When you think of the Marshall logo, you probably think of a golden name on a big amplifier hit by a dreadlocks rocker on stage in the middle of a powerful ballad. Mid-ANC is the new Marshall Bluetooth headphones and the company’s first noise-canceling headphones. These are small earphones that can be folded to fit the supplied case.
With their price, they are in the middle of the series of high-end Bluetooth headphones. The solid Marshall Mid ANC suite has a great design. They combine Marshall’s retro aesthetic with a clean, simple design that removes much of the chrome, buttons, and blinking LEDs from most headphones.
The Marshall Mid ANC’s physical controls consist of a toggle switch to noise canceling and a small brass toggle switch for everything else. The rocker switch is excellent in appearance, but it has too many functions (increase/decrease volume, back / forward to jump, press to play / pause) to work well. It’s easy to hit the wrong order and it’s hard to find if you’re wearing gloves.
The outside of the cans and the headband is covered in black leather, while the inside of the headband is comfortably padded in microfiber. The adjustment is made with two independent metal arms inserted in the arch. Simplicity again instead of a complicated regulation system that used to break.
Marshall claims 20 hours with active noise canceling and 30 hours without, and I definitely used them for 15 hours without seeing them die, which is consistent with these claims. 20 hours of noise cancellation is ideal for all headphones. So I don’t think battery life is a problem. The bass will not shake your jaw, but it sounds as clear and precise as you would expect from a company with a multitude of studio equipment. Basically, you won’t have a lot of audiophiles to listen to music via Bluetooth, but the average ANC does a good job.
The first impression is excellent. I wear Bose QC20 noise-canceling headphones every day, which are generally considered to be one of the best noise-canceling headphones that can be purchased for money. Medium-sized ANCs perform a similar noise-canceling activity. Marshalls Mid ANC is a strong competitor to the best wireless noise-canceling headphones available today, especially when style and fashion are the top priority. At least it’s an impressive start to the world of Marshall noise-canceling headphones.
