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Anker Soundcore says its new wireless buds will block up to 98% of external noise

Man wearing Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 NC.
Anker Soundcore

Anker’s Soundcore division has got a new set of wireless earbuds. And while the name may sound familiar — they’re called the Liberty 4 NC — their price is a nice surprise: just $100. That buys you a set of hi-res-capable wireless earbuds that Anker claims have really impressive active noise cancellation (ANC) and battery life.

Anker calls it “Adaptive ANC 2.0” a system that uses two mics — one inside your ear and one on the outside of the earbuds — to adapt ANC performance instantly in any environment. The company must be confident that the system works well; it claims it blocks out up to 98.5% of external noise. Not even the superb Apple AirPods Pro 2 claim that kind of performance.

Anker Soundcore Liberty 4 NC being paired to a phone.
Anker Soundcore

We’re not sure if these numbers are with ANC on or off, but the Liberty 4 NC supposedly offer a huge 60 hours of total playtime, with 10 hours of use per charge in the earbuds and an additional 50 hours hidden in the charging case. That’s a big jump over the $150 Soundcore Liberty 4 (nine hours per charge, 28 hours total).

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We also don’t know exactly how the use of Sony’s hi-res LDAC Bluetooth codec will affect these numbers (it will definitely reduce them), but the feature is included if you happen to have an Android phone.

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So the Liberty 4 NC have a new ANC system and better battery life than the Liberty 4, yet they cost $50 less? It makes you wonder what you’ll be giving up.

Anker hasn’t provided the full Liberty 4 NC specs yet — technically the product won’t be released until the end of June — but we can see from the provided photos that Soundcore has moved away from the fancy sliding lid design for the charging case, opting for a simpler (and presumably cheaper) traditional hinge.

The Liberty 4 NC will be available in five colors at launch: white, light blue, navy blue, pink, and black, and Anker promised they’ll come packaged in a 98% plastic-free box with 100% recyclable materials.

It’s not clear whether the Liberty 4 NC will support wireless charging or Bluetooth Multipoint, or whether it has built-in wear sensors for auto-pausing music — all things that you get with the Liberty 4. We also don’t know if the NC version will have spatial audio with head-tracking or a heart rate monitoring feature — again, both are available on the Liberty 4.

Still, even if Anker omits spatial audio and fitness tracking, there’s still tons of value left when you consider the price.

Simon Cohen
Simon Cohen is a contributing editor to Digital Trends' Audio/Video section, where he obsesses over the latest wireless…
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