spatial audio in the app, and it will work with whichever mobile device or app, be it Spotify, YouTube, Apple TV. For those of you who want spatial audio, this flexibility is a huge advantage.
Now, does its Spatial audio sound good? Well, like regular spatial audio, you still get that diffusion in the mid range frequencies. Also its surround effects don’t sound as precisely placed as on the AirPods, but it is still one of the better spatial audios I’ve heard. Its head tracking is also quite good. I tried to throw it off by turning my head, moving my phone around, to see if the tracking will go off center, but the tracking is quite tight.
Heart Rate Monitor
There’s also a fitness aspect to these earbuds, It’s got heart rate sensors, so provided you have logged in to the app, the Liberty 4s measures your heart rate and syncs the data to the Soundcore app. There’s even a stress monitor. Basically it tracks your heart rate over a period of time and tells you if you’re stressed. As you can see in the image below, I am always in a state of stress. That’s not good.
Liberty 4 - Smash or Pass?
You may or may not use all of its features, but as you have seen, these do perform quite well too at their core functions, be it in terms of sound, noise cancelling or mic pickup. It also has some nice little extras like Multipoint pairing, which is the ability to pair up to two devices at the same time.
It also has full app support across iOS and Android. So you get all the EQ presets, the graphic EQ, the firmware updates on whichever phone you use.
That is not what I can say about the AirPods. You can only get the AirPods customized on iOS, and its custom sound options are pretty limited compared to the Soundcore.
Furthermore, the Liberty 4s are Hi-Res certified. Of course, if you’re using multipoint pairing you cannot use it in hi-res mode, and not many people can hear the sound difference compared to non-hi-res products. But for those of you who can hear the difference, you are going to want that Hi-Res Wireless certification.
Things not to like…
So there isn’t much I can complain about if we’re just talking about features. But there are a few things that I hope could be better, such as its Transparency mode. There is a lot of hiss in there, so it doesn’t feel so transparent - a far cry from the AirPods Pro 2 which by far, has the best transparency out of all the earbuds I’ve tested.
It’s also not the most compact. It’s true that its case is smaller than its predecessor’s, but it is still pretty large. Not only compared to the AirPods Pro, but also products from Jabra, Sony, Samsung. So it wouldn’t be for someone who wants something ultra-portable that can slip into a coins pocket easily.
Liberty 4’s thickness vs AirPods Pro 2
So great product, yes, with great performance and features. But it could be smaller, and have better transparency. It’s not exactly an AirPods Pro killer, but it is still very compelling versus anything else at this price point. That’s my take on the Soundcore Liberty 4. But what do you think? Leave your comments below.
And if you’d like to check the latest prices, you can do that from the links below!
Soundcore Liberty 4 - https://amzn.to/3VRyTZg
AirPods Pro 2 - https://amzn.to/3VbAmsW
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