The headphones play music like nothing is wrong, but the ANC button does absolutely nothing. You press it, you wait for something, and you get silence in return. Not the good kind of silence, the frustrating kind.
This is one of the most common problems people report to us, and luckily it can usually be solved without a trip to our repair bench. Let's go through what is happening and how you fix it.
What went wrong?
On the VMK25, noise cancelling is controlled with the button on the left earcup. One press turns ANC on, a second switches to transparency mode, a third turns it off. Simple, as long as the software plays along.
There are basically three reasons why the button does not respond:
- The software is stuck. The button press never registers. This is the most common cause, and a reset fixes it.
- The Bluetooth connection is acting up. Sometimes the headphones and your phone talk past each other. The headphones think they are in one mode, the phone thinks another. The result: nothing happens.
- A physical fault in the button. Rarer, but possible. If the button is genuinely broken, it needs to be repaired.
How to fix it
Start from the top. Do not jump straight to step three, the first two solve this nine times out of ten.
1. Reset the headphones
This is where the model matters. Check which one you have (the batch code is inside the earcup):
- VMK25: push the included 3.5 mm AUX cable into the headphone jack and pull it out. This cuts power to the Bluetooth circuit and forces it to reset. There is no button combination, and you do not need one.
- VMK25.2: charge the headphones fully first, then hold the + and − buttons down for about three seconds until you hear a "du du" sound. The reset is done.
After that, remove the VMK25 from your phone's list of Bluetooth devices and reconnect.
2. Check the Bluetooth connection
- Remove the VMK25 completely from your phone's list of Bluetooth devices
- Turn your phone's Bluetooth off and back on
- Pair the headphones again from scratch
Sometimes the old pairing has become corrupted. Pairing again forces the devices to negotiate the connection with a clean slate.
3. Test the button systematically
After the reset, try the left button calmly:
- One short press – ANC on, the LED lights up green
- A second press – transparency mode, the green LED blinks
- A third press – ANC off
Also try it without music so you can hear the difference between the modes. The ANC effect is not always dramatic in a quiet room. Try it somewhere with background noise, next to traffic or a running dishwasher. Then you will hear the difference clearly.
If nothing helps
If the button still does not respond in any way after the reset and re-pairing, you are probably looking at a physical fault. No panic, that is exactly what our own repair service is for.
Send us a message at info@valco.fi and include:
- Your order number or receipt
- A short description of the problem ("left button not responding, reset done")
- A photo of the headphones (no need for art, as long as we can see the model)
Hannes and the service team in Kajaani will fix your device. During the warranty period (24 months) the repair is free. And even after the warranty you do not need to buy new ones: headphone repair costs a flat 69 euros no matter the fault, and that includes spare parts, shipping both ways and turning your old pair into as good as new.
We repair instead of throwing things away. That is the whole point. And every repaired pair of headphones is one more step towards that Death Star.
