Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 True Wireless  Headphones Review

These headphones have a somewhat similar look to the Anker SoundCore Life P3 Truly Wireless with an ear stem design. They have a slightly glossy finish and the manufacturer's label is on both stems. They come in two colors: 'Midnight Black' and 'Cloud White'.

The Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 have a comfortable fit. They're lightweight and don't have a deep in-ear fit. Unfortunately, they can pop out of your ears if you're chewing or talking. We also noticed that the ear tips could detach from the buds when pulling them out of your ear, leaving the tips in your ear canal. On the upside, they come with a few different sizes of ear tips to help you get the best fit.

These headphones have good controls. They have a touch-sensitive surface on each stem that's easy to use. There are chimes to let you know when you're cycling between ANC, normal, and transparency modes. There are also tones for tap feedback, though you have to turn this feature on in the companion app.

On the left ear:

• Triple tap: Skips to the next track.

On the right ear:

• Triple tap: Skips to the previous track.

On either earbud:

• Single tap: Plays and pauses audio.
• Double tap: Cycles between ANC on, normal, and transparency mode. Also, answers or ends calls. Keep in mind that you won't be able to cycle between ANC settings during a call.
• Triple tap: Declines a call.

These in-ears are pretty portable. They're very small and easily fit into most bags or pockets without an issue.

The carrying case is quite similar in build to other Anker products like the Anker Soundcore Liberty 3 Pro Truly Wireless. There's a light on the front of the case to help you know when the case is on. There are two lights inside the case, one for each bud, that light up and blink when the buds are charging. There's a pairing button on the back of the case too.

The build quality of the Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 is good. They're mostly made of cheap plastic and the carrying case's lid seems a bit flimsy. That said, the buds are certified IPX4 for resistance against splashes of water, so they're sturdy and durable enough for runs in the park.

These buds have a stable fit. Once you get a good fit using the provided ear tips, they shouldn't fall out during a jog in the park or a moderate workout. However, the buds can pop out if you're chewing or talking, which is a bit annoying.

• Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 headphones
• 4x tip sizes
• Charging case
• USB-A to USB-C charging cable
• Manuals

The Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 have a very bright sound profile. While they have extra bass to add thump, punch, and boom to audio, they have even more treble, which makes vocals and instruments sound harsh. Sibilants are also piercing, which can cause listening fatigue over time. Luckily, you can really fine-tune their sound to your liking using their companion app's graphic EQ and presets. While our unit's L/R drivers are mismatched and it's noticeable in real-life content, this may not be the case for all units.

The frequency response consistency of these buds is excellent. They're a bit sensitive to fit and can pop out of your ear over time, which can affect their treble delivery. However, once you get a good fit using the provided ear tips, you should get consistent audio delivery each time you use them.

The bass accuracy of these headphones is good. The left driver is more overemphasized than the right driver, adding extra thump, punch, and boom to mixes. This is well-suited for genres like EDM and hip-hop with rumbly basslines.

The mid accuracy of these buds is decent. The low to mid-mid are fairly flat and well-balanced, which results in present vocals and instruments. However, the high-mid is overemphasized, so the upper harmonics of vocals and instruments are very harsh.

The Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 have poor treble accuracy. The range is very overemphasized across the range and is more prominent in the right driver. As a result, vocals and instruments are harsh and painful while sibilants are piercing and painful. In songs like Losing My Religion by R.E.M., cymbals and S and T sounds are overly sharp and can be fatiguing during long listening sessions.

The peaks and dips performance of these buds is satisfactory. The left and right drivers are mismatched, so the left driver has more overemphasized bass than the right. This adds extra thump, punch, and boom to mixes. However, a dip affects the left driver in the low-mid, thinning vocals and instruments, while the dip in the right driver affects the mid-mid, pushing vocals and instruments to the back of the mix. Another peak affects the right driver in the high-mid, making vocals and instruments sound harsh. In addition, the left driver is more affected by the dip in the low-treble, veiling vocals and instruments. That said, both drivers are equally affected by a peak in the mid-treble, which makes sibilants piercing and painful.

The imaging performance is good. Anker has had a few hits and misses when it comes to quality control. While our unit's L/R drivers are well-matched in group delay, which ensures tight bass and transparent treble, there's slight amplitude and frequency mismatch, which can cause an imbalance in the stereo image. There are also a couple of peaks starting in the low-mid all the way to the low-treble. This causes channel imbalance and vocals in songs like Rolling in the Deep by Adele are pushed back in your mix as well as skewed to the right. However, imaging can vary per unit depending on quality control and ergonomics.

These headphones have a bad passive soundstage, but that's to be expected from in-ears. Their design bypasses your outer ear, which needs to be activated by sound in order to create a large and out-of-head soundstage. Their soundstage seems small, closed-off, and as if sound is coming from inside your head, which isn't very immersive.

These headphones have a Spatial Audio mode in their companion app. It allows you to choose between fixed speaker modeling and head tracking. You can also choose between 'Music Mode' and 'Movie Mode', which can help create a more immersive audio experience.

The Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 have a good weighted harmonic distortion performance. There's a very small peak in between the mid to high-bass, which is very hard to hear with real-life content. All the frequencies otherwise fall within good limits, resulting in clean and pure audio reproduction.

These are the settings used to test these earbuds. Our results are only valid in this configuration.

The noise isolation performance is okay. We encountered some issues testing their noise cancelling (ANC) performance. These headphones have an adaptive ANC system, which automatically adjusts performance to better suit the noise around you. However, the ANC can turn off if the skin sensor isn't activated, so we used silicone with copper tape to simulate skin. The adaptive ANC would also switch to a lower level if it determined that our test signal wasn't loud enough. In addition, we noticed a couple of peaks above 0. In the case of the 11-120Hz band, we recorded roughly 6dB of difference between ANC off and the headphones completely removed from our rig. As a result, we are investigating this issue. However, these issues are all limited to our testing, and you won't encounter them in real-life use.

When using the adaptive ANC, the buds do a sub-par job of blocking out the low rumble of bus engines, which can be frustrating if you travel a lot. They're more effective when it comes to mid-range sounds like office chatter, though. However, they can passively isolate more high-pitched noise, like the hum of an AC unit, than the ANC.

These headphones also have manual ANC controls with three modes: 'Weak', 'Moderate', and 'Strong'. You can see a comparison between the manual and adaptive ANC here. The adaptive ANC offers a slightly better overall noise isolation performance than setting the manual ANC to 'Strong'. Their cheaper sibling, the Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 NC Truly Wireless, offers significantly better noise isolation performance despite their lower price tag. Consider the Sony WF-C700N Truly Wireless as well, which also have better ANC than the Liberty 4.

The leakage performance of these headphones is great. Leakage is mostly concentrated in the treble range and sounds thin. If you're listening to audio at high volumes in a noisy environment, others around you won't be able to hear it.

The recording quality of the integrated mic is mediocre at best. Your voice sounds thin and dark. However, you should still be heard somewhat clearly.

The noise handling performance of the mic is very good. The mic is able to separate your voice from background noise. That said, speech can become distorted if there are loud sounds like a train arriving at the station, while you're talking.

The battery performance of these buds is decent. They're advertised to last seven hours continuously with their ANC on, but we measured less than that at six hours. That said, battery life can vary depending on use, including your listening volume, and whether you have the ANC and Spatial Audio modes on. Luckily, there are two additional charges in their carrying case, if you need it. They also have an auto-off timer that you can customize via the companion app, and you can use one bud while the other one charges.

These headphones are compatible with the Anker Soundcore app, which offers an outstanding amount of features. You can adjust the ANC controls, switch between manual and adaptive ANC, and customize the transparency mode. You can also access an 8-band graphic EQ and presets, access the Spatial Audio mode, and switch sound modes between SBC and LDAC codecs. You can even adjust the prompt tones as well as the auto-off timer and update the firmware. What's a bit unusual is that the app has a few wellness-related features too such as guided workouts. Since the buds have a built-in heart-rate monitor, the app can also be used to detect your stress levels. You can see a video of how these kinds of features work here.

The Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 have great Bluetooth connectivity. They can connect with up to two devices at a time and they support LDAC codec, which is Sony's proprietary codec for Hi-Res audio. Keep in mind that if you're using LDAC, you won't be able to connect to more than one device simultaneously. When you're using LDAC, they have high latency on PC, so this codec isn't ideal for streaming. It's lower on Android devices though. If you're using SBC, which is the default codec, they have high latency on PC and Android devices, though it falls within acceptable levels on iOS. Keep in mind that some apps compensate for latency.

These headphones come with a USB-A to USB-C cable for charging up the case. It can't be used for audio.

These headphones can connect to PCs via Bluetooth with full audio and mic compatibility. However, you won't be able to connect them to these devices in any other way.

The Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 come with a carrying case that holds two extra charges. It has a USB-C port for charging up the case, and it supports wireless charging.