BNXE HEADPHONES FROM LINDY

For this pair of wireless ANC headphones, Paul Rigby wonders if a non-specialist brand is worth your attention 

Sennheiser, Meze, Grado, Beyerdynamic, Focal, HiFiMan, Dan Clark, Audeze and more…many more specialist headphone companies out there demand your cranal attention. 

Which is great and wonderful and rather exciting. So then, it goes without saying that, if you’re looking to buy a pair of headphones, its almost foolish to even consider buying a non-specialist headphone brand, isn’t it? Surely specialist brands know what they’re talking about and non-specialist brands…don’t? Why bother with a mere bandwagon jumper then, eh? 

Well, one answer is this and it’s a significant reason in this day and age: money. 

Often, non-specialist brands offer headphones for less than expected price points demanded by the specialist guys. 

Again though, as long as you’re not one of these HiFi users who desperately need to pose alongside a specialist brand name, should you take a look at a non-specialist pair of headphones? What about the sound quality?

AND HERE IT COMES

You know what’s coming don’t you? Yep, I grabbed a likely pair to try. In this case? I grabbed a pair of wireless headphones with noise cancelling. Called the BNXe with a small ‘e’, these headphones are a penny short of £80 and they are from a company called Lindy. 

Now Lindy is not known for its headphones. It is generally known for accessories. That’s their core business. They deal in USB and power cables, AV cabling, splitters, wall plates, cable extensions, convertors, networking accessories. All of that and more. They even sell a a few microphones. Oh and a couple of headphones. 

Weighing 460g, the foldable BNXe headphones, presented in black, are over-the-ear, wireless headphones supporting Bluetooth 5.3.

TECH NOTES

You also get 40mm dynamic drivers that sit in a chassis made from 100% recycled plastic, GRS (Global Recycled Standard) certified, actually, if eco matters are important to you. I like that. It’s unusual. And thoughtful. Vegan-friendly protein leather pads are included too. You also get a carry case for travelling.  

Battery life extends to a generous 55 hours off a single charge or 32 hours with ANC on. Which is a pretty decent pair of figures. A quick 10 minute charge will give you four hours of playback time. Ideal if you’re off for a walk and haven’t charged your headphones yet. 

A control app is also available from the usual sources to tweak EQ and ANC while a very nice ‘Find My Headphones’ feature will find your lost phones in case the cat has hidden them. (You mean yours doesn’t?)

On-chassis buttons include ANC on/off plus Transparency mode to hear what’s going on outside your headphones’ bubble, USB-C charging port, power and volume, voice control and track skipping, play and pause. 

The BNXe headphones arrive with a two year warranty.

IN USE

In use the headphones were easy to use and relatively comfy. I liked the option of having two separate buttons for volume instead of on a single rocker switch. A small design decision but very important to me, at least. If your headphones have a volume rocker switch, it’s easy to mix up the two commands or fail to input a definite button command at all, especially when you’re on the move. Separate buttons are much preferred.

Similarly, having a separate pause button between the two volume buttons is a sensible design choice. Many headphones position the pause command in the centre of the volume rocker switch. 

More than that, having the ANC button on the other side of the ear cup prevents you from button hunting and, for example, altering the volume buttons by mistake. 

I love the BNXe interface on these headphones. The button design is logical and practical. Other commands include voice activation and taking incoming calls via multi button presses and extended button presses. I also like the option to reduce latency for gamers amongst you or for those watching TV. 

THE APP

For the app? The Find It option works very well indeed. Tap it once and a map shows where your headphones currently reside. ANC can be selected here too as can the various EQs. Tap the pause button and a volume strip appears to drag for higher and lower gain plus track skip and pause.

In EQ mode, moving from Default, there are eight additional sound modes. Popular offers similar boost to an amplifier Loudness switch, Bass Boost is as it says on the tin, Folk reduces bass a touch compared to the Popular mode, Classical provides a louder yet relatively flat response, Country also increases gain but sounds a little claustrophobic, Jazz centres the music around the stereo image, Softbass does just that while Softpitch pulls the bass right back while keeping that gain high. 

I decided to review these BNXe headphones on Default with EQ effectively off.    

As part of this review, I tried connecting to different devices around my office, focusing on variety. Connecting to my Astell&Kern Kann Alpha was quick and easy, my iPhone took but a moment too. The big problem devices I normally have are both my MacBook and iMac computers. Many headphones I review just refuse to look at them. Incredibly – well, for me – the Lindys connected immediately to both. So that put a smile on my face. I even have a Samsung 4K TV AV set up to test basic AV equipment and the headphones connected straight away to that TV too after a couple of Samsung prompts. 

So far so refreshing. But how do these headphones sound?

SOUND QUALITY

I first brought in my Sennheiser HD 4.50 which were more than double the price of the Lindys when reviewed at around £170. I initially used my iPhone and iMac desktop as lossy sources and YouTube Music as the software source. I played Sight of You from the 4AD band, Pale Saints.

VS HD 4.50

The HD 4.50s provided a direct, to the point, big bass, mids-in-your-face kind of delivery. Which is very nice and recommended. The BNXe headphones take a different route, though. If anything the BNXes are more neutral and balanced. Bass is just as large and imposing but better integrated into the mix with mids pulled back, while retaining high detail but that integration means you can hear more music.

The sound is zoomed but just a tad to give you a better view of what’s going on. The BNXe headphones do need a bit of power and gain to get going, though. Just be aware of that when matching your kit. They need a bit of oomph to work well. Even so, my iPhone 15 was easily able to cope, although I had to up the gain a bit.

I then turned to 24bit/96kHz music from The Doves via my Kann Alpha – which also worked well with the Lindys. Bass was big and bold and meaty. Again, that broad balance was retained so none of the detail on offer was missing or hiding. Turning to the Sennheisers, the headphones lacked any bass character or form while soundstage sounded a little detached. Turning back to the Lindys and The Doves put on a real show while the music had real impact.

VS STAX S3

I then tried my Stax S3 headphones, retailing, at review, for a whopping £329. I was not expecting the BNXe headphones –  priced at around a quarter of that figure – to get anywhere near these beauties but I wondered what sort of fight they would put up. I played In Your Face from Cat Power which consists of vocals, piano, guitar and lazy conga drum. And yes, the S3s offered more space and air around the mids, greater tonal accuracy across all the instruments and more emotion around the vocal delivery.

But I’ll say this, the Lindys were on the right lines here. Going into the same sonic direction. Addressing the same issues. They were doing what the S3s were doing. It’s just that the S3s were doing more of it and, for the price, you would expect that. The Lindys sounded like mini Stax S3s. Budget S3s if you like. Which when you look at the respective prices, makes perfect sense. And that, in itself, is a great compliment to the Lindy headphones. 

CONCLUSION

I’m surprised. Shocked even, at just how good these headphones are. I was prepared to write them off as another me-too release from a company looking to jump a bandwagon but no, the BNXe headphones couldn’t be further from that image.

Look, let’s face facts here. Lindy didn’t build these headphones. They had a Chinese factory do all the work for them. Saying that, this is a Chinese partner that Lindy trusts and has worked with for a long time. More than that. More than any of that, I would venture that this ‘unknown’ Chinese factory knows a thing or two about headphones. They know what they are doing. If they’re not already doing so, I would recommend that they get into serious headphone product design because they’re missing out. Maybe they already are and they’re doing Lindy a big favour here. We are the beneficiaries, whatever the case.

Sensitively designed, well put together, with a solid, sensible and strong musical foundation, I’m keeping these value-for-money headphones as reference models for other, future reviews. That’s how much I like them. These little known, much ignored, out-of-the-spotlight, headphones are true giant killers. 

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LINDY BNXE HEADPHONES

Price: £80

Website: www.lindy.co.uk

BUY HERE: www. amazon.co.uk

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GOOD: price, overall design, neutral presentation, midrange detail, integrated bass 

BAD: Bluetooth codecs need improving

RATING: 8

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