Lindy BNX-80 – HiFi Review

Lindy’s BNX-80 headphones are a closed-back, noise-cancelling design featuring wireless Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity with support for telephone calls.

Design

The Lindy joins the competitive headphone space that’s popular with models from the likes of Beats, Sennheiser and Sony. What sets the BNX-80 apart from this crowd though is that they retail at around £90 in the UK, making them a very attractive option and a must hear at the price. The headphones are £10 cheaper than the excellent Lindy BNX-100XT headphones I recently reviewed and featured in our December gift give-away.

The active noise cancelling (ANC) system features two microphones and Lindy claims it actively cancels out up to 98 percent of ambient sounds.

I prefer the design and look of the BNX-80 to the 100XT for two reasons. Firstly, the 80’s earcups fold in for easy storage, making them that bit more portable for on-the-go use and secondly, I prefer the oval-shaped enclosures compared to the circular BNX-100XT. There’s no auto-pause technology built-in when the headphones are removed from your head though, which is a shame as I found this to be such an impressive facility on the 100XT. I guess you can’t have everything at the price.

Quality

These Lindy BNX-80 feel nicely made. Yes, the headband and earcups are plastic but the yolk is metal and feels more robust than some of the more glossy models I’ve seen. The earpads and headband cushion are made from protein leather that is soft to the touch and comfortable to wear.

In the box, there is a hardshell carry case. The carry case is day-sack friendly thanks to the folding earcup design and perhaps a soft drawstring bag would have been more useful instead (or as well as) for practical on-the-go portability. Also in the box, you get a metre long cable fitted with a 3.5mm jack plug and there’s a 6.35mm jack plug adapter, too. A dual-plug flight adapter and a USB-A to Micro-B charging cable are also supplied.

Lindy claims 50 hours of Bluetooth wireless playback and 35 hours with ANC activated from the 1000mAh lithium ion battery. These are impressive battery life figures but as I mainly walk for a few hours and top up the charge when I return home, I’ve not yet managed to get anywhere near these hours in use to fully test out the claims. If you do happen to run out of battery though, a quick switch to the wired connection sees the headphones perform adequately in a passive mode.

Performance

Setup

I have been listening to these Lindy BNX-80 headphones mostly with my Google Pixel phone while out and about walking the dog. I have tested them with music, radio and podcasts, as well as at my desk with a Dell XPS. Twin Bluetooth is available with these headphones so that you can pair both your laptop and phone for seamless listening with desktop streaming services and still make and receive calls. This works well.

These headphones are perfectly comfortable to wear and even with a shake of the head, they remain firmly in place. At 526g, they’re not unduly heavy and I haven’t noticed them feeling particularly weighty or cumbersome in use.

I have charged them just once for the recommended 4 hours and then ad hoc for a quick burst to keep the battery topped up. The battery level on my music playback device hasn’t fallen below 70 percent throughout any of my testing and Bluetooth connectivity has been excellent – flawless, in fact, to my Pixel phone.

Active Noise Cancellation

With Lindy’s ANC engaged, the music is lifted clear of ambient noise. Background noise is reduced significantly but not completely gone and you get an eerie silence when there is no music playing in the headphones. Testing the effectiveness of system out and about, I walked over a bridge crossing a busy motorway and even here, the sound in the headphones was nicely shielded from the road traffic noise and I was able to continue to enjoy listening to a podcast without struggling to hear any of the dialogue.

Telephone Calls

Phone calls have been really clear and crisp and callers have been surprised to discover I was on Bluetooth headphones. The buttons on the left earcup allow you to receive and end a call. These work well. You can even decline a call by holding the middle button for an extended period (5 seconds). Personally, I would  prefer the control buttons to be on the right earcup.

Sound Quality

These headphones are well balanced and not bass dominated like many modern headphones. Playing Bonfire by Skrillex yields a very satisfactory sound. The low end is comfortably controlled and the midrange where all the action happens is clear and not fuzzy as can often happen in headphones. I have additionally been impressed with the detail in these headphones in tracks such as Tracy Chapman’s breathless Behind the Wall.

Podcast listening has been a delight, with a crisp sound and the volume level has been easy to control on the go. I do miss the auto-pause functionality of the Lindy’s 100XT wireless sibling, but a quick press of the playback pause button on the left earcup does the job.

Overall

The Lindy BNX-80 headphones offer a good sound with a superior level of build quality for the price bracket.

Closed-back headphones often feel more immersive and a wireless headphone just makes the experience that bit more intimate. If you are in a busy household with lots of background noise and distractions a model with active noise cancelling is even better still, and the BNX-80s deliver a good sound and have a superior level of build quality at the price.

Specification

Read the full tech spec from Lindy’s website.