soundcore Liberty 4 NC
soundcore Liberty 4 Pro
The Cases
Nobody wants a large case for their earbuds, and both are arond 6cm square and so are easily pocketable.
The case that comes with the older 4 NC’s is a fairly standard affair. It offers USB-C charging and an LED indicator to indicate how charged the case is. The case on the 4 Pro’s though takes it a step further. It features an OLED screen that also tells you how charged each earbud is! It is also equipped with a menu which you swipe through, using the touch bar. This allows you to control settings such as ambient sound, spatial audio, atmospheric monitoring, find my device, and even use it as a remote camera trigger. You now don’t necessarily need the soundcore mobile app in order to control alot of what these earbuds can do.
The ‘find my device’ feature on the case is particularly useful as it plays a loud sound out of each earbud helping you find them!
The Design
Both of these earbuds are very similar in design. Probably quite unsurprisingly. Both earbuds are similar in weight and weigh around 5.6g each and so you’re not going to find either pair of earbuds heavy on the ears.
The Liberty 4 NC’s come with four different ear tips to help you get a good fit in your ears. However, the Liberty 4 Pro’s manage to top that as they come with six different ear tips. So, if you find it difficult to fit earbuds in your ears, then you’ll have more luck with the Pro’s.
With a good fit, both pairs of earbuds stayed in my ears well. I could even go jumping around and they stayed in my ears. I wouldn’t use them for long periods of exercise though. A pair of clip-on, or over-ear, earbuds are going to serve you better for that.
Controls
The Liberty 4 NC’s come with the standard touch controls, where, with either a single, double, triple tap, or long press, a varety of different commands can be initiated, such as play/pause and volume up/down.
The Liberty 4 Pro’s on the other hand have a more Apple Airpods style controls. A single, double, triple, or long squeeze of the stem of these earbuds instigates different commands, and stroking them up and down triggers volume up and down. That sounds weird, and can take some getting used to, but once you do I actually found it easier to use than the touch controls on most other earbuds.
What commands each action executes can also be configured in the soundcore mobile app for both of these earbuds.
Battery Life
With ANC turned off, both of these will give you 10 hours of battery life from a single charge. Including the case, you’ll get 50 hours total for the Pro’s, but only 40 hours for the NC’s.
Battery life drops significanrtly though with ANC turned on. The Liberty 4 NC’s then give you 8 hours on a single change, and the Pro’s drop down to 7.5 hours.
Both are equipped with fast charging. The NC’s will get 4 hours of playback from a 10 minute charge. The Pro’s halve the charging time and give you 4 hours of playback with just a 5 minute charge.
Both pairs of earbuds will take an hour and a half to charge. Charging both cases over USB-C takes 3 hours. Both cases also have wireless charging too!
The Sound
On paper, the NC’s have a larger 11mm driver. However the Pro’s have two drivers! A 10.5mm bass driver and a 4.6mm Tweeter. That should give the Pro’s the edge when it comes to sound.
They both have the same codec support. So SBC, AAC, and also hi-res LDAC audio support for those of you that have hi-res audio needs.
The sound of both of these can be heavily adjusted if you want to. This is thanks to the soundcore mobile app. In it there are 22 EQ presets to choose from. You can also go into the 8-band custom EQ to tune to your exact preference. They also both provide a Hear ID sound test. This plays a series of tests to create an EQ profile designed to match your hearing.
They do both have pseudo surround or spatial surround mode. So the NC’s has 3D surround sound. The Pro’s have spatial audio. I don’t particularly like either though. They’re a bit gimmicky and mess with the sound profile way too much.
Out-of-the-box, the NC’s were a little light in the bass and a bit harsh in the trebles, which I thought the Pro’s sounded pretty good.
I could, with a bit of EQ tweaking, get the NC’s sounding a lot closer to the Pro’s though. However, the dual drivers in the Pro’s definitely make a difference. There is a weight and punch, and a presence to the bass, that just isn’t there in the NC’s. That’s not to say that the NC’s are bad. It’s just that the dedicated drivers in the Pro’s make it notably stand out.
The treble was also nice and clear on both, if a bit more rounded and full bodied on the Pro’s.
Weatherproof
There is a slight difference in the waterproof rating between the two. The NC’s rated IPX4, and the Pro’s rated IPX5. In reality it makes little difference though. So when you go to the gym, or you get caught out in the rain, these will be fine.
ANC
So the NC’s use soundcore’s older ANC 2.0 whilst the Pro’s use soundcore’s newer ANC 3.0. So you would expect the latter to be better.
Both have adaptive ANC although the 4 Pro’s do this with 6 sound sensors and a barometric sensor, monitoring your environment 3 times a second to give you the best ANC it can. At least you know where your extra battery life is going with ANC turned on!
You can turn that off and just manually change it, and there both earbuds give you 5 different levels to choose from, from low to high. I found it best when just left on high.
Comparing both of these earbuds at their maximum ANC setting and there was a slight difference with the 4 Pro’s being better at canceling out the lower frequencies, such as plane engine noise, and cafe background noise such as the whir of a coffee machine. Voices still got though on both but it was less pronounced on the Pro’s. So the ANC on Pro’s are generally more refined than the ANC on the 4 NC’s.
Both of these also have a wind reduction mode. This is supposed to stop the whistling sound of wind rushing past your ears if you’re outside on a windy day. You get the slightest reduction with this mode turned on but it’s pretty ineffective. It also reduces the effect of the ANC though. So it’s not a mode I’d both using.
Both earbuds also have transparency mode so that you can hear your surroundings when you need to. The 4 NC’s only have two modes., ‘default’ and ‘voice’. The latter is supposed to amplify people talking more. The 4 Pro’s take it further though and provide five different transparency levels from weak to strong. allowing you to choose how much noise comes through. So unsurprisingly I prefered the transparency mode on the 4 Pro’s as you just have more control over it.
The Mics
Both earbuds have 6 mics in them to help make your voice clear when using them to take a call, and I did think both did well in doing exactly that. Overall the Pro’s sounded better though. My voice just came through clearer over noisy backgrounds and also canceling out more of that background noise at the same time.
Both also support multi-point so you can connect to multiple devices at the same time.
Mobile App
As both pairs of earbuds connect to the same soundcore mobile app. There are lots of features that that app provides to both earbuds such as wear detection, auto power off, and volume limiter.
The 4 Pro’s only also come with ‘Easy Chat’, where the earbuds will lower the sound of your music when you start talking so you can clearly hear someone and then raise it again when you stop talking. It’s way too sensitive for my liking as even singing to yourself, or just humming, triggers it. It just isn’t practical.
It is surprising to see that only the 4 NC’s have a gaming mode for lower latency performance which is especially useful for mobile gaming. With it enabled on the 4 NC’s, I didn’t notice a slight reduction in latency but it’s not the best at it and not a reason I would ,or wouldn’t buy either pair.
Verdict
So deciding which of these to buy is a really close call because they share so many of the same features. But if the best sound, mic, and ANC, is what’s important to you then it is a win for the Liberty 4 Pro’s here.
However, the Liberty 4 NC’s are $30 cheaper and have better battery life (just), whilst also having almost as good sound and ANC. So I do still think they’re a good option. Especially if you can get them on sale for even less.