@keithkitchener I’m not sure which iPhone you’re referring to when you infer they do not support Bluetooth 5(.0); both the iPhone 8 and X are fully BT5.0 compliant, supporting BLE with either 2X speeds or ‘Long Range’ modes (almost doubling range but halving the speed), just like newer Android phones.
As for ‘under performing’, I have had my Liberty+ buds for about 2 months, receiving them from the Kickstarter event, and I own an iPhone 7 and an iPad Air 2 (as well as an older LG and latest Fire HD8 tablets). Both Apples are slightly older devices using BT4.2 with BLE support. My experience with these buds and either the iPhone (iOS 11.2.6) or iPad (still running iOS 10) has been on the better end of the spectrum of user reviews I’ve read, both here, on Amazon and on Kickstarter. Occasionally the left bud will drop for just a half second, and sync back up quickly. I have co-workers with Bose, Anker, Jaybird and Apple true wireless buds and all have similar issues–except the Apple Airpod users. Those things just do not drop connection, but they do not fit my ears worth a dang. I’ll get to Bluetooth frequency issues in a minute…
Sound quality is very good. Not a match for my RHA MA750i wired buds, but darned close. I find that, if I don’t use the Zolo app, and let the buds run without the app’s EQ injection, they sound best. The EQ settings (only 5 presets) are either very mid-heavy and muddy, or are exactly the opposite and tinny and missing mids (even when using the “balanced” setting). They sound so good by themselves that I’ve deleted the app from my iPad, and I only turn on the iPhone app occasionally to look for firmware updates (of which I’ve not seen a single one in two months).
It has not been documented by Anker/Zolo, but with my RHAs the manufacturer begs in the manual to give the buds at least a few days of use (I found that about 8-10 hours were needed) to break in the drivers, before making any permanent decision to return the buds. Zolo needs this added to their manual; I found that the driver really needed to be broken in for about 24 hours of play over the course of a week to break in the driver and make it “smoother”, especially on the bass end. I think this has to do with keeping them warm in the ear canals, which eventually loosens any shipping/manufacturing oils.
But yeah, I’ve not had any complaints about the older Bluetooth 4.2 connection in my iPhone 7 or iPad as far as performance. I normally use Spotify Premium, and I cache files on my iPhone in the highest quality setting because I have a ton of storage (128GB). I also have a few “albums” stored in the Apple Music app, in 384Kbit VBR AAC and Apple Lossless (basically ZIPped FLAC), as they aren’t available in Spotify. No matter what I play, beautiful sound with these buds. I often use the Liberty+ buds and my iPhone 7 when I run or work out on my elliptical, and I’m a sensor junkie. I always run with a Garmin vivosmart HR, a Wahoo TICKR heartrate strap, and a Milestone Pod–all Bluetooth devices. When I ride my bike, I add a Wahoo REFLKT computer and cadence sensors to the mix. All of these devices paired take up a decent amount of bandwidth; adding streaming stereo buds to this is crazy, but they all seem to work together very well, without any degradation of sound quality. And this is all on Bluetooth 4.2, which has a theoretical max of 1Mbit/sec of bandwidth.
Call quality stinks, though, IMHO. Sound levels are way too low, and the choice of right ear for calls is problematic for me, as my left ear is my dominant one for voice frequencies. I’m OK with one bud, but I wish these buds would allow for a choice of which one I can use.
One note on Bluetooth performance: it’s EXTREMELY environment-sensitive! The more congested your local 2.4GHz spectrum is (remember, Bluetooth tap-dances in the 11-channel WiFi range in the US), the more you’re going to notice drops. I note that my left bud will drop far more frequently when I’m at work in the city, than when I’m listening at home in the country where I only have two other radios within range of my house. I’m in IT; I do spectrum analysis and heat maps for clients who are buying our network solution packages (primarily Meraki, Ruckus and Ubiquiti AP installs), and I can definitely see a correlation between 2.4GHz spectrum activity and earbud drops. For a decent overview of how wifi and Bluetooth try to share limited channel availability, see https://www.ecnmag.com/article/2012/03/wi-fi-and-bluetooth-coexistence
So, please try not to troll iPhone users unless you can fill your statements with device-use experience, at the very least. Don’t just go off what your buddies or the latest “hip” Android website throw out there for you to ape. It gets old fast. Just let us know how the Liberty buds work with your devices; that’s all we really want to know here. 
They are tempting me…
