Great audio quality TWS for android: Soundcore liberty 4 nc

[ehabheikal]

I have the samsung buds 2 pro with a samsung phone. Although the buds 2 pro are not cheap i never really liked their sound even when corrected with wavlet and have been looking for a good set of tws. So these were my requirements.

Ldac bluetooth codec support which android supports by default and is near losses
Low distortion
Profile available in wavelet to properly eq them or good harman compliance

i went to rtings and sorted by weighted distortion and checked for ldac support and found soundcore libertty 4 nc as number 13 from 800 tested. Ichecked and its profile was downloadable for wavelet.

I pulled the plug and got it. It was less than half the price of the samsung buds.

With wavelet correction the sound is close to the truthear crinacle red.
The nc works well but it changes th sound signature and there is no profile in wavlet for nc mode.
The transperancy mode is useless.
It comes with only small and large tips no medium.

It plays loud enough an clean things the samsung could not do, that is what is important.
You have to enable LDAC in soundcore app and in device bluetooth settings
The sound without wavelet correction is bass heavy.
There are settable soundprofiles in application so ios users might find a good setting for them.

 

[markanini]

Did you ever use B2P with the stock tuning, or play with the native sound tweaking options? I have to ask because some load EQ corrections immediately by habit and TWS measuresment have accuracy problems for technical reasons.

 

[ehabheikal]

Did you ever use B2P with the stock tuning, or play with the native sound tweaking options? I have to ask because some load EQ corrections immediately by habit and TWS measuresment have accuracy problems for technical reasons.

I tried all options including stock and multiple wavlet profiles. It could be that i was comparing to truthear crinacle red, which may be unfair.

 

[ehabheikal]

This is a wavelet correction for souncoreliberty 4 nc based on rtings measurements. They did not specify if it is for normal or NC mode i feel it works for the normal but still helps tame the bass of the nc mode

 

[ehabheikal]

Now rtings responed and the measurement is for anc mode on so use this wavelet file in anc mode. It still sounds good in normal mode especially if you cut bass by a db or 2.

 

[herr.jemine]

Moondrop Space Travel sounds very good - for only 24€, I compared them myself and with my Samsung Galaxy Buds3 Pro - the Samsungs are absolutely terrible! I sold them on eBay..
LDAC 96KHz/24bit has no added value if the headphones are poorly tuned and simply suck!

 

[Tortie]

I have the samsung buds 2 pro with a samsung phone. Although the buds 2 pro are not cheap i never really liked their sound even when corrected with wavlet and have been looking for a good set of tws. So these were my requirements.

Ldac bluetooth codec support which android supports by default and is near losses
Low distortion
Profile available in wavelet to properly eq them or good harman compliance

i went to rtings and sorted by weighted distortion and checked for ldac support and found soundcore libertty 4 nc as number 13 from 800 tested. Ichecked and its profile was downloadable for wavelet.

I pulled the plug and got it. It was less than half the price of the samsung buds.

With wavelet correction the sound is close to the truthear crinacle red.
The nc works well but it changes th sound signature and there is no profile in wavlet for nc mode.
The transperancy mode is useless.
It comes with only small and large tips no medium.

It plays loud enough an clean things the samsung could not do, that is what is important.
You have to enable LDAC in soundcore app and in device bluetooth settings
The sound without wavelet correction is bass heavy.
There are settable soundprofiles in application so ios users might find a good setting for them.

You never mentioned your preferred music genres or your use case. How does the Liberty 4NC perform in windy conditions?

 

[ehabheikal]

You never mentioned your preferred music genres or your use case. How does the Liberty 4NC perform in windy conditions?

I have not tried it in windy conditions. Anc was measured by rtings if you want.
I listen to rock, blues and some pop and anything with a good guitar.

 

[ZolaIII]

Ufff pre baked EQ's in Wavelet or anything else are not set in stone. Using the Auto-EQ you can bake your own (semi costume in many ways) and remember to match the HATS and ear model for target.
LDAC is still pain in the ass! You either have to set it manually every time or semi auto trough the only paid app there is and both is absolutely moronic. By manually I mean 96, 24, high. As it is it's better to try to find your preference both about highs and what's comfortable for you (size, ear tips, shape...) and then eventually consider something more expensive (so that you minimise miss probably). No better way to do this then inexpensive wired IEM's. The BT LDAC with proper DAC now day's start at 40~50$ for unbalanced battery powered dongle alike one's. So if you dont mind wires, you can even miss cuple of times and still end better then going with "premium" TWS regarding sound quality even over the BT. Anker is good regarding app I give them that much and fine if you're preferences meet there.

 

[ehabheikal]

Ufff pre baked EQ's in Wavelet or anything else are not set in stone. Using the Auto-EQ you can bake your own (semi costume in many ways) and remember to match the HATS and ear model for target.
LDAC is still pain in the ass! You either have to set it manually every time or semi auto trough the only paid app there is and both is absolutely moronic. By manually I mean 96, 24, high. As it is it's better to try to find your preference both about highs and what's comfortable for you (size, ear tips, shape...) and then eventually consider something more expensive (so that you minimise miss probably). No better way to do this then inexpensive wired IEM's. The BT LDAC with proper DAC now day's start at 40~50$ for unbalanced battery powered dongle alike one's. So if you dont mind wires, you can even miss cuple of times and still end better then going with "premium" TWS regarding sound quality even over the BT. Anker is good regarding app I give them that much and fine if you're preferences meet there.

Ldac works easy on my samsungs.

 

[ZolaIII]

Ldac works easy on my samsungs.

Not as I like and Samsung is the worst offender there is regarding audio codecs integration. I used to have Sony and will probably ditch the Xiaomi again but that's not the point, integration is the same regarding LDAC and you want max bit rate 24 bits (hand job part). Only reason you use it in 96 KHz more is for filtering (as it's lossy codec after all).

 

[Tortie]

I have not tried it in windy conditions. Anc was measured by rtings if you want.
I listen to rock, blues and some pop and anything with a good guitar.

I have not tried it in windy conditions. Anc was measured by rtings if you want.
I listen to rock, blues and some pop and anything with a good guitar.

Do you really trust rtings and their sound testing? Yesterday, I took a look at their test result tables for TWS earbuds. When sorted by "Neutral Sound", which is a catch all for several auditory tests, rtings put the $30 Skullcandy Dime 3 at the top with an incredulous rating of 8.0.

Well, I read the reviews on Amazon for the Dime 3 and also skimmed through a few Reddit posts. The commentary out there among Dime 3 owners is not exactly complimentary. One Redditor wrote that the Dime 3 had "less neutral sound" than the Dime 1 or 2 and that he was disappointed.

I'm no expert on audio equipment but even I know that the Skullcandy brand name is held in very low esteem among audio enthusiasts. It's a brand of headphones that you might buy for a 13 year old middle schooler. That's why I have doubts about the credibility of rtings.

 

[ehabheikal]

Do you really trust rtings and their sound testing? Yesterday, I took a look at their test result tables for TWS earbuds. When sorted by "Neutral Sound", which is a catch all for several auditory tests, rtings put the $30 Skullcandy Dime 3 at the top with an incredulous rating of 8.0.

Well, I read the reviews on Amazon for the Dime 3 and also skimmed through a few Reddit posts. The commentary out there among Dime 3 owners is not exactly complimentary. One Redditor wrote that the Dime 3 had "less neutral sound" than the Dime 1 or 2 and that he was disappointed.

I'm no expert on audio equipment but even I know that the Skullcandy brand name is held in very low esteem among audio enthusiasts. It's a brand of headphones that you might buy for a 13 year old middle schooler. That's why I have doubts about the credibility of rtings.

If you compare their review of m50x to asr review you will find them very similar.
I bought the soundcore based on their review and i am quite happy with it when using it with wavelet.

 

[Tortie]

If you compare their review of m50x to asr review you will find them very similar.
I bought the soundcore based on their review and i am quite happy with it when using it with wavelet.

So there seems to be a potential problem with RTINGS audio tests for wireless earbuds. Some earbuds have support for lossless codecs and others do not. RTings tests mainly revolve around the frequency spectrum and how closely a given product hews to a designated ideal reference. But this approach seems to be agnostic when it comes to distortion. For instance the Skullcandy Dime 3 does not have LDAC. The Soundcore Liberty 4 NC does. Logically, it would seem to follow that the Liberty would produce cleaner sound than the Dime despite the latter possessing frequency plot that is closer to reference.. What good is a neutral frequency response if the bandwidth of the sound has been compromised by lossy codec packing at the point of transmission?

 

[ehabheikal]

So there seems to be a potential problem with RTINGS audio tests for wireless earbuds. Some earbuds have support for lossless codecs and others do not. RTings tests mainly revolve around the frequency spectrum and how closely a given product hews to a designated ideal reference. But this approach seems to be agnostic when it comes to distortion. For instance the Skullcandy Dime 3 does not have LDAC. The Soundcore Liberty 4 NC does. Logically, it would seem to follow that the Liberty would produce cleaner sound than the Dime despite the latter possessing frequency plot that is closer to reference.. What good is a neutral frequency response if the bandwidth of the sound has been compromised by lossy codec packing at the point of transmission?

I think that is imposed by bluetooth and supported codecs rather than rtings.
As with any review rtings gives you data and opinion, you need to process it and decide.

For example For the 4 nc i was searching for lowest distortion bluetooth tws with ldac support that has wavelet profile. Since frequency response can be corrected by tools like wavelet but you can not correct for distortion.

The 4 nc is a top 10 or so on distortion.

As it turns out the wavlet profiles where not good so i did the one above based on rtings freq response. The freq response is for anc turned on and there is no freq response for anc off as they incorrectly say they sound similar.

As with any review you need to do your own homework.

 

[Tortie]

I think that is imposed by bluetooth and supported codecs rather than rtings.
As with any review rtings gives you data and opinion, you need to process it and decide.

For example For the 4 nc i was searching for lowest distortion bluetooth tws with ldac support that has wavelet profile.

The 4 nc is a top 10 or so on distortion.

As it turns out the wavlet profiles where not good so i did the one above based on rtings freq response. The freq response is for anc turned on and there is no freq response for anc off as they incorrectly say they sound similar.

As with any review you need to do your own homework.

Until today I didn't really know much about the providence and management of RTINGS. I'm a naturally skeptical person. There's not a lot of information or reporting on the ownership or internal machinations of RTINGS. All I found was an interview in Fast Company and a reddit AMA. In some corners of the web there's accusations of incompetence by RTINGS, complaints about their testing methodologies, and in my opinion the most compelling, objections with their score weighting system. The way RTINGS weighs various factors is open to disagreement.

There's an article on the RTINGS page for headphones that purports to list the '10 Most Neutral Headphones'. When I saw the Philips SHP9500 at ranked as number 6 I scoffed. A few years ago I purchased those cans because of the hype billing it as an alleged 'giant killer' that punches above its weight. When I tested them for myself they sounded awful. They got shipped back to Amazon the very next day. They were on par with a $20 on-ear budget headphone. This is one reason I'm suspicious of this RTINGS website.

If I understand correctly you said that the Wavelet profile for the Liberty 4NC was somehow faulty. Did you try and like any of the Soundcore app EQ presets?

 

[ehabheikal]

Until today I didn't really know much about the providence and management of RTINGS. I'm a naturally skeptical person. There's not a lot of information or reporting on the ownership or internal machinations of RTINGS. All I found was an interview in Fast Company and a reddit AMA. In some corners of the web there's accusations of incompetence by RTINGS, complaints about their testing methodologies, and in my opinion the most compelling, objections with their score weighting system. The way RTINGS weighs various factors is open to disagreement.

There's an article on the RTINGS page for headphones that purports to list the '10 Most Neutral Headphones'. When I saw the Philips SHP9500 at ranked as number 6 I scoffed. A few years ago I purchased those cans because of the hype billing it as an alleged 'giant killer' that punches above its weight. When I tested them for myself they sounded awful. They got shipped back to Amazon the very next day. They were on par with a $20 on-ear budget headphone. This is one reason I'm suspicious of this RTINGS website.

If I understand correctly you said that the Wavelet profile for the Liberty 4NC was somehow faulty. Did you try and like any of the Soundcore app EQ presets?

I made a profile for wavlet shared above.

 

[Tortie]

Ufff pre baked EQ's in Wavelet or anything else are not set in stone. Using the Auto-EQ you can bake your own (semi costume in many ways) and remember to match the HATS and ear model for target.
LDAC is still pain in the ass! You either have to set it manually every time or semi auto trough the only paid app there is and both is absolutely moronic. By manually I mean 96, 24, high. As it is it's better to try to find your preference both about highs and what's comfortable for you (size, ear tips, shape...) and then eventually consider something more expensive (so that you minimise miss probably). No better way to do this then inexpensive wired IEM's. The BT LDAC with proper DAC now day's start at 40~50$ for unbalanced battery powered dongle alike one's. So if you dont mind wires, you can even miss cuple of times and still end better then going with "premium" TWS regarding sound quality even over the BT. Anker is good regarding app I give them that much and fine if you're preferences meet there.

Your comment is quite confusing. It seems that you are suggesting a solution consisting of a portable DAC with a built-in BT receiver with LDAC codec support. Is that correct?

But then follow this with a difficult to parse sentence where you mention "dongle".

 

[Tortie]

I made a profile for wavlet shared above.

Thanks for sharing the EQ profile. If I ever get this product I will give it a try.

 

[ZolaIII]

Your comment is quite confusing. It seems that you are suggesting a solution consisting of a portable DAC with a built-in BT receiver with LDAC codec support. Is that correct?

But then follow this with a difficult to parse sentence where you mention "dongle".

Yes, settings are the same no matter what shape or size reciver is. Dongle as the shape and size preferably with a clip and they work and as USB DAC's.

AutoEq

Automatic headphone equalization

autoeq.app

Plenty of inexpensive IEM's with pretty good tuning and best way to experiment and find out what works and sounds best to you not spending much. And then you can if you wish try to find that same thing with TWS or something else including more expensive one's. Can't describe better needing to go to developer settings in order to change bit rate and depth.