It has been an exciting few weeks here as many things have been coming through the office resulting in a surprisingly high score. This quite possibly might be a record for such a time window and a great time for Linner’s new headphones to make an appearance.
Today we get to talk about their new NC80 ANC (Active Noise Canceling) on-ear headphones, a model that not only features a fun design to them but delivers a decent list of features for their price tag. This should prove to be a solid winner for Linner’s lineup of products.
As for their design, they remind us of something we’ve seen in the past from big-name companies We make this decision based solid body that reminds us a little of a few sport-themed models, but with a familiar design of touch like you would find from a company like Beyerdynamic. Given, to get the sound of something like Beyerdynamic, you are going to be spending a lot more than this–but right now we are talking about visual design and touch.
The headphones are comprised of mostly of plastic, with the rear surrounds featuring a rubberized coating for grip. The muffs have a tad more than 90 degrees of rotation to them, allowing for them to shape well to your head, and of course, they can slide in and out to extend them as well. The outer side of the head back as well as the rear portion of the muff cushions have a rough cloth-like material to them, while the underside of the band, as well as the cushions touching your ears, are soft with a pleather material surround the foam. They do not collapse for tighter storage or anything, but they do offer enough flexibility to fit well around the head and avoid any kind of discomfort.
On the left muff, you find a single button for enabling three modes of ANC, including medium, high and off. On the right muff, you’ll find the power button, a volume rocker, a 3.5mm aux input for going wired with them, and micro-USB port for charging them. The power button also functions as a multi-function option, as you can quickly press it to accept or disconnect calls, or play/pause music (or trigger your device’s digital assistant). You also have the backplate of the right muff, which is where the above mention of “touch” comes in. It also takes the job of the power button’s additional tasks. You can double-tap the plate to answer/disconnect calls or play/pause music.
The plate also has a monitor function, where you can cup your hand around it, and it will dip the volume of your content and temporarily disable ANC (if it was running) so that you can quickly hear your surroundings a little without having to take them off. Once you lift your hand away, everything immediately goes back to where it was. The process is rather quite quick and impressive.
Performance
The general range of these headphones fall within average for the price range I would say. For these headphones, it is the additional features that sell them best. Their general comfort, fantastic ANC and touch features. The range doesn’t fall short any, but won’t wow you either (then again, they are only $130). They still provide enough to effectively work for any music genre without you being disappointed.
As for the ANC performance, these headphones are fantastic. Switching between medium or high ANC will all depend on your personal preference. Although they don’t compare to something like Bose QC 35’s, they do offer a price tag that is much lower, and they truly do cut out most of your surrounding noise coming pretty close.
Even better, ANC will work when using them wired as well, as long as the battery still has a charge. When the battery dies, you will still be able to go on using the headphones wired as basic headphones until you get a chance to recharge them again. The battery itself will last you up to 34 hours (up to 19 if you are using ANC), giving you plenty of enough listening time to get you through a full day, or multiple days depending on how often you power them on to use them.
Comfort-wise, they do feel good on the head and you can probably go a long time before they cause any exhaustion. Eventually, it will kick in, but you should be able to get a lot of use within a day before it starts to show. If you have a larger her and feel it come a little quicker than normal, you can try stretching them out a little over a box and letting them sit for 24-hours to see if the plastic band will break in any.
Bluetooth distance isn’t going to blow you away, but as long as you keep the connected device close, you won’t ever have any dropouts. Plan around 30 ft distance give or take a few feet.
The only thing we wished they offered was water resistance. Since they do not offer anything in this realm, you will be limited your use to dry environments and not relaxing in the rain (in case that’s your thing) or in a steam room.
What’s in the box?
They come with a soft drawstring bag to store them in, as well as a 3.5mm aux cable (no 1/4-inch adapter), a micro-USB to USB cable and plenty of documentation to walk you through everything in a few different languages.
Our Conclusion
We like these headphones as they deliver a solid performance feature-wise for the price that makes them a steal. The range is average but doesn’t fall below this making sure they remain competitive within the price range, and they come with everything you need. Their ANC performance is their biggest winning value, and the touch control on the right muff is a nice touch (pun) as well. It would have been nice to have a little water resistance and maybe a slightly better range as well as an over-ear design vs on-ear, but that ANC really does fill in most of these gaps by bringing them close to the ANC performance of something from a company like Bose. So in the end, they do a pretty successful job of selling themselves.
Discount: For a limited time (before it expires), you can receive a discount of 40% off with promo code “4F6LSJK4” when checking out via Amazon thanks to Linner. The code expires on August 31st, 2018.
| Buy from Amazon | |
Our Rating | Average Price* $129.99 |
*Average price is based on the time this article was published
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Specifications:
Noise Cancelling is Up to 35dB
Monitor Mode: Ambient sound
Long battery life :
– Listen music/talking at ANC mode or monitor mode: 19hours
– Listen music or talking at ANC off: 34Hours
– Standby at ANC on/ off: 37/350Hours
Charging port: Micro USB
Impedance: 32 ohm
Driver size: 40mm
Bluetooth version: V4.1
Operating distance: approx 33ft/10m
Frequency Range: 20Hz~40KHz
Battery Capacity: 400mAh
Weight: 208g
Are you a manufacturer or distributor that would like us to test something out for review? Contact us and we can let you know where to send the product and we will try it out.
