Increasing latency and random audio cuts on the Soundcore Liberty 3 Pro

#1

Hello,

I bought the Liberty 3 Pro earbuds 3 days ago. After downloading the app and updating the firmware everything was perfectly fine, good audio quality and close to no latency. I should mention that I use these primarily with a laptop and a 7th gen iPod Touch.

Yesterday I noticed that there was a slight delay (a bit less than 1s) when watching videos and today it has increase to about 1s. This is occurring on both the laptop and the iPod.

I also had the issue of the audio suddenly cutting out but not like the way it cuts when it detects I’m using one earbud, it’s more like the signal suddenly drops and the audio becomes slightly warped for a second.

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#2

I mainly just use mine to listen to music so I don’t notice any latency. I have used them a few times on YouTube and can’t say I’ve had a problem. I use an Android (LG G8). That being said a little latency over BT isn’t really uncommon.

As for drops, I live in a rural area and that hasn’t been a problem. Depending an where you live (congested city, etc) BT interference and be an issue.

#3

Given your description I’d investigate if the two pairings are competing and confusing the buds.

Delete the pairings, reset the buds, pair with one device, see if that cures it.

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#4

I will join @The_Professor in his suggestions. In case it will not help contact customer service by email service@soundcore.com

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#5

Ok, I’ll give it a try

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#6

Disconnected and reset the buds, it did fix the random cuts but the ~1s latency persist.

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#7

Good to know.

Usual ways to tweak latency are try different codecs and/or media. Latency is the sum of that added at transmission to recode media to the codec plus that added at reception (the buds). If the codec and media bitrate not the same there’s a transmission latency inserted (not by the buds). So experimenting with different codecs can help. e.g. if you buds are using LDAC and the source media isn’t the same bitrate, your source device (e.g. phone) is doing recoding.

Also if there’s a lot of interference in general e.g. 2.4Ghz Wifi, many other bluetooth devices active, or a leaky other technology, then you’d get re-transmits, inserting latency. If you were at the same time demanding a high bitrate (e.g. LDAC 990) then you’d force higher latency. As the L3P has a small antenna (smaller than say the Q35) then there’s more scope for interference to increase latency.

Most modern phones can detect the latency they are inserting and adapt. Windows cannot. iPad touch cannot. But I don’t think either can do LDAC anyway (guessing this point, you’d have to look it up).

#8

VLC can do and of course PulseEffects can do, :smile:

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#9

This issue of latency does come up often. Some of it can be resolved reduced with higher performance hardware within the Soundcore buds. They alone can debug how much that is an issue.

I hope they factor this into future products yet to be finalised design.

So it may be better for everyone of those with intractable latency issues to work offline via email with Soundcore to assist with diagnostics to help said future products. :wink: The latency which inserted at transmission is largely beyond Soundcore’s ability to fix, but they can aid with documentation on known limitations, tips, tricks, and tuning advice.

As we, the collective community, own far more products than the small number of Soundcore engineers and alpha testers, inevitably combinations of source with issues will come out in beta, so if you are unfortunate enough to have such issues, e.g. latency, then being in beta would a good use of your unique assets.

It is then worth reminding everyone that lowering latency in the buds requires faster hardware which is higher cost, generally, so any such lower latency future buds should be considered in the round on price/performance.

#10

I am not sure it can be resolved by hardware.
Eg high bt version of the buds and low on the phone laptop.
Interferences as you said.

I could be solved by adding "some adjustment"s at the soundcore app.
Other audio tools can do, as I stated.
If “WIN or OS” can not, its a sign of “perfect audiotools” they offer. :rofl:

#11

Fair comment I’ve revised one word.

#12

I’m back, sorry for the long absence.

After looking around at my devices and turning off/disabling a couple devices I had around me, the latency has virtually disappeared. I also don’t have the sudden drops of audio, perhaps it was due to a software update. The latency is back to around 0.5s, which is good enough for me.

I had to turn off a smart watch, speakers, an old phone and a remote control, none of which I actively use. There might be a slim chance that the interference was caused by my surroundings, my neighbors have been in the middle of remodeling/moving out and back when I posted the thread, I was also having issues with my internet connection.

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#13

Happy to see you more or less solved your issues. :+1:

#14

Good its got better.

Bluetooth was never intentioned for many modern issues.

Urbanisation where people live densely packed. In some countries only has 39 channels. Same frequencies as Wifi and microwave ovens.

So if a channel gets interference, you get a channel hop and a packet retransmit, many of those then inserts a growing latency.

Also the general trend to smaller earbuds is making smaller antenna increasing nearer or inside the human and humans 2/3rds water and water absorbs 2.4Ghz.

This is going to get worse before it gets better.

The only useful thing you can do is move as much as possible to 5Ghz and when you next paint walls use a high metallic content type to reduce transmission between rooms.

With higher energy bills also turn off at the socket everything electrical as each is a source of a interference.

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#15

Thanks for your information. I am so glad to hear that you found the reason.

If anything else needs our help in the future, please don’t hesitate to drop an email to "service@soundcore.com", our soundcore technical support team will take care of your case within 24hrs.

Have a nice day.