Christmas is coming and I am buying my presents early. This is the second Bluetooth Active Noise Reducing Headset I have bought from LinkWitz and if it is a good as the first then the recipient will be in line for happy Christmas.
The headset arrived packaged in an attractive and rather upmarket product box inside of which was the headset, hard case, audio cable, USB charging cable, airline adaptor, jack plug adaptor and a well written, easy to read but poorly translated User Guide. I include a scan of the User Guide in my unboxing video, switch to full screen and pause as needed to read it.
The headset is quite large, sits over the ears and looks rather upmarket and sophisticated. The two cables are both well made if rather lightweight. The two adaptors appear to be made from brass.
The headset feels quite lightweight and comfortable to wear despite the size but is clearly not suited for outdoor use. It is well padded on both the earcups and headband and no strain to wear even for extended periods. The build quality seems fine and although for nearly £70 I did not expect a cheap finish they were decidedly better than I was expecting. The cup supports and headband are extendable and do so do so with a smooth and secure feel coming perhaps from the metal construction. On one ear-cup are the Off/BT/Active Noise Reduction (ANR) turret switch and status LED. Here too are the usual track and volume buttons although positioned on the side rather than the bottom of the earcup and to my mind a bit hard to find. It is good to have a headset with a positive On/Off switch rather than the usual MFC button. The cloth hinge of the semi-rigid zipped case feels a bit flimsy to me and I doubt how long it will survive. However, the case is quite large and the headset and cables easily fit inside.
The key and defining feature of any headset is the audio reproduction and bearing in mind that this is priced as a low to mid-range device, in fact, it is not too bad at all The bass is well defined and full but not overpoweringly so. Mid tones are clear and detailed and the sound is very warm and comfortable. This is a distinctly above average headset for the price as regards sound quality even leaving aside the ANR features. The headset can also be used with a cable as a normal headset and there is little difference in audio quality between the two modes of use.
How about the noise reduction? Well as with every ANR headset the word should be reduction, not cancellation. No headset can fully defeat outside sounds but this one does a decent job and when I tried it in several situations it worked very well indeed. Like with all of them it coped better with low constant noise, the roar of a jet, car engines, traffic rather better than with sudden bangs or high-pitched screeches. The light construction and over ear form factor (as opposed to the smaller on-ear type) means that this headset benefits from passive noise reduction as well as the electronic ANR system which generates noise to cancel out external sounds. Unlike with many rivals when switching on ANR there was no major degradation in audio quality, there was slight a difference in the bass response and mid-tones were slightly muffled but not enough to be annoying.
Not everything is good. It only uses rechargeable batteries. Rechargeables are cheaper to use but for travel use, I like the reassurance of having backup batteries in my pocket. However, as Linkwitz claim up to eight hours of ANR on use that should perhaps not be an issue. I was pleased to see an airline adaptor plug was included, a corner which is too often cut in ANR headsets even though they are widely used to reduce aircraft onboard noise.
This is a decent sounding headset which looks great too. The low price coupled with the sound quality and presentation makes it a five star buy for me. Few corners have been cut to make the unusually low price. I doubt you will find a better ANR headset for this price.
The Good
Great price
Attractive design
Good sound quality
Comfortable to wear
Bluetooth 4.0
Good ANR function
Carry Case
Easy use control
Airline adaptor included
The Bad
Lightweight audio cable
No spare battery option
Fingerprint magnet finish
No Apt-X codec
More info and purchase: https://goo.gl/21bzS8
Post time: Sep-29-2017