Anker Zolo Liberty+ Truly Wireless  Headphones Review

The Zolo Liberty+ are very bulky truly wireless in-ears. Their big oval design protrudes quite a bit of out the ears, which some people may dislike. They seem to fit awkwardly in most ears due to their size. On the upside, they look good and come in an all-black or all-white design. You can also give them a bit of a sportier look if you use their stability fins.

These in-ears are not very comfortable due to their very thick bud design. They fit awkwardly in some ears and can put pressure on the inner ear, which gets noticeable after a short period of time. On the upside, they come with different sleeves and tip sizes, which does slightly help with the fit. If you don’t usually like in-ears, you’ll likely experience some discomfort with these.

The control scheme of the Zolo Liberty+ is fairly limited due to their one-button scheme on each bud. You can play/pause on both earbuds, answer/reject calls, and skip tracks forward and backward. You can also trigger your device’s voice assistant and enable their talk-through mode. However, track skipping and talk-through are both “hold” commands, but with different timers. Hold for 1s for track skipping, and 3s for talk-through. This will take time to get used to as you don’t get any audio prompt to let you know when you need to release the held button to skip tracks. It would also sometimes register as a pause command if you do it too quickly just to be sure not to enable talk-through.

On the upside, the buttons are sensitive, and you won’t need to push the earbuds inside your ear canal to register a command. Unfortunately, they don’t have volume control and you can’t manually put them in pairing mode, which can get annoying if you're often switching between Bluetooth sources.

Like most in-ears, these headphones are very breathable. While their design is a bit bulkier than most truly wireless earbuds, you won’t notice a big difference in temperature. They will be suitable for sports, as you shouldn’t sweat more than usual when wearing them.

The Anker Zolo Liberty+ earbuds are very portable. Like most truly-wireless headphones, you can easily slide the two buds inside your pockets or in a bag. They also come with a charging case, which is a bit bulkier than average, but should still fit in most pockets.

The Zolo Liberty+ come with a good hard charging case. The case is advertised to offer up to 48 hours of extra battery life but is fairly bulky when compared to other models like the Samsung Galaxy Buds or the Apple AirPods (2nd generation) Truly Wireless. Unfortunately, while the case feels heavy and well-built, the lid is feels thin and fairly fragile.

The Zolo Liberty+ are well-built headphones that should survive a few accidental drops without too much damage. The buds are dense and feel solid, but they don’t have an official IP rating for dust and water resistance. The case also feels well-built and heavy, but the lid is fairly flimsy and seems to be the weak point of the overall build.

The Zolo Liberty+ are fairly stable if you use the stability fin sleeves. Their bulky design doesn’t fit well in all ear shapes and sizes and tend to slightly pop out when moving your head around. The fins help to keep the buds inside the ear without falling to the ground, but the seal can easily break during physical activity. They are not as stable as other similarly-designed truly wireless headphones.

• Anker Zolo Liberty+ earbuds
• Charging case
• 3 tip sizes
• 4 sleeve options
• Micro-USB charging cable
• Manuals

The frequency response consistency is excellent. If the user is able to achieve a proper fit and an air-tight seal using the assortment of tips, then the Zolo Liberty+ should be getting a consistent bass and treble delivery with each re-seat. However, if a proper seal is not achieved, the user will experience a noticeable drop in bass.

The bass performance of the Zolo Liberty+ is very good. LFE (low-frequency extension) is down to 10Hz, which is excellent. This and the fact low-bass is within a dB of our target curve indicates that these headphones will be able to produce an adequate and accurate amount of thump and rumble. Mid-bass, responsible for the body of bass guitars and the punch of kicks, is also well-balanced, but high-bass gets elevated by 3dB, which adds a bit of boominess to the mix.

The mid-range of the Zolo Liberty+ is very good. The response throughout the range is well-balanced and fairly flat, which results in an accurate reproduction of vocals and lead instruments. However, the 3dB dip in mid-mid will push vocals and leads to the back of the mix, but it shouldn’t be too noticeable for most people.

The treble range is also very good. The response is well-balanced and even. Unfortunately, the peaks around 7.5kHz and 10kHz will make sibilants (like S and T sounds) feel overly sharp and piercing. However, not everyone hears treble frequencies the same way, so your experience may vary.

These headphones have excellent imaging. Their weighted group delay is 0.19 which is very low, great, and typical of most closed-back in-ears. This results in a tight bass reproduction and a transparent treble. The L/R drivers of our test unit were very well-matched in amplitude, frequency, and phase response. This ensures accurate placement and localization of objects, such as footsteps, voices, and instruments in the stereo field. However, these results are only valid for our unit and yours may perform differently.

The soundstage is poor. This is because creating an out-of-head and speaker-like soundstage is largely dependent on activating the resonances of the pinna (outer ear). The design of in-ears and earbuds is such that it fully bypasses the pinna and doesn't interact with it. Also, because these headphones have a closed-back enclosure, their soundstage won't be perceived to be as open as that of open-back earbuds like the Apple AirPods (2nd generation) Truly Wireless, or the Bose SoundSport Free Truly Wireless.

Their noise isolation is decent. In the bass range, where the rumbles of airplane and bus engines sit, they achieve about 7dB of isolation, which is okay. In the mid-range, important for blocking out speech, they achieve about 20dB of noise isolation, which is very good. In the treble range, occupied by sharp S and T sounds and A/C noises, they reduce noise by 44dB, which is excellent.

The leakage performance is excellent. The significant portion of the leakage is concentrated in the treble range. This results in leakage that is very thin sounding. The overall level of the leakage is very quiet too. With the music at 100dB SPL, the leakage at 1 foot away averages at around 24dB SPL and peaks at 32dB SPL, which is way below the noise floor of most offices.

The recording quality of the mic is mediocre. The LFE (low-frequency extension) of 289Hz suggests recorded/transmitted speech that sounds quite thin. The HFE (high-frequency extension) of 3.4kHz indicates speech that is intelligible but lacks brightness and airiness. However, this is a limitation of the Bluetooth protocol and most Bluetooth headphones perform similarly.

The noise handling of the integrated microphone is mediocre. In our SpNR test, it achieved a speech-to-noise ratio of 11dB, suggesting it is best suited for quiet environments and may struggle to separate speech from background noise in moderately loud environments.

The battery life of the Liberty+ is disappointing as it barely offers 3 hours of continuous playback on a single charge. This is even more disappointing since they take more than an hour to charge fully. They also don’t have any power saving features, so be sure to put them in their case when you’re not using them. On the upside, their case is advertised to offer up to 48 hours of extra battery life.

The companion app for the Liberty+ (not available on the regular Liberty model) offers minimal controls and customization options. You can trigger your voice assistant directly inside the app or enable the transparency/talk-through mode. You also get a small amount of EQ presets for specific genres of music, and they also offer an anti-loss feature which lets you find your buds if you’re looking for them.

The Liberty+ are Bluetooth compatible truly wireless headphones that support version 5.0. However, they can only be connected to one device at a time and they don’t support NFC for quicker and easier pairing.

The latency of the Liberty+ is very high. Even if some apps and devices offer some sort of delay compensation, they won’t be ideal for watching video content and playing games. Most people should see a noticeable delay between audio and video content.

As expected, these truly wireless headphones can’t be used wired in any way.

The Liberty+ comes with a charging case that offers multiple additional charges; up to 48 extra hours according to the spec sheet. However, the case doesn’t have any inputs, is a bit bulkier than average, and the lid is a bit fragile.