So I’ve owned lots of earbuds from soundcore (as well as other brands including Sony, Bose, Nothing, Samsung, and Sennheiser). I’ve had the SoundCore space A40, liberty 4, and now liberty 4 NC.
The 4 nc are by far the best pair made by SoundCore to date IMHO, and among the best TWS earbuds that I’ve ever used. The space A40s were my daily driver buds for months due to the insane battery life mainly (and also the extensive customization options available) and these are like space A40 mk2.
If you’re wondering if these are as good as the liberty 4, they’re not, they’re so much better. The 4s are just terrible. Noise cancellation is pretty weak and takes a toll on sound quality when activated, the tuning is trash (very overcooked treble to the point it hurts to listen to them even at relatively low volume for more than a few minutes), and on top of that they’re buggy af (things like ear canal test for ANC straight up didn’t work on Android, only on iOS).
The Liberty 4 NC aren’t great out of the box though, like they’re far far better than the sharp pain in the ear that’s the liberty 4, but they’re too bass heavy, with mids and vocals that are not brought forward as much as they should be. That said it was a pleasant surprise to see that they respond to the in app EQ as well as the space A40s, or maybe a bit better. With the right tuning I was able to tame down bass and yet it stayed tight and strong (which is something I personally like), and brought up mids particularly between 1.6k and 3.2k. Treble could use a boost too, although not as much.
Outside of SoundCore’s stuff, these destroy the Sony wf1000 xm4s in every way except for ANC (which is still pretty good, and far better than the liberty 4’s ANC), they sound a bit better than Bose qc buds with the right tuning (especially if you have a high res streaming service and enable LDAC, the QC buds don’t even support anything better than aac), the only buds that match or slightly exceed them sound wise are Samsung Galaxy buds 2 pro and Sennheiser momentum 3 tws. That said the liberty 4 NC would be a better purchase IMHO, due to being far more price efficient and having a better app than both (Samsung’s app is pathetic and doesn’t even have an EQ, meaning these might actually sound a tiny bit better for some genres depending on your taste and tuning). Battery life is twice what you’d get from the galaxy buds and slightly better than the senns too.
ACAA seems to be mostly meaningless marketing, and I was disappointed with the liberty 4s, but I’m happy to see SoundCore is back on track. The Liberty 4 NC are my top recommendation if you’re shopping for a new pair of tws buds. Cheers!
or check the a40. Thanks for the heads up.