Soundcore has been producing solid earbuds for quite some time, but with the Liberty 5 Pro and 5 Pro Max, it feels like they’re really aiming for the big leagues.
They’re not just trying to be the smart choice for budget shoppers; they’re actually going head-to-head with the likes of Sony, Apple, and Bose.
The Liberty 5 Pro is priced at $169, while the 5 Pro Max comes in at $229.
Both models are a step up from the Liberty 4 Pro and Liberty 5, and the price increase is largely due to a new chip they’ve packed inside.
Soundcore refers to it as a compute-in-memory audio chip, which merges processing and memory into a single unit, offering 150 times the processing power of the Liberty 4 Pro.
This isn’t just a number to throw around; you can really notice the difference in noise cancellation, call quality, and the new features it enables.
Whether that price tag is worth it really depends on how you plan to use your earbuds.
Comfort and Fit
The new buds come with five ear tip sizes instead of six, which sounds like less, but the fit actually feels better.
The part that sits inside your ear is more compact, so if past earbuds have always felt a bit too big or uncomfortable after an hour, these might work better for you.
They’re also slightly lighter, which you notice after a long session.
The bigger change is the wing tips. Two sizes included, and they click into place properly instead of just sort of sitting there.
If you don’t want wings at all, a plastic cover goes on instead. At the gym, the buds stayed in without the wings, and running in them is a bit more comfortable than the older models — less of that thudding impact noise traveling up through the ear tips when your feet hit the ground.
The Liberty 4 Pro and Liberty 5 are still fine for the gym, but the new ones handle it a little better.
All four buds are IP55 rated for dust and water resistance. The Liberty 4 Pro is the only one that’s IPX5, which means no dust resistance — worth knowing if that matters to you.
Case Screens
The Liberty 4 Pro and Liberty 5 have no screen on the case. The new models do, and it’s more useful than it sounds.
The Liberty 5 Pro has a touchscreen you can tap to change noise modes, adjust EQ, toggle spatial audio, flip on easy chat, use the camera remote, find your buds, or manage Bluetooth pairing — all without opening your phone.
It responds well and saves you from digging through the app every time you want to tweak something.
The Liberty 5 Pro Max has a 1.7-inch AMOLED display that looks genuinely good. It’s sharper and brighter than the screen on the JBL Live Pro 3, which is one of the only other earbuds doing something like this.
It’s not as smooth as a phone screen, but it works fine. You get everything the 5 Pro screen has, plus volume and track controls, voice translation access, the AI Notetaker shortcut, and connected device management.
The home screen widgets are customizable and you can change the wallpaper, which is a small thing but a nice one.
Controls
Soundcore dropped the squeeze controls on the new buds and switched to regular touch controls.
The swipe-for-volume is still there and still works really well — fast, accurate, no complaints.
Double tap, triple tap, and long hold can all be customized to trigger Soundcore’s Anchor assistant, your phone’s assistant, AI translation, or ambient mode cycling.
Smart Voice Control is new on both buds. You can say commands out loud to change volume, skip tracks, or switch noise modes without touching anything.
These commands save directly to the earbuds, so they work without an internet connection.
Compared to how voice commands work on the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro or Sony WF-XM6, the Liberty 5 Pro responds noticeably faster. That new chip is doing something real here.
There’s also an Always-On Anchor assistant — a voice AI you can ask questions throughout the day. It needs the app running in the background, and it’s not for everyone, but it’s there.
Wear detection works the same as before. No skin sensor, so if you pocket one earbud, it might think you’re still wearing it. Not ideal, but it’s been like this on Soundcore earbuds for a while.
The regular Liberty 5 still uses squeeze controls and has no swipe volume, making it the most awkward of the four to use day to day. Its only exclusive is a mic mute option you can assign to a single tap — something none of the other three offer, which is a strange oversight.
Connectivity
All four buds support SBC, AAC, and LDAC, along with Google Fast Pair and Microsoft Swift Pair. Nothing surprising there.
The bigger upgrade on the 5 Pro and 5 Pro Max is three-way multipoint — three devices connected at once instead of two.
Switching works in automatic mode, where pressing play on a new device handles the handoff for you, or manual mode, where you pause one device before switching to another. Both work well in practice.
The regular Liberty 5 has one quirk worth knowing: using a single earbud only gives you that ear’s audio channel. Right earbud only plays the right channel. On the other three models, a single earbud plays both channels, which is more useful in real life.
Neither the 5 Pro nor the 5 Pro Max has a dedicated gaming low-latency mode, so if that’s something you rely on, keep it in mind.
Call Quality
Call quality got a significant bump with the new generation. Soundcore actually won a Guinness World Record for how well these buds block background noise on calls — up to 90 dB of noise suppression.
In testing at around 85 dB of simulated background noise, which is genuinely loud, the 5 Pro and 5 Pro Max handled it better than the Liberty 4 Pro and Liberty 5.
Crowd noise, construction, loud music playing nearby — all of it gets filtered down more effectively, and the person on the other end can hear you clearly.
The only complaint is that in really extreme wind or very loud environments, your voice can come out with a slight lisp. It doesn’t make calls unworkable, but it’s noticeable.
In normal everyday conditions though — busy streets, cafes, offices — the improvement over the old generation is easy to hear.
AI Notetaker — 5 Pro Max Only
The case on the 5 Pro Max has its own built-in microphone. Double-tap the case button or tap the screen and it starts recording, with the earbuds completely out of the equation.
You can flag important moments during the recording and it all saves to the case first, then syncs to the Soundcore app automatically. Once synced, the recording gets deleted from the case to free up space.
Everything gets auto-transcribed in the app. You can generate summaries, set speaker names, edit the transcript, and export it as an MP3, a shared link, or several other formats.
Cloud backup is supported too. The free plan gives you 300 minutes before you need a subscription for more time and advanced features.
If you’re already using an AI notetaker or a separate recorder for meetings, lectures, or interviews, this makes a pretty strong case for the 5 Pro Max.
One device doing both jobs well is genuinely convenient. If recording isn’t part of your routine, it’s a feature you’ll probably forget is there.
App and Extra Features
The app experience is similar across all four buds. Noise control settings, an eight-band EQ, and a hearing preference test that builds a custom sound profile for you. The new buds trimmed the EQ presets down to four, but the full manual EQ is still available.
AI Sound Enhancement is new — it tries to add some detail back into lower-quality audio by sharpening the treble slightly. The effect is subtle but real, and worth turning on if you stream at lower quality settings.
Dolby spatial audio with head tracking is on all four buds except the Liberty 5, which has spatial audio but no head tracking. The Liberty 5’s version actually sounds the most natural of the four — less of that artificial reverb — which is a bit unexpected.
Voice translation works on all four, but the Liberty 4 Pro and Liberty 5 require you to open the app each time.
On the 5 Pro and 5 Pro Max you can trigger it from the controls or the case screen directly, which is much quicker.
One thing that disappeared on the new buds: the Liberty 4 Pro had a cabin pressure mode for the ANC when flying. It’s gone now, which is an odd thing to remove.
Noise Cancellation
This is where the new chip makes the clearest difference. The Liberty 5 Pro and 5 Pro Max are comfortably ahead of anything Soundcore has made before in terms of ANC strength.
They’re now past JBL and Samsung, sitting just behind Apple, Bose, and Sony — which is a genuinely impressive place to be for a brand that was nowhere near that conversation not long ago.
The biggest improvement is in mid and high-frequency sounds — voices, fans, air conditioning, the constant background noise of a busy office. Those sounds get blocked about 20% more effectively than on the Liberty 4 Pro and Liberty 5, and that’s the category that most ANC systems find the hardest to handle.
The trade-off is that low, rumbling frequencies — like a plane engine — actually leak through slightly more than on the older models. It’s a small difference and the dedicated plane mode in the settings helps, but it’s worth knowing.
Wind is still a weak spot across all four. After wind hits the mics, it takes 8 to 10 seconds for the ANC to come back to full strength. AirPods Pro and Galaxy Buds 4 Pro recover in a couple of seconds. It’s a bit slow for a chip this powerful, and hopefully something Soundcore can fix through a firmware update.
Switching from noise cancellation to transparency mode also causes a small treble drop on the new buds — about 10%. Not a big deal in use, but the older models handle that transition a bit more smoothly.
Transparency Mode
Soundcore’s transparency mode was always average at best. The 5 Pro and 5 Pro Max change that.
The new transparency sounds natural. Background hiss is mostly gone. Your own voice sounds normal when you speak. That blocked, plugged-up feeling that transparency mode can create is much less noticeable here.
It’s now just behind AirPods Pro 3 and Galaxy Buds 4 Pro in terms of overall quality, which is a huge jump for Soundcore.
Both new models also get an Adaptive Mode — transparency that automatically mixes in some noise cancellation when your surroundings get louder. It works well.
The main complaint is that it’s a bit slow to react to quieter sounds, like a tap running, where the AirPods Pro 3 would handle that faster.
The adaptive transparency level also sits slightly lower than regular transparency, which feels like it should be easy to fix. But as a first version of this feature, it’s solid.
Easy Chat comes back from the Liberty 4 Pro — it’s absent on the Liberty 5. When you start talking, transparency mode flips on automatically so you can hold a quick conversation.
The only issue that’s carried over from the previous generation is that a loud sneeze or cough can accidentally trigger it. Apple and Sony have figured out how to prevent that. Soundcore hasn’t quite gotten there yet.
Sound Quality
Sound quality improves on the new generation, but only a little.
Both the 5 Pro and 5 Pro Max top out at around 114.5 dB, which is slightly less than the Liberty 4 Pro and Liberty 5, though still more than enough volume for any situation.
Stock tuning is heavy on bass. The low end dominates and pushes the mids and highs into the background. For people who love bass, the default sound will feel great.
For everyone else, spending a few minutes in the EQ makes a big difference. Pull the bass down and the sound cleans up a lot — low end stays punchy without being overwhelming, and vocals and instruments come through clearly.
Upper mids are a strong point. Guitars, keys, percussion — and especially distorted guitars — have real presence and bite. The treble is smoother than past Soundcore buds, which tended to go very bright.
There’s good detail without harshness, though the very top of the frequency range is a touch soft. Pushing it up in EQ works to a point, but it gets harsh quickly if you go too far.
Compared to the Liberty 4 Pro and Liberty 5 with EQ applied to both, the new buds come out sounding a bit cleaner and more controlled.
The older models have spikier treble out of the box and can be harder to EQ to a balanced sound. The new tuning still needs adjustment, but it’s easier to work with.
Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro & 5 Pro Max vs Liberty 4 Pro & Liberty 5: Specs Comparison
| Category | Liberty 5 Pro | Liberty 5 Pro Max | Liberty 4 Pro | Liberty 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chip / Processing | New AI audio chip | Same + AI features | Standard chip | Standard chip |
| Drivers | Dual drivers | Dual drivers | Dual (10.5mm + 4.6mm) | Dynamic driver |
| Active Noise Cancelling | Improved ANC (better mids/highs) | Same as 5 Pro | Adaptive ANC 3.0 | Standard ANC |
| Transparency Mode | Major upgrade (more natural) | Same | Good | Improved vs older gen |
| Battery (ANC ON) | ~6.5h / 28h total | ~6.5h / 28h total | ~7.5h / 30h total | ~7–8h / 32h+ |
| Fast Charging | 5 min = ~4h | Same | 5 min = ~4h | 10 min = ~5h |
| Wireless Charging | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Case Display | Touch screen | Large AMOLED screen | Smart display case | No screen |
| Special Features | Voice control, 3-device multipoint | AI Note Taker, translation | Case controls, spatial audio | Basic features |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth + LDAC | Same | Bluetooth 5.3 + LDAC | Bluetooth 5.4 + LDAC |
| Multipoint | 3 devices | 3 devices | 2 devices | 2 devices |
| Water Resistance | IP55 | IP55 | IPX5 | IP55 |
| Call Quality | Improved AI noise reduction | Best in lineup | 6-mic AI calls | 6-mic system |
| Controls | Touch + swipe | Touch + voice + case | Touch + swipe | Squeeze controls |
| Key Advantage | Balanced upgrade | AI + smart case | Strong ANC + features | Best battery value |
The Verdict
If you own the Liberty 4 Pro or Liberty 5 and the noise cancellation, transparency mode, or call quality has ever bothered you — upgrade. Those areas improved significantly.
Add the touchscreen case, three-device multipoint, and smarter controls, and the 5 Pro makes a strong argument for itself.
If none of those things have ever been a problem for you, the upgrade isn’t urgent. The battery life is shorter than both older models, and the sound quality, while better, isn’t dramatically different.
Between the 5 Pro and 5 Pro Max, the 5 Pro is the right choice for most people. The audio and noise cancellation are identical. The case screen handles the same quick controls.
The 5 Pro Max’s bigger AMOLED screen looks great, and the AI Notetaker is genuinely useful — but only if you’ll actually use it. If you’re not sure you will, save the $60 and get the 5 Pro.
Soundcore isn’t the budget alternative anymore. The Liberty 5 Pro sits comfortably in the same conversation as earbuds from Apple, Sony, and Bose — at a price that’s still lower than most of them. That’s where they’ve been trying to get to, and they’re there now.
Best Deal:
| Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro | View on Amazon |
| Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Max | View on Amazon |
| Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro | View on Amazon |
| Soundcore Liberty 5 | View on Amazon |
Nick, the Co-founder of Earbuds Arena, is a seasoned freelance tech journalist with over ten years of experience covering wearables, apps, headphones, and gadgets. When he’s not immersed in the tech world, you’ll likely find him unwinding with video games, going for a run, or enjoying a game of soccer on the field.
