As wireless earphoness continue to grow in popularity, the question of which are the best grows too.
I sat down with Christie Chen - the Head of Brand for Soundcore - to take a closer look at what Soundcore’s achieved in the true wireless space over the past few years, what we’ve learnt, and whether that’s enough to earn the hero product of the Liberty 2nd Generation the coveted title of 2019’s Best True Wireless Earphones.
Side note: @christie_chen will be checking in to answer any questions and comments you have, so don’t hesitate to drop them down below. Also, you guys sharing these articles on social media goes a long way to helping us keep the Soundcore Collective alive, so if you enjoy this, don’t hesitate to hit those social media buttons at the bottom.
I left Anker Innovations back in May 2017 and rejoined this year, so before I even started this interview, Christie opened by reminding me that Soundcore has actually been pioneering the true wireless space for some time.
“You know Soundcore were one of the first to do true wireless earbuds, right? Just after you left us - we still haven’t forgiven you for that by the way - we launched Liberty+ on Kickstarter, which at the time were pretty ahead of the curve. They resolved issues faced by other brands in terms of connection, sound quality, etc., so we named these the first zero compromise true wireless earbuds.”
Clearly we’d done something right, because when Soundcore first dipped its feet into the true wireless market with a goal of $50k on Kickstarter, we ended up raising $2.8 million. Just a bit above our goal …
I asked Christie what else Soundcore and, specifically, our true wireless Liberty series had achieved so far, “Just like Anker, Soundcore has been dominating that spot between reasonably priced and high quality and as the Collective discussed recently, the original Liberty generation was no exception to that.”
Whether you’re a Soundcore advocate or not, Christie’s point is quite hard to dispute. For example, Liberty Air and Liberty Neo are regularly called out as the best wireless earbuds under $100, even by independent review sites like RTINGS.
But, as Christie points out, “there’s a problem here…”
“The audio industry is different to the charging industry. Audio, music, sound, or basically, ‘how’ you hear things, this talks to your senses and your emotions, so for audio consumers, and especially in the case of audiophiles, audio and ‘good sound’ is a contentious topic. This creates a larger challenge for us in our goal of bringing incredible audio to the masses, because, first of all, we need to change this myth that incredible audio can only come from the industry elites, and at an unattainable price point.”
If you’ve been on soundcore.com recently you’ll see it’s no secret that we’re preparing to launch something big. While the Liberty first generation were called out as “great for the price”, I asked Christie to give the Collective some hints as to what it is that we’ve done with the next generation and what it is we’re hoping to achieve.
“The hero product of the Liberty second generation” - I did ask if we could call out the name, but this is still under locks - “goes above and beyond that of our first generation, with the goal of bringing a whole new level of sound to true wireless.”
At this point I gave Christie a blank stare, implying that we can give you guys something a little meatier than that.
“Without giving too much away at this point, I can say that a few others have attempted to utilise a technology that has a significant impact on sound quality, but due to the tight space in true wireless earbuds, they’ve made some serious compromises. R&D went back to the drawing board, again, and again, and again, until all of these previous issues of that tech had been solved.”
Will it be enough to crown Liberty 2nd gen’s hero product as the Best True Wireless Earbuds of 2019?
We’ll have to wait and see - just make sure you’re signed up to the 35% off limited pre-order on soundcore.com!
Thanks to @christie_chen for the interview and for answering our Collective questions below. Fire away