Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro, excellent ANC on a budget
Anker Soundcore Liberty Air 2 Pro.
Anyone considering the purchase of wireless earphones in 2021 is spoilt for choice with so many options from cheap to expensive. Anker is well-known for their Soundcore audio range of truly wireless earphones offering excellent value for money and their latest offering is the Liberty Air 2 Pro which features ANC and wireless charging.
The Liberty Air 2 Pro have a pretty standard design featuring a longish stem and bulbous head that fits nicely in my ears and providing a good seal. On the outside of each stem is the Soundcore logo and brand name in a shiny chrome finish, which is set against a matte rose pink background on my (flesh) Pink colour review unit. The Air 2 Pros are also available in black, blue and white.
You have to give it to Anker for providing the largest number of spare ear tips to ensure you find the perfect fit for your ears. I don’t know of any other brand that supplies nine different sizes of ear tips with their earphones. You also get a USB-C cable which is standard but no charging adapter which is also the norm.
The charging case has a sliding lid with the Soundcore logo adorned on the top. Around the front are three status LEDs for charging and battery levels. The case is square-shaped but with large round corners and a flat base.
The lid is easy to open, even single-handedly and the earbuds are easy to remove and place back in the case. While a little larger than a lot of other cases but it easily slips into a trouser pocket. It does have wireless charging which is always welcome to see.
The Liberty Air 2 Pros have Bluetooth 5.0 for a rock-solid and quick connection. I didn’t experience any issues during my time of testing. They support AAC and the SBC codecs but not aptX which is perfectly fine for earphones in this price range and if you intend to use them on an iPhone, you’ll only need AAC anyway.
It’s nice to see an IPX4 waterproof rating for those wanting to use these for strenuous exercise and workouts so sweat and even some light rain shouldn’t be an issue.
Each earbud has touch-sensitive pads allowing for a decent level of control between them. A double-tap or tap and hold for two seconds on either touch-pad can be customised to skip forward/back a track, change volume up or down, pause/play, trigger voice assistant or toggle ambient sound modes. There’s no option for a single tap which I like because it eliminates accidental actions but it would have been good to have a triple-tap option to expand the controls.
The free app is available for android and iOS and works the same on both platforms. You need the app to customise the controls and change between Transport, Indoor, Outdoor and Custom ANC modes. You also get two Transparency modes; Full and Vocal, which makes voices stand out more clearly from other ambient sounds.
You’ll also need the app if you want to update the firmware on the Liberty Air 2 Pros. You can turn off wear detection if you don’t want them to automatically play audio from connected devices when placed in your ears but then you’ll have to control playback from your phone.
The app comes with a sound equaliser with 22 presets and an eight-band custom equaliser option for those who really love to tweak the sound to their liking.
The app has a Tip Fit Test that will check how good the seal is to ensure the best noise cancellation and bass performance. On my first try, it said I had a bad seal and suggested rotating the stems forward. I did as suggested and retested with the same ‘bad seal’ result. My next option was to try different ear tip sizes and in the end, several sizes gave me a ‘good seal’. I eventually picked the ear tips that gave me a good seal and felt the most comfortable.
You can also use the HearID which is supposed to personalise the sound coming from the earphones to best suit your hearing. I’ve used this before on other Anker Soundcore headphones and it works like a charm.
The Liberty Air 2 Pros are good for up to seven hours of playtime and 26 in all with the case. Of course, your mileage may vary based on ANC and volume.
Although there are four ANC modes including a custom mode, I found the Transport to be the most effective in general. A good seal helps to reduce outside noise and then the active noise cancellation does the rest. You can use the touch controls to toggle between modes but you need to use the app to change between the four ANC modes. Considering the price of the Liberty Air 2 Pros, I was surprised at how effective ANC is even when compared to some of the earphones including the AirPods Pro. However, the same isn’t true of transparent mode which isn’t a match for the aforementioned Apple earphones. In particular, I found my voice was muffled when trying to hear myself while on a call. However, to negate this you can use a single earbud to make calls.
Although only a slight difference, I did notice the sound quality was better with ANC off.
With a good fit, the bass is capable of delivering a decent response thanks to their 11mm drivers. The bass has lots of power but does feel a little muddy. The mid-range frequencies are crisp and the highs are clean but I felt could do with a little more finesse and detail.
The default sound signature feels a little flat and I found myself using a custom EQ to tweak the sound to my preference, something you can’t do out of the box with a lot of earphones.
That being said, the overall sound quality is better than I was expecting for earphones in this mid-tier price range.
The Anker Liberty Air Pros offer exceptional value for money with excellent ANC performance, decent sound quality and good battery life.
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