Soundcore Life 2 Active Noise Cancelling

Before I start this review, I gotta say there's a caveat: I've never had any prior experience with noise cancelling headphones. I bought these for a family member who wanted to switch from in-ear earbuds to a better over the ears setup. Bluetooth and noise cancelling weren't on her wishlist but at this price point, I thought it worthwhile to try and see if they bring anything to the party. As with most other Anker products, these headphones seem to be a pretty good value considering the feature set. They are well made and not overly complicated once you go over the short instruction manual. Sound quality is… decent. About in line with what you'd expect from other Bluetooth headphones in this price class. The bass isn't earth shattering, and the treble isn't piercing (thankfully, on both counts) but it seems to be fairly flat across the range. A built-in bass boost is best left off, as it is boomy and annoying. Bluetooth connectivity is pretty straightforward. Unlike many other devices, this one goes into pairing mode as soon as you turn it on, so it's easy to swap it from device to device, and it seems to remember the last used device only. Not ideal if you use multiple devices, but for people with just one tablet or phone they want to use, not a deal breaker. One oddity is that these headphones don't play particularly loud via Bluetooth, but if you use the included aux cable they are MUCH louder. However, when switching between the cable and BT, I found the audio in BT mode to be off center and muffled. It took a few plugging/unplugging sessions with the cable to get the audio back to normal. Noise cancelling is… not as decent. It definitely does work, at least on monotonous droning sounds. Fans, airplane engines, etc. They ought to work well against those. It won't bring you total silence but I'm not sure any headphones can do that. The NC feature is definitely secondary to the normal closed-back headphones' ability to reduce outside noise, though. It adds only a small amount of extra quieting when switched on. Overall, not a totally bad choice. She Who Must Be Obeyed isn't picky about sound (except for wanting everything louder — too many rock concerts as a kid) and is happy with the fit and ease of charging, so we'll be keeping them. Me personally, I'd save a few extra bucks and buy a higher end model if noise cancelling is going to be the primary feature you're after. But for casual listening and only needing NC occasionally? There is absolutely nothing wrong with these. Update: After posting this, Anker offered to send me a newer model headphone to try out, the Soundcore Space NC. It's a step up in price but after some side-by-side testing, I really recommend people checking out that model, as it seems to fix some of the issues I encountered with this headphone. The noise cancelling is noticeably better, the sound levels are higher and it actually seems slightly more comfortable despite being nearly identical in size and shape. I have also encountered zero issues with Bluetooth and AUX input connectivity on the newer 'phones. They also come with an interesting swipe-control for volume and track selection that, despite my worries, actually works really well.