The Anker SoundCore Liberty Neo is one of the best pedestrian audio products. These earbuds create a tight seal to the ear, effectively blocking out background noise. If you listen to music when outside, you may want to look elsewhere, though, perhaps at the company's SoundCore Liberty Air 2.
The Anker SoundCore Liberty Neo is one of the best pedestrian audio products. These earbuds create a tight seal to the ear, effectively blocking out background noise. If you listen to music when outside, you may want to look elsewhere, though, perhaps at the company's SoundCore Liberty Air 2.
Product release date April 2019 Dimensions 75 x 35 x 30mm (case) Model Number Liberty Neo Waterproof What we likeVariety of wing and ear tips
What we don't likeSBC, AAC only, no aptX
Earbuds stick out from ear
Connection stutters when outside
No ambient aware mode
SoundGuys Rating User Rating Rating Metric Isolation / Attenuation Durability / Build Quality Connectivity Microphone Portability Battery LifeWhether you’re spending $20 or $200 on your next pair of earbuds, you want to know that money is being put to good use. Well, rest assured all $40 you throw at the Anker Soundcore Liberty Neo goes into an all-around great product. Yes, it’s inexpensive, but it isn’t cheap.
Editor’s note: this Anker Soundcore Liberty Neo review was updated on December 2, 2021, to update scoring with the results from a reader poll, expand the list of buying options, and add more to the Alternatives section.
Yes, the Anker Soundcore Liberty Neo is very easy to use. You can control playback, adjust volume, access your virtual assistant, and answer or decline calls directly from the earbuds. Unlike the Anker Soundcore Life P2, the buttons aren’t painful to operate. Since the housings protrude from the ear quite a bit, it’s easy to grab hold of the bud while pressing the button to reduce pressure against the ear.
The earbuds are pretty bland as far as design goes, but they work and fit really well. Anker includes a variety of ear tips and silicone sleeves, some of which are winged; to get the most out of the earbuds, make sure to find the proper combination of tips and sleeves. Doing so not only keeps the earbuds in place but also improves isolation and thus, improves sound quality.
The Soundcore branded charging case is equally uninspiring: the oblong housing is shiny and bland. It hosts a centered silicone flap protecting the microUSB input and opens with a slight creak. This isn’t ideal but, hey, it works. Its relatively small size makes it easy to pocket or drop into a purse, unlike alternatives we’ve seen from Creative.
We reached out to Anker because the specifications vary from the Anker and Soundcore websites regarding just water resistance. The former cites an IPX5 rating, while the latter lists IPX7. We’ve been informed by Anker that the IPX7 rating is accurate.
Assuming these earbuds received the higher IPX7 rating, which means they can be completely submerged for 30 minutes at a time. This makes them virtually impervious to sweat; no matter how intense your HIIT workout is, these buds will endure. Since these grant such a secure fit, they’re a great choice for indoor exercise. Outdoor athletes should get something with ambient aware mode, or surrender to listening in mono mode, which only the right earbud supports.
As of May 2020, no, because the Soundcore app only supports certain headset models, and the Anker Soundcore Liberty Neo is excluded from the list. Now, this headset may be supported in the future, in which case, the app will be worth downloading because it will presumably facilitate firmware updates. Until then, you don’t gain anything from downloading it.
These Bluetooth 5.0 earphones stay well connected indoors, but whenever I take them outside connection stability is a real tossup. I keep my smartphone in my right pocket which the Anker Soundcore manual suggests for optimal connectivity. Even so, the left earbud’s connection hiccups. Now, if you’re not one for listening to music while walking around, this is a non-issue, but outdoor athletes may want to look elsewhere.
As is the norm for economical headsets, the Anker Soundcore Liberty Neo only supports AAC and SBC. Android users looking for reliable, high-quality Bluetooth codecs should turn their ears toward the company’s more premium Liberty Air 2 Pro model. You’re unlikely to notice any difference in codec quality when out and about in a noisy environment, but if you crank the volume up, you may run into some compression artifacts that can make your music sound bad.
This follows the standard pairing procedure: open the charging case and remove both earbuds. Wait until the LED indicator on each earbud housing flashes white to indicate pairing mode; from there, open the Bluetooth menu on your desired device and select “Anker Soundcore Liberty Neo.” Bluetooth multipoint is not supported, so you can only connect to one device at a time. Switching devices requires you to manually disconnect from the current device and select the Liberty Neo headset from the secondary device’s Bluetooth menu.
It took 4 hours, 48 minutes until the Soundcore Liberty Neo batteries were depleted, which falls short of the five-hour standalone battery life. The charging case supplies an additional 15 hours of battery, so the earbuds should carry you through a week of commuting before topping the case up via microUSB cable. Yes, you did in fact read “microUSB” correctly, but these are the cut corners that accompany cheap earbuds. You have to set aside 90 minutes to fully charge the earbuds, and fast charging isn’t available.
Just like the more affordable Anker Soundcore Liberty Neo, these earbuds create a very strong seal to the ear and render low-frequencies half as loud as they normally sound.
Isolation is excellent, a positive consequence of the stable fit and cogent seal created by the appropriate wing and ear tip combination. Low frequencies like washing machines and dryers are rendered half as loud, while conversations are tamped down as well.
Bass notes are rendered to sound twice as loud as mids, which can make it hard to hear vocal detail in busier songs.
The dynamic drivers boost bass notes, making them sound twice as loud as their counterparts in the mids and highs. While this isn’t something you’d use to monitor music in a studio, this type of response appeals to what most of us consumers are familiar with: exaggerated lows and slightly emphasized treble notes. Popular music genres like hip-hop and pop will sound okay, but flirting with other genres like classical or even country, and you’ll run into some auditory masking—when a loud sound makes it hard to perceive a relatively quiet one.
In the frequency response chart above, the dotted red line represents the platonic ideal. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world though—plus, most of us are trained to prefer an adjusted frequency response with some deviations from the dotted line. This is for any number of reasons, as it applies to cheap headsets, amplified bass can hide poor audio engineering or cheap drivers.
Sylvan Esso’s song Wolf opens with a synthesized beat and predictable finger snapping pattern underscoring Amelia Meath’s vocals. The drivers clearly relay the lyrics “the modern wolf, he’s kinder,” during these first 10 seconds before deeper notes enter the song. You can hear Meath’s uneven breath at the end of the word “kinder,” which is impressive from this kind of earphone.
Masking comes into play during repeated “Ohs” that act as interludes throughout the ballad. Skip ahead to 1:05 to hear this: you should be able to hear the same breathy sounds resonating from her concentric “Ohs,” but can’t because the low-frequency kick drum and synth beats make it hard to perceive.
All things considered, the Liberty Neo microphone is very good. While my voice doesn’t sound completely accurate, speech intelligibility is there; this is the most important thing when considering a good headset microphone.
Anyone who fields calls in noisy environments, though, should look into either a dedicated conference call headset or just more premium earbuds. The mic system on the Anker Soundcore Liberty Neo is no match for blustery winds or nearby conversations. Everything was relayed to the person on the other line, which quickly became annoying.
