TL;DR:
Great earbuds with incredible sound and adjustable for those with up to moderate hearing loss.
Longer:
The Liberty 3 Pro earbuds are amazing and backed by a company that listens to and cares about its customer base.
I’ll talk about the earbuds:
Introduction and Background:
They are a great choice at their price-point ($130). Their value increases if you can find them for even less.
Although list price is $170, wait a few weeks a month or two - max - and you can find them discounted.
I have mild-moderate hearing loss and wear hearing aids (HA) much of the time. HA are great for day-to-day living and interacting with the world around me. For their price, (up to $6,000/pair), you might think they would blow away the best TWS. The don’t.
HA companies tend to focus on creating tiny devices that are extremely durable while being worn in very inhospitable environments all day, every day. They often provide up to a 20 band EQ focused primarily on frequencies covered by people’s speech.
Until recently, a small handful of companies have had near total control of their market. So … $6k/pair is not unusual. While insanely overpriced, this is the reality. Fortunately things are beginning to change.
While excellent for what they are designed to do, my HA are sub-par for listening to hi-fi music. Depending on the type, they’re not very good at cutting out environmental noise. To be fair, my ability to hear environmental noise is meh.
I love all sorts of music EXCEPT for music with a loud, thumping bass. I like jazz, classical, acoustic, world, blues and good ole rock and roll.
I have normal hearing for bass sounds.
Sound Quality:
The Liberty 3 Pro True Wireless Earbuds are one of the only that offer any accommodation for people like me. While they have the ability to bring out the bass, that’s not their “thing”.
Rather, they have the hardware and software that enables one to hear distinct frequency ranges clearly. When adjusted to my hearing loss and set to “acoustic” or even “default”, I can hear the detail work of the mandolin virtuoso. Those sounds buried in the mix that provide the listen with layers of enjoyment. With lesser quality audio reproduction, if you can’t distinguish the instrument, the sound adds to the texture. With quality gear, if you CAN pick out the instrument you hear the detailed conversations happening within the whole canvas of sound. A similar instrument on the other side also sounds distinct. The sounds ring without being tinny. The Liberty-3-Pro earbuds are definitely the latter. I can hear multiple voices both conversing clearly and creating texture - the way the music is supposed to sound.
The bass is rich and moves the music forward without feeling like it’s the only action happening. When listening it feels as though it’s almost other-worldly (in a good way). From experience, it can be tweaking to perfection by the user.
The Active Noise Cancellation:
It’s fine. I’ve experience better and worse. When properly tuned to your ears, it provides noticeable relief. Screaming babies still pierce the shield, but they are muted and much more tolerable. Engine growl? If you can position them just so, engine sounds disappear. Want less environment? Pick up a pair of better earplugs that will fit. With all that said, I’ve experience ear buds that create an isolation chamber with their ANC. These do not.
Fit:
Okay. It depends on the shape of your ear. I’m getting 3rd part plugs to help with this as I don’t want them to fall out and roll away.
Phone call microphones:
Like the overall sound quality, the call quality is excellent - better than holding the phone up to my mouth. No one on the other end has complained (they used to). In fact, some have remarked how clear I sound, especially on video calls when there’s minimal background noise around me.
Touch Controls:
Excellent. Much better than many but I’ve seen even better implementation on more expensive bids.
Software:
It’s fine. Most of the time it works well. It’s much better than the software for my HA. While a little buggy, here and there, it gets the job done and the developers are pushing out updates. If you’re having a problem, let them know. It might be fixed by the next update.
CONCLUSION:
In my opinion, with a decent pair of 3rd party replacement ear tips, these are some of the best in-ear ear-buds available besting those that cost nearly twice as much. From the other testing that I’ve done, I’d say they are easily the best currently available for less than $200.
I can’t be the only one who swaps hearing aids for ear-buds when wanting to relax to some good music. If you have hearing loss, I’d love to hear about your experiences. Even if you don’t, I’m open to positive comments and constructive criticism. Let me know what you thought of this review and - perhaps - how I can improve future efforts. Aside from writing shorter reviews. Yeah, I know it takes a bit for me to write it all out.
ps. Thanks for reading this far. If not already obvious, I’m new to this community and am still learning the ropes. I hope I’m not making a faux-pas in making the following request. If I am, please ignore. Here it is: While I know this is a little self-serving, if you got something out of my relaying my experience wearing these for a month and working out the kinks, please consider “liking” this comment (or whatever is done in these forums).
Thanks much.
NB: There may be many edits to this review, especially as I catch more typos, awkwardly worded sentences. I try to write clearly. If I significantly change content or meaning, I will mark that change clearly. Otherwise, assume content and intent are unchanged. Oh my, writing an entire review on a phone means I’ll have spend more time editing. Prepare for number of edits to climb. Content should remain unchanged.
