Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro Review – Too Good For The Price

Hello! Welcome to my review of the Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro truly wireless noise-cancelling earbuds. Let me start by saying these are excellent earbuds, especially given their budget-friendly price.

There’s a touch slider on the case for adjusting ANC and transparency levels, another factor contributing to its larger size. However, these settings can also be quickly adjusted through the app, which feels more practical.

For comfort, I tested wearing them for three hours, both with and without glasses, and they felt great in both cases. The earbuds rest within the ear and don’t interfere with glasses frames. They’re also excellent for workouts. With an IPX5 rating, they resist splashes and sweat. During exercise, they stayed firmly in place and were so comfortable I forgot I was wearing them.

Replacement ear tips are available on Soundcore’s site or from third-party sellers like AliExpress (surprise) and Amazon.

Controls

The earbuds use 100% touch controls, primarily involving squeezes. A quick squeeze plays/pauses content or answers/hangs up calls. Double-squeezing the right earbud skips to the next track, while double squeezing the left earbud goes to the previous track. Holding either for two seconds toggles between ANC and transparency modes. Sliding up or down on either earbud adjusts the volume.

The touch commands can be tricky. While responsive, the touch surface is so thin that precise taps are sometimes hard to achieve. For instance, attempting a double squeeze to skip tracks may not register correctly, resulting in a pause instead. A larger touch-sensitive area would make commands smoother. While not a dealbreaker, it can be frustrating at times.

On the bright side, the app offers extensive customization options—rare for mid-tier earbuds. You can even set commands for smart assistants like Google Assistant, which worked reliably in my Android tests. Another premium-like feature is passive play/pause: removing the earbuds pauses content, while putting them back on resumes playback.

Noise Cancelling

In terms of ANC performance, these earbuds surprisingly hold up in noisy environments like planes with low-pitched, high-volume sounds. At around 75–80% volume, podcasts and news will remain audible—a standout feature for budget earbuds. During testing in a busy room with around ten people, vocal suppression was effective enough to comfortably listen to one of my videos at 55–60% volume (although I am boring to listen to).

Transparency mode is functional for conversations but feels like chatting over Teams or Zoom—not crystal clear, yet sufficient for quick discussions.

One standout feature, often missing even from premium devices, is quick listen mode which only activates with the wearer’s voice. Activating this via the app lowers playback volume to about 5%, turns off ANC, and enables transparency mode for clear conversations. After the set time you choose in the app (e.g., 5–10 seconds), playback resumes at normal volume with ANC reactivated. During testing at a busy birthday gathering, the earbuds flawlessly recognized only my voice, ensuring smooth functionality.

A minor gripe is that quick listen doesn’t pause content before activating transparency, though given the price point, this is hardly a complaint.

Unfortunately, sidetone mode, which lets you hear your own voice during calls, isn’t available. Again, this feature isn’t typically found in budget friendly earbuds.

Battery

Earbud battery performance closely matches Soundcore’s claims. With ANC on, I averaged 7.5 hours per charge, and in regular headphone mode (ANC and transparency off), I got slightly better results at 10.5 hours, compared to the stated 10 hours. Regular earbud mode can be achieved by sliding the ANC/transparency slider right in the middle.

The earbuds recharge fully in 40 minutes, aligning with the advertised time. Recharging the case via USB-C takes about 2 hours—faster than the claimed 2.5 hours—and wireless charging takes 2.2 hours, beating Soundcore’s stated 3.5 hours. Yes, you read the correctly, this inexpensive product supports wireless charging for the case.

The case supports up to three full charges for the earbuds, with a bit extra for a fourth cycle. Magnetic snap-ins ensure easy placement of the earbuds, and the USB-C port is conveniently located on the back.

Looking at a fully charged case and earbuds, with ANC on Soundcore claims 30 hours of battery life, but I averaged 27.2 hours at 60% volume—likely more than their 50% test volume. Without ANC or transparency modes, Soundcore claims 40 hours; my testing showed closer to 37 hours at the same 60% volume, suggesting their claims are reasonably accurate.

Microphone Quality

In quiet settings, the microphone quality is decent but aligns with the budget-friendly price. While not terrible, it sounds rougher than a laptop mic, with faint static occasionally noticeable.

In noisy environments, it excels at noise cancellation despite maintaining the same faint static. Even loud, high-pitched sounds like clapping were reduced significantly, ensuring they didn’t disrupt calls.

In windy conditions, the microphone performed similarly to noisy settings, effectively minimizing wind noise and allowing clear voice transmission.

Audio Quality

Supported audio codecs include SBC, AAC, and LDAC (enabled via the app). Sound quality is solid for the price—neither dull nor flat, with a slight bass emphasis.

Bass-heavy songs like Kendrick Lamar’s “Hey Now” sounded muddy at higher bass levels but hit the sweet spot at three-quarters intensity. Less bass-focused genres like EDM and rock maintained excellent clarity even with maxed-out bass. Performance varies slightly by song, but overall, it’s impressive for the price.

The mids can feel overemphasized, pushing vocals harder than desired and occasionally straining on the ears. Setting the equalizer to about three-quarters of the bar seems to be the sweet spot for enhancing vocals without compromising other instrumental sounds.

Boosting the highs adds energy and allows sharper sounds to cut through with crisp clarity.

At this price point, the audio quality is fantastic—issues like slightly muddy bass at higher levels are minor and don’t detract from its overall performance.

Wearing glasses has no impact on sound quality, as previously noted during comfort testing. The design ensures there’s no interference between the earbuds and glasses frames.

Software

The app offers various features, including ANC adjustments, sound modes (custom and preset equalizers), and a hearing test to suggest preferred listening settings. While spatial audio is included, it feels like a gimmick—not worth considering in this or most other devices.

Custom control commands and features like “easy chat” (quick listening mode) have been discussed earlier, so I won’t reiterate them here.

The system settings menu, though surprisingly packed with options, hides features like volume safe limit control and fit tests. It also includes settings for the charging case, allowing custom commands like remote camera control—another gimmick, as most phones support this natively.

Firmware updates are available, with several arriving out of the box before this review. Soundcore continues to deliver impressive products at budget-friendly prices.

Conclusion

These earbuds stand out as one of the best in their category—astonishingly underpriced given their performance. It’s hard not to wonder how Soundcore profits from a device of this calibre at such a low cost, but they’ve clearly pulled it off.

These are pretty much must buys. If you’re really on a tight budget and you really want to get mid-tier pricing performance and some features that are not found even in premium price devices, the Liberty 4 Pro are the ones to absolutely get.