The wireless headphone market is expanding quickly and with no signs of slowing. One of the major contributors to this great influx of options is the Chinese company Taotronics whose SoundLiberty series seems to be growing almost daily. The newest entry to the line is the SoundLiberty 80. We managed to get a pair before release here at Headphone Dungeon and gave them a thorough listen through.
What You Get
The SoundLiberty 80 is a fairly straightforward purchase with only the bare necessities in the neat package. It comes with a charging case, a charging cable, and of course the earbuds themselves. Besides these essentials there is some documentation and a user manual.
Look and Feel
These are a smart looking pair of earbuds. The buds themselves are shaped similarly to the ubiquitous Apple Airpods but with a long and elegant wingfin extension that serves as both a stabilizer to keep the earpods in and to house a lovely blue control service. They fit easily into their neat white charging case. As for comfort, well, if you find earbuds comfortable you’ll probably be fine with these. I always prefer to wear a pair with exchangeable rubber tips but with these, what you see is what you get, and what you get is what you’re putting up your ear.
Design and Functionality
These earbuds won’t give you any trouble when pairing with any bluetooth compatible device. If you’ve used a lot of true wireless earbuds the controls might not be intuitive since they use a lot of slide commands with the extended wingtip structure of the control panel. This might add a frustrating learning curve but one I would consider well worth. I often find myself accidentally issuing commands to my bluetooth earbuds when adjusting their fit in my ear but with the SoundLiberty 80’s there is no risk of that due to the separation between earbud and control surface. A useful feature considering that the voice control feature is somewhat unpredictable. When it works, it works well, but getting the voice control to “wake up” is somewhat like waking up a kid to go to school on a Monday. They use Elevoc’s Vocplus technology, commonly found in gaming headsets, to ensure clear phone calls and it works quite well.
Bluetooth
The Soundliberty 80 supports Bluetooth 5.1. Their range extends up to 50 feet with no obstructions, I almost managed to get completely across the office before they cut out. It uses AAC, SBC, and apTx codecs, giving them a better sound quality than some other entries in the SoundLiberty line.
Batterylife
The SoundLiberty 80 has 20 hours of battery life. Sixteen of those hours are in the charging case, leaving you with a maximum four hour session with the earbuds themselves. Compared to most true wireless earbuds, this isn’t a lot, so plan ahead with these.
Soundstage
For a pair of earbuds, the SoundLiberty 80’s give a good amount of detail. They may not have a very wide sound but you will certainly not lose any elements in most mixes.
Lows
There are not a lot of earbuds that manage to conquer the format’s inherent difficulties with low end and these are no exception. While well balanced with the rest of the frequency range, low end material is not well defined and sometimes even flabby.
Mids
The upper midrange seems to be the SoundLiberty 80’s strong point. They provide a great definition that really helps with their detailed sound.
Highs
The SoundLiberty 80’s are a well balanced pair of buds and the high end keeps up its end of the bargain. They are present but even with the most extreme material, they never became harsh or piercing.
Summary
The Taotronic SoundLiberty 80 is a very functional and quite aesthetic set of earbuds. They get the job done and look very good while doing it. If you’re trying to get the most sound quality out of a pair of earbuds these are not the ones for you, but if that’s not your main concern there’s a lot of great reasons to look at these, from their classy design to their ease of control.
Keep an eye out for them on Amazon marketplace.
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