Well, rest assured all $40 you throw at the Anker SoundCore Liberty Neo goes into an all-around great product. You can use your voice to control key functions of the device and you can easily access your device without pushing any button. These are very different headsets, despite being made by the same company. Sound and mic quality are much better with the Liberty Neo than with the Go Air. This follows the standard pairing procedure: open the charging case and remove both earbuds. It truly pained my ear canals to skip tracks or pause my music. The lowest frequency at which the device produces audio. Privacy policy. For that reason alone, I recommend saving $30 and getting the Liberty Neo instead, or shelling out a bit more for the Anker SoundCore Liberty Air 2. You can listen in mono mode, but it only works with the right earbud. There is a control panel on the device body, so you can easily access the volume control or remote without having to interact with a cable or another device it's connected to. Whether you’re spending $20 or $200 on your next pair of earbuds, you want to know that money is being put to good use. The Liberty Neo earphones are some of the best $40 you can spend on true wireless tech. A charging case with a longer battery life allows you to recharge your headphones on the go multiple times before having to recharge the case itself. Bigger drivers are more powerful and can produce better bass. We reached out to Anker because the specifications vary from the Anker and SoundCore websites regarding just water-resistance. Bluetooth is a wireless technology standard that allows data transfers between devices placed in close proximity, using short-wavelength, ultra-high frequency radio waves. When inside my apartment, the headset stayed connected through a layer of drywall, but walking outdoors proved difficult. A headset is one headphone or pair with a built-in microphone. The lyrics “the modern wolf, he’s kinder,” are relayed clearly during these first 10 seconds before deeper notes enter the song. Doing so not only keeps the earbuds in place but also improves isolation and thus, improves sound quality. The former cites an IPX5 rating, while the latter lists IPX7. Yes, the Anker SoundCore Liberty Neo is a great pair of cheap true wireless earbuds. By continuing to browse our site, you agree to our use of cookies. This isn’t ideal but, hey, it works. Resistance to sweat makes it ideal for use while doing sports. While this isn’t something you’d use to monitor music in a studio, this type of response appeals to what most of us consumers are familiar with: exaggerated lows and slightly emphasized treble notes. 7.3. You’re afforded a variety of ear tips and silicone sleeves, some of which are winged; to get the most out of the earbuds, make sure to find the proper combination of tips and sleeves. It took 4 hours, 48 minutes until the SoundCore Liberty Neo batteries were depleted, which falls short of the five-hour standalone battery life. The lower the low-frequency response, the stronger and juicier the bass. You’re unlikely to notice any difference in codec quality when out and about in a noisy environment, but if you crank the volume up, you may run into some compression artifacts that can make your music sound bad. Microphone quality in particular is night and day between the two headsets, so if your days are filled with phone calls, get the Liberty Neo instead. Popular music genres like hip-hop and pop will sound okay, but flirting with other genres like classical or even country, and you’ll run into some auditory masking—when a loud sound makes it hard to perceive a relatively quiet one. Even so, the left earbud’s connection hiccuped. The charging case supplies an additional 15 hours of battery, so the earbuds should carry you through a week of commuting before topping the case up via microUSB cable. The slight de-emphasis from 20-250Hz is probably intentional as a means of combating the proximity effect—when low frequencies are distorted as a speaker gets too close to the microphone. It is inserted in the ear canal itself and blocks out a lot of environmental noise.