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Irish Daily Mirror
13-05-2025
- Irish Daily Mirror
Soundcore Liberty 5: how can €120 earphones compete with Apple AirPods?
Anker Innovations' premium audio brand Soundcore has a reputation for delivering affordable products that punch above their weight in terms of specs and features. The company said its new Liberty 5 earbuds deliver its most advanced Adaptive ANC system while improving on audio quality. But can a €120 set of true wireless earphones compete with the market leading Apple AirPods 4 ANC which cost almost €80 more? Soundcore Liberty 5 look and feel like many of the company's other personal audio kit. They sport a short angular stem design and a compact charging case with a sliding lid and LED indicator. The case supports wireless charging and the earbuds have an IP55 rating for dust and water resistance. The buds weigh just 4.6g each. There are six different sized eartips in the box. Be sure to try them all as the most secure fit will improve your audio and noise cancellation experience. The default medium size tips fit me best and I found them a snug and comfortable fit. There's a simple test you can run in the Soundcore app to help you find the ear tips that give you the best ANC and sound quality. You squeeze the Liberty 5 stems to control playback and calls and it's all very intuitive and easy to get to grips with. You can customise how it all works in the Soundcore app too. The companion smartphone app also includes a range of helpful customisation options including the latest version of HearID to help consumers tailor the sound to their hearing profile. A customisable eight-band EQ and a number of preset EQ profiles mean you can easily tweak the sound to your own tastes. If you make and take a lot of calls you will probably welcome the option to mute the mics when on a call with a single squeeze. It's handy, for sure, and you get a confirmation tone immediately followed by one every 20 seconds that you remain on mute. Soundcore Liberty 5 use four of their six microphones, along with an AI-powered algorithm, to help identify and block external noise. The Adaptive ANC 3.0 algorithm adapts to your environment three times per second. Soundcore Liberty 5 employ a newly designed 9.2mm flexible wool-paper driver along with dual bass-enhancing tubes to amplify the low frequencies resonance. Two tests you can run in the Soundcore app - HearID and sound preference - take about 10 minutes to complete and are well worth the effort. If you have an Android device that supports the higher quality LDAC codec then you can enjoy high resolution music once you are subscribed to a compatible streaming service. Stamina from a single charge is rated at 12 hours of playtime with ANC turned off and eight hours with ANC enabled. When both the earbuds and case are fully charged, Liberty 5 can provide up to 48 hours of battery life with ANC off and 32 hours with ANC on. Obviously this depends on what volume levels you use. There's a quick charge feature too, so you can get hours of extra playtime from just a 10-minute power boost. Soundcore Liberty 5's full range of six microphones is enabled during phone calls to help eliminate background noise. A useful automatic side-tone mode automatically switches the buds into transparency mode as soon as you take or place a call. The inclusion of Bluetooth 5.4 and Google Fast Pair means connecting the buds is a breeze on Android and iOS. And the multipoint connectivity works impressively well. Soundcore Liberty 5 include responsive in-ear detection which means content is auto-paused and resumes your tunes when you remove or replace an earbud. On the downside, unlike other Soundcore buds, there is no spatial audio or heart rate monitoring here. And Auracast support has not been introduced yet. I asked an iPhone and iPad user, Madison Kavanagh, to test a white pair of Liberty 5 out with her Apple devices. She gave a hugely positive thumbs up to the quality of both the audio and adaptive noise cancellation. She also praised the design and comfort and was most impressed at the ease, speed and reliability of connectivity with her Apple kit. Soundcore Liberty 5 come in four colours – Cloud White, Ink Black, Abyss Blue and Rose – and they cost €118 on Amazon. Apple AirPods 4 ANC cost €199 from
Indian Express
11-05-2025
- Indian Express
Fifty per cent off: Great budget gym and running audio buddies…that stay in your ears
Truly wireless earbuds (TWS) might be very popular, but almost all of them suffer from the same weakness: while they are incredibly convenient to use, they almost always fall out. While this is not too much of a problem if one is wearing them indoors, say in an office, a cafe or even in one's own residence, this 'fall'ability becomes a real issue when one is on the move. There have been multiple occasions when our TWS have fallen out of our ears while we have been running, and we have lost count of the number of times they have popped out of our ears during our workout sessions, and have either been lost or stepped on accidentally. One can attach clips, hooks or bands to the TWS to prevent this, but these become additional things to carry and get either forgotten or lost in turn. Which is why a number of brands are coming out with buds that have earhooks attached to them, making them more convenient for those who wear the buds on the move. Of course, the problem, as with most audio matters, is that one needs to spend a fair bit (generally more than Rs 6,000) to get good TWS with earclips. There are lower-priced options available, too, but these come with major audio compromises, especially in terms of audio quality. One of the best value for money options in this segment is the JLab Go Air Sport, which were launched at a price in the vicinity of Rs 4000, but are now available for as low as Rs 1799 from various retailers such as Amazon and Flipkart. The JLab Go Air Sport come in three shades – black, a slightly off-white sand and a very eye-catching yellow. While we can see many folks preferring the black option, those who want to make heads turn should go for the yellow, which is almost like a fluorescent light green. Some might think them a little too bright, but we found them delightfully colourful in a segment that seems to revel in blacks, greys and whites. The buds themselves have an in-ear design and come with flexible ear hooks. You get three eartip options in the package, with the medium-sized ones already fixed on the buds. Even with the earhooks, the buds are remarkably light at just 6.2 grams each, and thanks to the flexibility of the hooks are very easy to wear, and can be comfortably worn for long periods of time. They come with IP55 certification, which means they can easily survive sweat and even mild rain. Their case is slightly rectangular with rounded edges, and is large by TWS standards, as the buds themselves are larger than normal TWS (thanks to those hooks). However, it is not too heavy – the case with the buds inside weighs about 60 grams, which makes it easy to carry around. It can fit into large pockets easily, although it might make smaller ones bulge a bit. Interestingly, the case comes with a USB Type A cable tucked into it, so one does not need an additional cable to charge it. This is a bit of a mixed blessing – on the one hand, one does not need to carry a cable, but on the other, the cable attached to the case is rather short and leaves the case dangling in the air while charging from a wall outlet. Still, all said and done, the Jlab Go Air Sport are very smart-looking and comfortable to wear. Connecting them is as simple as taking them out of their case, tapping them and then selecting them in the Bluetooth settings of your phone. They work smoothly with both iOS and Android. The best part about the JLab Go Air Sport is its sound quality. The buds come with a very bass-forward signature, which provides that extra thump that can push one during workouts but without diluting vocals or compromising on clarity (the treble can be a little sharp at times). The volume levels are very impressive, and the sound does not break up even at high levels. There is a little latency, so we would not recommend these for gaming, but otherwise, these sound very good indeed, whether one is listening to music or podcasts, or watching shows or films. The clarity is impressive, although the soundstage remains narrow. There is no ANC, but the buds fit snugly in the ear and keep out most external sounds, except for the really loud ones. And yes, those hooks ensure that the buds never fall out of your ears. Call quality was, however, middling – we were able to hear those we spoke to very clearly, but those we were speaking to often said that our voice sounded muted, and external sounds often leaked in. These would not be our first choice for conference calls! Rather oddly, the JLab Go Air Sport do not come with its own app (the regular JLab app does not support them!), but has a very effective and comprehensive set of controls. You can even control the volume from the buds – a single tap on the left decreases volume while a single tap on the right increases it. Calling is handled by a single tap to receive a call, while a double tap disconnects a call. Similarly, you can launch Siri or Gemini, switch tracks and even change the equaliser (there are three settings) with just a few taps on the buds. It takes a bit of time to get used to the whole tapping routine, but once you get the hang of it, it works very effectively. We would have liked to have the option to change or customise controls, but this is not possible, which is annoying, but is not a deal breaker at this price. Battery life is another area where the JLab Go Air Sport shine – we got 7-8 hours comfortably on a single charge, and the case added another 30-odd hours. In simple terms, you will be easily able to get through 10-12 days of usage on a single charge, even if you use the buds for 3-4 hours a day. Yes, charging them through that attached cable can be a pain, but you will not need to do so too often. The JLab Go Air Sport are not perfect. We would have liked better call quality, the option to customise controls and an accompanying app, but even without those features, these are easily the best buds with earhooks you can get at this price, and far ahead in terms of audio quality and comfort from other budget offerings. If you are looking for budget buds that stay in place for those gym and running sessions, even while delivering very decent audio, these are comfortably the best that not too much money can buy!
ME Construction
03-04-2025
- Automotive
- ME Construction
WEG supports delivery of ADNOC's 300km crude oil pipeline project
WEG announced its support for Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC)'s 300km crude oil pipeline project, along with pumping and booster stations in the UAE capital to maintain flow efficiency. The project is being set up at an investment of US $3bn and will carry around 1.5m barrels of crude oil per day. The company aims to deliver the drive packages by September; its scope of work involves supply of integrated drive package, including flameproof electric motors, variable speed drives (VSDs) and transformers to help maximise the efficiency, reliability and safety of the horizontal centrifugal pumps underpinning the infrastructure. According to the group, 20 medium-voltage flameproof motors will be core for this project. These motors include nine W22Xdb 3.3kV, 50Hz units in frame sizes 500-560, with power rating between 850kW and 990kW, and eleven 900-frame 6.6kV M-Line motors with power rating between 6,710kW and 6,980kW. Other benefits include high energy efficiency and customisable configurations, with multiple mounting options and terminal box designs, ideal for applications demanding flexible installation like oil pipelines, it stated. Designed to withstand the harsh environmental conditions of the Arabian desert, these motors can handle extreme temperatures of up to 55-degrees Celsius and are certified IP55 against dust and water. WEG's solutions will drive multiple horizontal centrifugal pumps designed for heavy-duty industrial applications. The W22Xdb flameproof motors prioritise safety and efficiency in hazardous environments, adhering to global standards like Atex and IECEx. These motors boast robust construction using cast iron or welded steel frames, complemented by advanced cooling options and thermal and vibration monitoring for optimal reliability.
