Anker Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro vs Liberty 4 Pro: Worth the upgrade?
Soundcore has a habit of packing more features into its earbuds than the price tag would suggest, and both the Liberty 5 Pro and Liberty 4 Pro are good examples of that. The newer model gets a redesigned form factor, updated Bluetooth, a smarter case, and a set of on-device AI features. But the older one is still widely available, still excellent, and $40 cheaper. Here’s how the Anker Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro vs Liberty 4 Pro stack up.
How has this article been updated?
This article was originally published on May 27, 2026, and this is the first version.
What’s it like to use the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro compared to the Liberty 4 Pro?
Anker’s new charging case features a touch display to controls features like ANC.
The biggest difference you’ll notice right away is the shape. The Liberty 4 Pro uses a stem design with pinch and swipe controls — familiar territory if you’ve used AirPods. The Liberty 5 Pro drops the stem for a curved oval that sits flush in the ear, secured by a concha fin instead. If fins don’t work for your ear shape, Anker includes flat plastic inserts so the earbuds sit smoothly against your ears. Both designs are stable in practice, but which feels better will come down to personal preference.
The Liberty 5 Pro has detachable concha fins.
The Liberty 5 Pro has a slight durability edge too: IP55 versus IPX5 on the Liberty 4 Pro, meaning it adds dust resistance on top of sweat and water protection. It also ships with five sizes of ear tips, which is a more generous selection.
The cases tell a similar story. The Liberty 4 Pro’s case has a small display and a touch bar you can use without opening the lid — handy for battery checks, but limited in other ways. The Liberty 5 Pro’s case upgrades that to a proper touchscreen, lets you swipe through sound modes on the fly. The lids of both cases slide open, but the Liberty 5 case is a bit bulkier in the pocket.
Do the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro or Liberty 4 Pro have more features?
The Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro case features a front-facing display for monitoring battery levels.
The Soundcore app covers the same ground on either model: HearID (a personalized EQ test based on your hearing), an eight-band custom EQ, spatial audio with head tracking, Easy Chat (music pauses and transparency kicks in when you start talking), and customizable controls. The Liberty 4 Pro actually has more EQ presets — 22 versus four on the Liberty 5 Pro — which is worth noting if you like browsing options rather than building your own.
Where the Liberty 5 Pro separates itself is with AI features: a hands-free assistant called Anka (“Hey Anka”), real-time language translation with a face-to-face conversation mode, Clear Calls AI noise cancelation for phone calls, and five adjustable ANC levels with an Adaptive mode. These all run on-device via Anker’s Thus chip, so there’s no cloud dependency, and the battery impact is lower than you’d expect.
How do the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro and Liberty 4 Pro connect?
The Liberty 5 Pro uses Bluetooth 6.1; the Liberty 4 Pro uses Bluetooth 5.3. Both support LDAC for higher-resolution audio on compatible Android devices, Multipoint for connecting to multiple devices at once, and Google Fast Pair. The Liberty 5 Pro can stay connected to up to three devices simultaneously, versus two on the Liberty 4 Pro — though LDAC drops out at three connections, so you’ll need to stick to two if sound quality is the priority.
Is battery life better on the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro or Liberty 4 Pro?
The Liberty 5 Pro is rated for 6.5 hours with ANC on and 12 hours with ANC off. In testing, the Liberty 4 Pro lasted about 5 hours 42 minutes with ANC on. Combined with the case, the Liberty 5 Pro offers up to 28 hours (ANC on) or 50 hours (ANC off); the Liberty 4 Pro is rated at 30 hours with ANC and 40 without. Both support fast charging — five minutes in the case gets you up to four hours of playback — and both cases charge via USB-C. The Liberty 5 Pro also adds Qi wireless charging, which the Liberty 4 Pro doesn’t have.
Do the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro or Liberty 4 Pro block noise better?
The Liberty 5 Pro has slightly better noise canceling, attenuating external noise by an average of 84% compared to 81% for the Liberty 4 Pro. It’s not a massive difference, and both are among the upper range for wireless earbuds at this price, but you may notice it with consistent low-frequency noise, like buses or HVAC systems.
Both have transparency modes that do the job and amplify external sound louder than not wearing earbuds at all, which makes it easy to hold a conversation without taking them out. Both also include Easy Chat, which automatically switches to transparency when you start talking and returns to your previous mode a few seconds after you stop.
Do the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro sound better than the Liberty 4 Pro?
Both default to a bass-heavy sound, and both have the EQ tools to dial it back. The Liberty 5 Pro has a slight edge overall, but neither will disappoint casual listeners.
Objective Measurements
Both earbuds sit well above our house curve in the low end, meaning kick drums and basslines will sound louder than you’re used to on either pair. The Liberty 5 Pro has more bass emphasis than the Liberty 4 Pro, peaking around 13dB above our curve at roughly 60Hz versus about 8dB on the Liberty 4 Pro. Through the mids, both track our preference curve closely. The Liberty 5 Pro has a more pronounced peak around 8–10kHz, meaning hi-hats and cymbals will be more forward; the Liberty 4 Pro is elevated there too, but a bit less so. Both roll off sharply above 15kHz.
How would most people rate the sound from 1 to 5?
The chart below shows the Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Scores (MDAQS) earned by the Soundcore Liberty 5 and 4 Pro. The algorithm uses a mountain of data from real people to predict how a group of 200 or so humans would rate the sound of earbuds on a scale from 1.0 (very bad) to 5.0 (very good), and return a mean opinion score.
The scores are close, but the Liberty 5 Pro pulls ahead in every category. Timbre is 4.9 versus 4.8, Immersiveness is 4.8 versus 4.6, and Overall is 4.9 versus 4.8. The biggest gap is in Distortion — 4.0 on the Liberty 5 Pro versus 3.7 on the Liberty 4 Pro — meaning the newer model reproduces audio more cleanly. Both will satisfy most listeners, but the Liberty 5 Pro is the cleaner-sounding pair.
What do the Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Scores mean?
- Timbre (MOS-T) represents how faithfully the headphones reproduce the frequency spectrum and temporal resolution (timing information).
- Distortion (MOS-D) represents non-linearities and added noise: higher scores mean cleaner reproduction.
- Immersiveness (MOS-I) represents perceived source width and positioning: how well virtual sound sources are defined in three-dimensional space.
Do the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro or Liberty 4 Pro have a better microphone?
The Liberty 5 Pro has more capable hardware, with eight microphones plus two bone-conduction sensors, which detect the physical vibration of your voice for cleaner voice isolation. The Liberty 4 Pro uses a six-mic array with no bone conduction. The Liberty 5 Pro’s Clear Calls system (Soundcore’s name for the on-device voice processing powered by the Thus chip) also gives it more to work with than the Liberty 4 Pro’s standard algorithm.
Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro microphone demo (Ideal conditions):
Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro microphone demo (Ideal conditions):
Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro microphone demo (Street conditions):
Soundcore Liberty 4 Pro microphone demo (Street conditions):
In practice, the Liberty 5 Pro delivers good call clarity in ideal conditions, with background noise reduced rather than fully eliminated and a slight lag before noise cancelation kicks in. Wind is handled reasonably well, though voices take on a reverberant quality in gusty conditions. The Liberty 4 Pro is similarly solid — voices are clear and intelligible in office and street environments, with background noise present but not dominant.
Both are fine for everyday calls. If you take a lot of calls in noisy environments, the Liberty 5 Pro’s hardware and processing advantages are worth it.
Should you get the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro or Liberty 4 Pro?
If you already own the Liberty 4 Pro, I don’t think the upgrade is worth it. The Liberty 5 Pro sounds slightly better and has stronger ANC, but not by enough to justify spending $170 on top of a pair you already own. The AI features are nice, but they’re not essential to the everyday experience.
On the other hand, if you’re buying new, the Liberty 5 Pro is the better pick for most people. It has stronger ANC, better battery life, a more capable microphone system, and some useful AI features such as live language translation, all for only $40 more than the Liberty 4 Pro.
The Liberty 4 Pro still makes sense if you’re on a tighter budget or simply don’t care about the AI features and want a proven, feature-packed pair at a lower price. The sound quality difference is marginal, and it remains one of the better values in wireless earbuds.
If you’re already sold on the Liberty 5 Pro but want even more from the case, it’s worth considering the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro Max (). For $60 more, you get the same earbuds with a full AMOLED lid touchscreen and AI note-taking, which is useful if you sit in many meetings or interviews and want a hands-free way to transcribe them.
