Anker’s Soundcore sub-brand spent years punching above its weight in the budget and midrange earbuds market, and Liberty 5 Pro is an ambitious new swing. Released alongside the pricier Liberty 5 Pro Max (reviewed separately tomorrow), these $169.99 earbuds aim squarely at anyone who wants AirPods Pro-level features without paying AirPods Pro prices.
This Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro earbuds review finds them excellent overall. They particularly excel at call clarity.
Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro earbuds review
Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro earbuds rely on the Thus AI chip for amazing call clarity. Sound quality and fit excel, too.
- Thus AI chip
- Stellar call clarity
- Touchscreen case
- Find My support
- Bass-forward tuning not for everyone
iPhone users have long had to settle for either Apple’s walled garden or a more limited Android-focused experience from third-party earbuds. Liberty 5 Pro offers a surprisingly compelling alternative — with a few notable caveats.
Table of contents: Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro earbuds review
- A new design that works
- Touch controls and case
- Features rival earbuds twice the price: Clear Calls and more
- ANC gets the job done
- How it connects to your iPhone
- Battery life
- Sound quality
- Worth buying over Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Max?
- Specs at a glance
- Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro earbuds review: Verdict
A new design that works
The first thing I noticed is that these don’t look like previous Soundcore earbuds. Gone is the stem design familiar from earlier Liberty models. In its place is a curved oval shape that sits more like the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds than anything Anker has made before.
It’s a bigger, chunkier profile, but in practice I found them quite comfortable and secure. That’s largely thanks to a concha fin at the top of each earbud that tucks into the outer ear and keeps everything locked in place during movement.
If ear fins aren’t your thing — or they simply don’t suit your ear shape — Anker considered that, too. The box includes two flush plastic pieces that snap in to replace the fins, letting the earbuds sit smoothly against your ears without any protruding hardware. You also get five sizes of ear tips, which is generous at this price and makes it much easier to get the seal you need for good noise cancellation.
Touch controls and case
Photo: David Snow/Cult of Mac
Controls use swipe gestures on the earbud surface. By default, swiping up or down adjusts volume, and you can assign single-, double- and triple-tap gestures through the companion Soundcore app. The gestures work reliably enough, though they take a little getting used to if you’re coming from a tap-based system.
The case is a significant departure, too. It slides open rather than flipping (a premium touch), and a narrow touchscreen strip runs along the front. The screen shows battery levels at a glance and lets you swipe between sound modes without reaching for your phone. It’s not a full display — that’s the domain of the Pro Max with its big AMOLED screen — but it’s functional and genuinely useful. The case charges via USB-C or Qi wireless charging, which is a welcome addition at this price. One minor complaint: the case is a bit bulky for a jeans pocket — noticeably larger than an AirPods Pro 3 case — though it fits comfortably in a jacket pocket or bag.
Both earbuds carry an IP55 rating. That means they get protection against sweat and light rain. That makes them a solid choice for gym sessions and commutes, though you wouldn’t want to dunk them.
Features rival earbuds twice the price: Clear Calls and more
Photo: Soundcore
Where Liberty 5 Pro really sets itself apart is in its feature set. The Soundcore app is one of the most capable companion apps available for non-Apple earbuds, and it’s available for iPhone as well as Android.
Everything below is powered by Anker’s new Thus chip, designed for on-device AI processing in battery-constrained devices. The practical upshot is that features like AI voice assistant Anka and Clear Calls — Soundcore’s AI-based background noise cancellation for phone calls — run locally rather than leaning on a cloud connection. That keeps performance snappy and avoids unexpected battery drain.
HearID
Start with HearID, a personalised listening test that builds a custom EQ profile tuned to your specific hearing. It takes a few minutes and produces genuinely noticeable results — particularly useful if you’ve ever felt that earbuds default to a sound signature that doesn’t quite suit you. Beyond that, there’s an eight-band custom equalizer and four presets (Powerful Bass, Clear Vocals, Calm and Soothing, and Balanced) for quick switching based on what you’re listening to.
Dolby Audio
Dolby Audio is also on board, adding a spatial sound effect to music with head-tracking suppor, meaning the sound field shifts as you turn your head. It’s the kind of feature Apple has made central to the AirPods experience, and it works similarly here. Results vary by genre, as they do on AirPods: classical and film scores benefit most, while compressed pop tracks tend to sound a bit diffuse.
Anka AI assistant
Then there’s Anka, Soundcore’s new on-device AI assistant. Activating it by saying “Hey Anka,” I found it handled questions, weather updates and playback commands hands-free. More impressive is the real-time translation feature, which continuously translates spoken languages through the earbuds with minimal lag. A face-to-face translation mode handles back-and-forth conversations. That’s a remarkably practical feature for travelers or anyone working in a multilingual environment.
In April 2026, Soundcore noted Liberty 5 Pro got certified by Guinness World Records for the highest objective speech quality score (G-MOS) for true wireless earbuds. It’s a marketing-friendly claim. But it tracks with real-world performance: call quality is genuinely excellent, perhaps the best I’ve tested in this price range.
ANC gets the job done
Photo: David Snow/Cult of Mac
Liberty 5 Pro uses Adaptive ANC 4.0, drawing on an eight-microphone array that processes audio data up to 384,000 times per second and adjusts cancellation continuously as your environment changes. In practical terms, it handled the low-frequency drone of a bus commute very effectively. Office chatter was reduced significantly. It’s not quite at the level of the Sony WF-1000XM6 or Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, which cost considerably more, but it competes respectably.
The app gives you five levels of manual ANC strength, plus an Adaptive mode that tunes itself to your environment automatically. Transparency mode is also available for when you need to hear your surroundings — it sounds natural and not overly processed. One thing to note: activating ANC does have a subtle colouring effect on the sound, slightly boosting bass. It’s not egregious, but purists may want to tweak the EQ when switching modes.
How it connects to your iPhone
Photo: David Snow/Cult of Mac
Bluetooth is version 6.1, with support for SBC, AAC and LDAC codecs. iPhone users will pair over AAC, which is Apple’s preferred codec and sounds excellent. You will not miss LDAC, which is Android-only and primarily benefits users with hi-res audio files.
Multipoint is enabled by default, letting you stay connected to up to three devices simultaneously: your iPhone, iPad and MacBook, for instance. That’s particularly handy if you move between devices throughout the day.
If you’re coming from AirPods, the one thing you’ll miss is the seamless automatic switching between Apple devices. Liberty 5 Pro’s multipoint connection is manual — you select your device. Apple Find My support is included, so you can locate a lost earbud through the Find My app, which is a genuinely useful addition for iPhone users. Google Fast Pair is also available for Android users.
Battery life
Soundcore rates Liberty 5 Pro at up to 12 hours of playback with ANC off, or 6.5 hours with ANC on. Combined with the case, that’s 50 hours without ANC, or 28 hours with it active. A five-minute charge delivers up to four hours of playback, which is useful in a pinch. My real-world ANC-on battery life testing came in close to the rated 6.5 hours.
By comparison, AirPods Pro 3 are rated at 6 hours per charge with ANC on and 30 hours total with the case — so Liberty 5 Pro is competitive on stamina.
Sound quality
Out of the box, Liberty 5 Pro defaults to a bass-forward tuning. It’s not extreme, but bass-heavy tracks can feel a little overwhelming before you’ve dialed in the EQ. A quick adjustment in the Soundcore app resolves this — the Balanced preset or a custom EQ with a touch less low-end warmth produces a sound that’s engaging, detailed and well-suited to everything from podcasts to electronic music. Midrange clarity is good, and vocals come through cleanly. Treble extension is decent without being fatiguing.
Soundcore’s AI Sound Enhancement feature claims to recover up to 65% of the audio quality typically lost to Bluetooth compression. Whether that claim holds up under laboratory conditions, the end result is a sound that feels more full and textured than you might expect from AAC on an iPhone.
Worth buying over Liberty 5 Pro Max?
Photo: Soundcore
Liberty 5 Pro Max, reviewed separately, costs $60 more and offers the same earbuds with a significantly upgraded case — a full 1.78-inch AMOLED touchscreen and an AI Note-Taker that records and transcribes meetings. If you sit in a lot of meetings or conduct interviews, Pro Max’s extras may justify the price premium. But the earbuds themselves are identical, and so are the ANC, battery life, sound quality and core AI features.
If your priority is the earbuds rather than the case — even one with surprising skills like note taking — Liberty 5 Pro at $169.99 is the smarter buy.
Specs at a glance:
- Price: $169.99
- Connectivity: Bluetooth 6.1 (AAC on iPhone)
- Water and dust resistance: IP55
- Battery life: 6.5 hrs ANC on / 28 hrs total
- Noise canceling: Adaptive ANC 4.0
- Eight-mic array
- Dolby Audio with head tracking
- Apple Find My support
- USB-C + wireless charging
Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro earbuds review: Verdict
Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro earbuds rely on the Thus AI chip for amazing call clarity. Sound quality and fit excel, too.
- Thus AI chip
- Stellar call clarity
- Touchscreen case
- Find My support
- Bass-forward tuning not for everyone
★★★★☆
Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro is a genuinely impressive pair of earbuds for their price. AirPods Pro 3 cost $249 and offer the benefits of Apple ecosystem integration that no third-party earbud can fully replicate — automatic device switching, deeper Siri integration and the just-works simplicity of a native Apple product. But for $80 less, Liberty 5 Pro delivers comparable sound quality, competitive ANC, exceptional call performance and a feature set that arguably surpasses what Apple offers in a few areas (live translation, customizable EQ, HearID).
For iPhone users who want great earbuds without paying a premium for the Apple badge, these are the most compelling option available right now. And tomorrow my next review will look more closely at Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Max and its extra features.
David Snow, an expert on Apple hardware and software, writes on a variety of technological and cultural topics for Cult of Mac. They include Apple news, technology buying guides, and features about computer setups and Apple TV shows and movies.
With 30 years of experience covering technology and other subjects, he has written and edited for numerous print and online publications, including CMP Media, TechTV.com, CNET, Wired News, Red Herring magazine, Law.com, The National Law Journal and Law Technology News magazine. Among other roles, he served as executive editor of the Law.com network of websites and editorial director, technology, for ALM Media.
Snow graduated with a B.A. from Syracuse University with majors in magazine journalism and psychology. While there, he worked as a reporter for The Daily Orange newspaper and associate editor of Equal Time magazine.
Founder of the blog At the Waterline, he can be reached on X (formerly Twitter) via @atthewaterline and on Mastodon via @dsnow.
