NC21 is a Kickstarter project from Linner promising noise cancelling earphones that don’t need to be recharged ever. By nature, active noise cancellation needs more energy than what can be provided by the standard 3.5mm jack, so headphones with active noise cancellation would always need extra batteries. Some use replaceable batteries (AA, AAA or other sizes), some use built-in rechargeable Lithium battery. The main downside of these headphones is the fact that when the battery has no energy left, we either need to change the battery or recharge it. For many products, this would prevent user from being able to use the product, or make it less comfortable to do so. Linner NC21 promises to change that. By using lightning connector, it can draw more power than what can be provided by standard 3.5mm audio. So these earphones will automatically recharge itself as needed when we use it. Smart idea. But do the creators execute it nicely?

I backed this Kickstarter project back in May 2016. That was more than a year ago. The project page looks decent and the creators seemed to know what they are doing. So I figured it was worth a try. It promised February 2017 delivery, and I received the item in June 2017. That was 4 months late, actually not horribly bad for a Kickstarter project.

My first complain is about the colour choice. In the Kickstarter project, they promised 3 colour options: red, gold and navy blue. They sent customer survey back in January and I chose gold. You know, the yellow-kind gold. In May 2017, I suddenly receive an email from them asking is the colour choice ok as they put my choice as ROSE gold, which is essentially a pink. It was NOT what I chose. I chose gold and automatically got changed into rose gold. Well, at least they still have the decency to email and ask me for confirmation. It was then I realised, the (yellow) gold model is no longer part of the colour options. The new colour choices are now black, rose gold and space grey.

Yes, they choose to completely ignore their own Kickstarter promise of colour choices, and went ahead producing the colours they like. What’s the point of even stretch goal to unlock colour if NONE of the colours are going to be produced. And they made such decision WITHOUT any proper consultation to their backers. Big thumbs down for them.

So I chose space grey and replied them.

In few weeks, I finally received a package of Linner earphones. Surprise surprise, the box shows PINK earphones. They will still insist it’s rose gold, but, whatever.

I contacted them again, then I got another surprising answer: oh we use the same box for all colours. They told me to just open the box and I should find space grey model inside. Amazing.

Out of curiosity, I used Google Translate app to translate a sticker with some Chinese letters on the box, and apparently those Chinese characters do say space grey. WTF?! They are selling product in Kickstarter using project page in ENGLISH and now they don’t even bother to put English sticker telling the colour of the product inside?

After the initial disappointments about the creators attitude and the way they do business, I finally got to try the actual earphones. I plugged the earphones to my iPhone and… well, it works. I can hear my music, and I can hear some sort of soft hissing sound typical in active noise cancellation. Is the quality of noise cancellation good? I would say it’s on par with my $25 Philips SHN2600/10 earphones with noise cancellation. It’s nowhere near Bose’s noise cancellation and the fact that they compare themselves with Bose in the Kickstarter project shows another broken promise.

Sound quality is average at best. It’s again on par with earphones on the price range of $25 to $50. It’s somewhat okay for everyday casual listening, but it’s nowhere near what I would call “good”. I downloaded its app and used the burn in feature. It’s a nice touch to add such feature in their app, but it doesn’t help much when the product quality from hardware perspective is just average. Tried to play around with equalizer, also not much improvement.

Build quality is another poor aspect of this product. Yes they use good-looking material, but the overall build quality itself does not seem solid. The quality control is clearly lacking because I get a unit with tilted lightning connector. It does not affect functionality, but looking at it really raises my nerves and my OCD side.

If there is ONE thing these earphones do right, it’s that it actually fulfils its main promise: active noise cancellation without having to think about battery, ever. Just plug the earphones to our phone and it’s up and running. I guess they do deserve some credits for this. The control unit, where I suspect the noise cancellation logic board is placed, is reasonably small and lightweight, making it comfortable to carry around. The ergonomics of the earbuds is just standard. It’s okay for 1-2 hours of casual listening, but it will soon becomes uncomfortable after that.

If only this thing costs $50 or so, I would be a lot more forgiving to its negative aspects. However, I simply do not think this product is worth its price point, even on my super early bird reward level. Definitely not recommended at their retail price, but if you managed to score a very good discount and don’t mind average sound quality, then go ahead. For me, I’m not going to immediately sell this, but honestly I don’t see any possibility of using these regularly.