Little-known brand breaks Guinness World Record for call quality and they're much cheaper than AirPod Pros
Topics: Technology
Natalie Corner
Featured Image Credit: Getty / Drazen Zigic
Topics: Technology
Call quality is probably the most ignored spec when people buy earbuds. Nobody talks about it until they wonder why they sound like they're calling from a wind tunnel.
Soundcore decided to step up for its new Liberty 5 Pro and Liberty 5 Max earbuds, as they have just been awarded an official Guinness World Record for the world's clearest calls. The record was verified by a third-party lab that put the brand up against 14 other flagship models in simulated noisy environments like bars and city streets.
The tech behind it is Anker's new THUS AI chip, a 10-sensor setup using eight microphones to capture noise and two bone conduction sensors that detect skull vibrations to isolate your voice from everything around it. In plain terms: it picks up what you're saying, and kills everything else.
$169.99
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Beyond calls, the Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro processes over 384,000 noise signals per second for active noise cancellation, which is double what the previous Liberty 4 Pro managed, and uses a personalised EQ profile based on a quick hearing test, similar to what AirPods Pro and Sony's XM6 already offer.
The case also has a small touchscreen for switching between active noise cancellation (ANC) modes without touching your phone. Plus battery life is 28 hours total, and five minutes of charging gets you four hours of playback if you run out of juice.
Apple's earbuds are better known, yes, but Soundcore makes phone calls that don't make people want to hang up.
The Liberty 5 Pro is priced at $169.99, $60 less than AirPods Pro. The Liberty 5 Pro Max steps up to $249.99 and adds AI meeting transcription, speaker identification, and action item summaries.
$229.99
$229
How does Soundcore Liberty 5 Pro compare to AirPods?
The honest answer is: it depends what you're buying for.
On paper the Liberty 5 Pro wins on several of the practical specs. The fit is more secure, the kidney bean shape sits differently in the ear than AirPods, which have a well-documented problem staying put during movement. Battery life with ANC on is around two hours longer per charge, waterproofing is rated higher, and the case charges faster.
Where AirPods still have the edge is ecosystem. If you're deep in Apple - iPhone, Mac, iPad - the seamless switching and Siri integration is genuinely hard to replicate. Soundcore works across both Apple and Android, but it's not the same experience.
At $169.99 vs $229 for AirPods Pro, the gap is real.
Whether the record-breaking call quality closes it for you is probably the question worth asking.