5 things to know

Marshall, once known for its massive amplifiers, is trying its luck with headphone buyers again with its new Marshall Monitor III ANC over-ear headphones. And it’s a headliner-worthy performance.

ShortList should know because we were among the few people who got a backstage pass with these headphones over the past week.

With an immediately distinctive design, incredible battery life and wonderful sound, the Marshall Monitor III ANC is a show of confidence from the veteran brand – even if its spatial audio features require a little more tuning.

Available from 24th September and priced at £299, here’s everything you need to know…

1. A robust and rock design

If you’ve been to a rock concert in the last 70 years, you’ve probably seen (and heard!) the iconic Marshall speakers: black leatherette, script logo, and plenty of gold accents. The Marshall Monitor III ANC, like previous Marshall personal audio products, builds on that design heritage.

The dome-shaped earcups and headband both have that faux leather finish, with gold highlights provided by a Marshall logo on each ear and the control knob on the right side. It’s a different form factor and product, naturally, but it’s a perfect dead ringer for the amp design that has made Marshall gear so instantly recognizable over the decades.

Comfort is also on point. Soft padding on the spacious ear cups makes for a comfortable fit, while the headband’s clamping force is secure without being restrictive. At 250g, they don’t feel too heavy, while a dual-battery system (splitting the total battery capacity across a chamber in each ear cup) keeps that weight nicely balanced.

The strap is particularly clever: it (and the earbud hinges) twist and bend easily, preventing any accidental breakage of the strap. It also allows the earbuds to fold up into a very compact shape, meaning the included hard carrying case can be easily packed small.

The case itself also has a nice design: almost egg-shaped, with the same leatherette finish as the Monitor III ANC headphones, but with a red velvet lining like the inside of a guitar case.

2. Excellent sound

For those who are about to rock out, the Marshall Monitor III ANC headphones offer a wonderful listening experience, and you’ll have a great time with many other genres too. Punchy and well-balanced (although perhaps slightly warmer in the bass), they’re a great listen no matter your musical tastes.

Starting out on Marshall turf with Guns ‘n’ Roses’ Nightrain, he effortlessly weaves bluesy and dueling guitar lines across the stage, with Steven Adler’s snare snap punctuating the mix with real dynamism.

If you prefer pop, the Marshalls shine here too. Dua Lipa’s Physical, with its dark bassline and shimmering synth lines, has room to breathe, highlighting the raspy vocals and keeping the bass and rhythm tight.

Delicate tracks like Phoebe Bridgers’ Moon Song also prove to be real tearjerkers in the Monitor III ANC. Distant hi-hats and waves of guitar dance around the songwriter’s trembling vocals, giving her a real presence at the front of the mix to great effect.

The accompanying Marshall app also has a powerful EQ feature, allowing you to switch between the standard Marshall mix and another preset or custom EQ setting. It shows off the true dynamics of the 32mm drivers, allowing you to adjust the output down to the smallest detail.

Marshall also includes an Adaptive Loudness option in the EQ, which it claims is capable of altering frequency levels based on playback volume and your surroundings, but I didn’t find any situations where the difference between on and off was pronounced. It doesn’t detract from the excellent basic sonic performance here, though.

3. Incredible battery life with noise cancellation

Want to listen to your favorite tunes eight days a week, to paraphrase the Beatles? You might actually achieve that with the Marshall Monitor III ANC. Marshall quotes an incredible 70 hours of battery life for the earbuds, and that’s with active noise cancellation turned on. Turn it off, and that extends to an even crazier 100 hours. Compare that to the 20 hours of noise cancellation with the AirPods Max or the 30 hours of the Sony WH-1000XM5, and it’s even more impressive.

Thanks to the scalable Bluetooth LE standard supported by the Monitor III ANC, some devices could potentially squeeze even more battery out of a more efficient standard. Charging is via USB-C: you get a cable in the box (plus a handy USB-C to 3.5mm cable for wired listening sessions).

The advertised battery life held up pretty well during our listening sessions, and what was just as relieving was that the ANC was pretty good, too. Passive noise isolation is solid out of the box with the Marshall Monitor III ANC, but crank up the noise cancelling and you’ll effectively silence any outside office noise and drown out all but the shrillest sounds of train and subway commutes.

4. Customizable spatial sound and transparency modes

Soundstage is Marshall’s take on spatial audio, which gives tracks a sense of space whether or not they’ve been mixed in a specific format. It’s an optional, switchable feature of the Monitor III ANC sound (available via the app), and you can change its prominence in the mix, as well as the size of the room it’s trying to emulate, from intimate to arena-like.

It’s harmless and can add dimension to the literal soundstage of some tracks, but it can sound quite subtle and not as convincing as a true spatial mix. But it’s fun to play with and it’s certainly not destructive when it comes to the artists’ original intent.

There’s also a transparency mode that can be turned on and off in addition to spatial and ANC modes. This helps bring the outside world into your listening experience, giving you a better sense of your surroundings without having to remove the earbuds.

It works well, but I wish it was a little more aggressive in picking up the outside world – I missed an announcement at a train station, for example, that I was expecting rival pairs to connect. Hopefully this is something that can be improved with a firmware update.

5. Physical checks at all levels

The Marshall Monitor III ANC’s onboard controls are all operated using physical, tangible buttons. The aforementioned, carefully textured gold control button sits on the lower back of the right earcup and controls volume, fast forward, fast rewind, play, pause, and call control.

There are two more round buttons on the lower parts of the headphone holders. Oddly enough, they’re placed on the back of the headphones, making them surprisingly easier to find and press with the gripping force of your thumb. The left button toggles between noise-canceling modes, while the right button is Marshall’s customizable “M” button. It can be configured to cycle through EQ modes, Soundstage settings, launch your mobile device’s voice assistant, or trigger Spotify Tap, a one-touch launcher for your most recently listened to Spotify playlist or album.

The three buttons combine with an intuitive app to make controlling the Marshall headphones very easy – although we would have liked a little more defined and guided action on the control knob to ensure we’re pushing it in the right direction to get the desired response.

Marshall Monitor III ANC: final verdict

Wearing the Marshall Monitor III ANC on your mullet is as big a statement of intent as showing up to the office in your favorite band’s T-shirt. It’s showing off your rock credentials on your head, but not at the expense of your tech and audio credentials. They tend to be expensive, but justify the cost with well-rounded sound, a solid feature set, and a great design. The Marshall Monitor III ANC will be the perfect bandmate for anyone looking for a pair of noise-canceling headphones.

• For those about to rock out, here’s our pick of the best rock albums of all time…