Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Review: Master of Phone Calls | WIRED

Overview

The Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro did something I wasn't expecting: It made me call my family more.

Here's my problem: I have aging parents who are losing their hearing, and I like to mumble. That's a bad combination for catching up over the phone during my New York City commute. I almost always have to talk loudly and repeat myself way more often than I would like. It makes the whole conversation feel unnatural, so much so that a little part of me dreads making that phone call.

Details

I've tested over 50 pairs of wireless earbuds in my career as a headphones expert, and none of them have totally solved this problem. That is, until I started reviewing the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro, with its Guinness World Records claim of “highest speech quality score.” And what sounded like pure marketing at first turned into something else—earbuds that are probably my new daily carry.

The Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro has a new design from its predecessor. The buds have a larger, flat pill shape (similar to the second-gen Bose Quiet Comfort Ultra Earbuds) and are bigger and heavier than stem-shaped buds like Apple Air Pods Pro 3. While they are a little big, they are very comfortable—I wore them for multiple hours without any irritation or fatigue. In the box, there are multiple alternative ear tips and wing-tip sizes to find your ideal fit.

The pill-shaped surface is touch-sensitive, so you'll be doing a lot of tapping, swiping, and holding to control things like media, volume, and noise-canceling modes.

The charging case has a touchscreen on the front that shows the buds' and case's battery levels, but if you swipe around, you can control settings for active noise cancellation (ANC), sound profiles, Dolby Audio, and more. The touchscreen is much larger and more useful than the display on the previous Liberty 4 Pro, but not as attention-grabbing as the giant screen that covers the entire case for the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Max. It's a nice addition, though I usually prefer to adjust settings using the on-ear controls or Soundcore app.

Inside the earbuds, there's an even bigger change that makes them stand out from Soundcore's previous headphones: the Anker Thus AI chip (Anker is Soundcore's parent company), which uses a combined CPU and memory design (compute-in-memory) for vastly increased efficiency. I'm not going to get too in the weeds, but this chip is a big investment from the brand compared to using an off-the-shelf option (like many of its rivals do). For the layman, the actual result is that these earbuds are excellent at processing your voice and outside noise. I expect to see it featured in many future Soundcore products.

New York City is one of the best places to test noise-canceling and microphone quality in the real world. You have easy access to busy roads, bustling cafes, highway overpasses, and loud subway platforms, all within one commute.

In all of those environments, the Liberty 5 Pro sounded astonishingly good on a call. My voice was always loud and clear, and all background noise essentially vanished. Fire truck sirens, a busy highway overpass, a crowd of NYC commuters, a loud cafe—none of it came through in any of my calls or audio recordings using the Liberty 5 Pro. “You don't hear that truck?” was a common refrain during all my calls. Apple Air Pods Pro 3, Bose Quiet Comfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen), and Shokz Open Dots 2 sounded bad by comparison.

Noise canceling is also top-tier. The buds have the standard noise cancellation, transparency, adaptive, and off modes, and you can fine-tune ANC strength (from one to five) using the case or Soundcore app. The only earbuds that noticeably canceled more noise were the Bose Quiet Comfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) and Sony WF-1000XM6.

Out of the box, the sound profile (called Soundcore Signature) isn't an immediate slam dunk like call quality and ANC are. It's bass-heavy, so much so that I would bet even an untrained ear would notice the bass boost, especially compared to other earbuds from Apple or Bose. There are five preset sound profiles (I preferred Soundcore Balance), an eight-band custom equalizer to play with, and a personalized Hear ID mode, which tunes the profile to your preferences based on an audio quiz where you select which clip you prefer.

Using the Soundcore Balance or custom Hear ID profile, the Liberty 5 Pro sounds great. Again, it's not quite as detailed as Air Pods Pro 3 or Quiet Comfort Ultra Earbuds, but it's close enough to be enjoyable for most people, especially given the significantly lower price.

It's not often that a new pair of earbuds becomes my go-to. The convenience of the Apple ecosystem usually means Air Pods Pro 3 are, begrudgingly, my earbuds of choice. But I'm still using the Liberty 5 Pro; I'm using them as I write this review. The Liberty 5 Pro is comfortable, sounds good, has great ANC, works well on i Phone and Android devices, and fits securely, making it well suited for almost any task. An IP55 rating means the earbuds should hold their own against dust and light rain. Most importantly, it offers such dramatically better call quality that I enjoy phone calls more, even with my mumbling and NYC street noise.

Sure, sound clarity isn't perfect. Yes, the buds are a bit large. But when those are the only complaints I have about earbuds that cost nearly $100 less than most of my other top recommendations, that's a big deal. In 2026, the Liberty 5 Pro might be the best value earbuds you can get.

Key Takeaways

The Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro did something I wasn't expecting: It made me call my family more
Here's my problem: I have aging parents who are losing their hearing, and I like to mumble
I've tested over 50 pairs of wireless earbuds in my career as a headphones expert, and none of them have totally solved this problem
The Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro has a new design from its predecessor
The pill-shaped surface is touch-sensitive, so you'll be doing a lot of tapping, swiping, and holding to control things like media, volume, and noise-canceling modes