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

Simon Cohen
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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.

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Simon Cohen
Simon Cohen
Contributing Editor, A/V
Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like…
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