Are Samsung Galaxy Buds Live Worthy to Buy?

We have seen a lot of diversity in the series of Samsung Galaxy earbuds. Last year, we have seen the Galaxy Buds with some limitations and then the company offered Galaxy Buds+ with many improvements. Now the company is back with the latest model called Samsung Galaxy Buds Live that offers great sound quality and battery life.

The prior mentioned models lacked one key feature i.e. Active Noise Cancellation (ANC). But the Samsung Galaxy Buds Live comes with ANC feature that unluckily, not very promising.

Samsung Galaxy Buds Live

The Galaxy Buds Live has a brand-new design. While the Galaxy Buds+ mostly kept the same look at the primary Galaxy Buds, this new model has a look that’s all it’s own. The bean-shaped earbuds are slightly bigger, but they’re not huge, and the case is small enough to fit in every pocket.

They’re still tiny compared to something like the Sony WF-1000XM3. Rather than a tip that you insert in your ear, the Galaxy Buds Live has two speakers on each earbud beam sound in. This enhances convenience, but, what Samsung declares its first “open type” design also affects both sound quality and noise cancellation.

Samsung has equipped a number of features for keeping the Buds Live connected and in sync with your device – starting with Bluetooth 5. To keep a constant audio stream, the Galaxy Buds Live features Samsung’s proprietary Scalable Codec which limits audio chopping by changing the bit-rate according to the strength of the Bluetooth connection.

When the wireless connection is weak, Scalable Codec automatically encodes the audio information with a higher compression ratio, enabling the earbuds to receive data without interruptions.

Luckily, the Galaxy Buds Live are customizable through Samsung’s Galaxy Wearable app on Android or Galaxy Buds app on iOS, which allows related functionality save for a few Samsung-exclusive features.

Talking of the controls, you can play or pause music with a single tap, skip songs or answer a call with a double-tap, or go to a previous track with a triple tap. You can also decide what happens when you long-press the buds, whether you want them to toggle active noise cancellation, ask your virtual assistant of choice, adjust the volume or activate Spotify (Samsung devices only).

The Galaxy Buds Live technically allows active noise cancellation, but it’s a much different experience than what you can expect from premium ANC earbuds. Buds Live’s ANC effect is very subtle. The buds were capable to slightly reduce the soft hiss of our air conditioner as we tested them in our trial, but when we took it outside, the buds did nothing afterward to reduce the noisy traffic sounds. In short, the ANC feature is not quite attracting.