These $130 Anker earbuds have no business sounding this good for the price

ZDNET’s key takeaways

• The Anker Soundcore Liberty 5 earbuds are available now on Amazon for $129.
• The Liberty 5 earbuds deliver a wonderfully agile, robust low end, buttery smooth mids, and crystal clear highs.
• You will want to use the app to customize and fine-tune the sound.

may / 2025

When I think of earbuds that cost between $130 and $150, I tend to assume they have the capacity to be good, but they don’t generally reach beyond that level. There are exceptions, but even those exceptions tend to fail when they get pushed too hard (i.e., too much volume or bass). 

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These earbuds can get loud… and not in a bad way. If you crank them up, the sound will be just as good as if you were listening to them at mid-levels.

I like that. A lot.

But the Liberty 5 earbuds aren’t just about cranking the volume to 11. Let me explain.

My experience

Before I talk about the actual sound produced by the Liberty 5 earbuds, I want to talk about the setup process. To date, the setup of these earbuds has been the most impressive I’ve ever experienced.

First off, you really want to have the Soundcore app on your phone (Android/iOS) because it’s what gives you true customization. Once you connect the app to the earbuds, you’ll probably be alerted to a firmware update. Make sure you complete that process before doing anything. 

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After the firmware update, you are presented with a personalization experience. The app plays a snippet of a song and asks you to select between two choices. Make sure to select the choice that sounds better to you. This repeats five times, and when you complete it, the personalized sound will be listed as the Preference Test in the Sound Effects section of the app.

I tested the Preferences Test against my usual EQ curve in the Custom option, and I actually found the Preferences Test to be superior.

My first test was to play Primus’ “Antipop” album, and I was surprised at how good the Liberty 5 produced Les Claypool’s bass. It was rich, agile, thumping (but not overly so), and clean. At the same time, the highs were impressively crisp, and the mids were smooth as silk.

I then decided to see how these would handle spoken word, so I switched to a YouTube video about a local historic home and found the narrator to be buttery smooth and crystal clear (without the usual amped mids that are often associated with clear narration).

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Next was a hop to some classical music and Yo-Yo Ma’s latest release (Shostakovich: The Cello Concertos). I was surprised, given how well these earbuds served alt-metal, that they were able to handle classical with the grace and gravitas that the music demanded. These earbuds were perfectly matched for classical and brought the music to life with a wide soundstage, warmth, and the required agility. Yo-Yo Ma’s Davidov Stradivarius cello sounded glorious in the hands of the master.

Every genre I threw at the Liberty 5 earbuds put a smile on my face. You wouldn’t think a $129 pair of earbuds could achieve such smooth and accurate sound, but there ya have it. 

Do understand that when I mention accuracy, I’m not talking about the accuracy on the level of a high-quality studio monitor. Instead, these earbuds are capable of staying true to the music while still being a bit more “produced” than a traditional monitor. For the consuming looking to upgrade their earbuds, that’s a good thing. It means you’ll get plenty of detailed bass, the right amount of mids, and crystal-clear highs. 

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I could easily see the Liberty 5 earbuds becoming my go-to. With detailed sound combined with a very comfortable feel, I might be apt to choose these over a pricier pair.

ZDNET’s buying advice

You’d be hard-pressed to find a pair of earbuds that are capable of creating a well-defined, personalized hearing experience and producing such energetic, detailed sound at $129. 

That’s why the Anker Soundcore Liberty 5 might have become my best buy for 2025 (so far), so I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them. If you’re looking for sound that’s capable of blowing you away (with both volume and quality), these earbuds are the ones to get.