Best in the Market with Flaws: Marshall Monitor III ANC Active Noise Cancelling Bluetooth…
I have used different headphones from nearly all brands inside the market like Sony, Bose, Bowers & Wilkins, Apple, Jabra, Sennheiser
Best in the Market with Flaws: Marshall Monitor III ANC Active Noise Cancelling Bluetooth Headphones
I have used different headphones from nearly all brands inside the market like Sony, Bose, Bowers & Wilkins, Apple, Jabra, Sennheiser
There is NO affiliate links in this posts. I purchased all of them with my own money, no sponsorship or read text involved.
When I used the first over ear headphone, I was 5. My father likes to listen music and because of our age and early sleeping time, he bought himself a Sony headphones with coiled cable at that time. Of course, it attracts me all the time and wore it when he was not at home. I can clearly say that I am an over ear headphone user more than 30 years.
I cannot call myself as an audiophile but based on my tests, I am hearing “extremely” good. This is not my description, it is the description of my doctor when I went there to complain about may be I am hearing so much. It is great in some cases but it is a nightmare if you have a noisy neighbour and you are trying to sleep. As a result, I don’t have any hearing aid problem but the opposite.
My recent headphone challenges has started with Sony WH-1000XM4 and Bose Quietcomfort 45. I had both pairs and was using Sony at home and Bose at work. When I was working at home as home office, I was not carrying Bose together with me so I added my work laptop as additional connection point to Sony and taking remote calls with Sony. This was the time that I realized how bad Sony’s microphone is as well as my colleagues complained a lot. When I am using Bose QC45, there was no complain but there is another problem with Bose. When you are connecting it as multi point connection, everything is great until you begin to listen music on your laptop. The music interrupts randomly and it is very annoying because it is not happening like once an hour but several times during a track. I tried it with different laptops with different operating system but no luck. If I listen music with my mobile phone, it is perfectly fine. As a result, I had 2 headphone to have one full functionality: Listen music while using it in conference calls too. I have lived in such situation around 4 years and said enough is enough and sold both pairs to have one proper one. The story of frustration, returns, endless discussions with customer services have begun…
Before deep dive, I would like to inform some points before reading the article fully:
- I don’t return any item so easily because it is bad for environment, business, and waste of my time to deal with post office. I always look for a solution first.
- Good ANC is a must for me. I know it varies between brands, so my intention is to have a good one, not the best of the best. I am working in an open-space environment, and ANC for headphones and microphones is very important.
- I want a good balance between sound quality and microphone quality. I don’t want to have a stick near my mouth all the time as a microphone, so I am not searching for the best sound but a bad microphone.
- It must be over ear. I have tried on ear headphones several times but they were very painful. I am also not so comfortable with in ear all day long but shorter periods only.
- I am OK premium headphones because I am using them for good amount of time (around 10 hours per day and around 4–5 years) but if I pay premium, I expect premium, nothing less.
- I prefer foldable headphones but as you can see in the following list, I also tried non-foldable ones too. Folding is good to have, not must to have.
- I am using eyeglasses, and my head shape tapers on top. So both earpads should be flexible enough to handle my eyeglasses, and headband padding is important not to have painful usage.
- Multipoint connection is a must for me because I use it while commuting with my personal mobile phone and laptop during working hours. I don’t expect to have concurrent multipoint connection but it should be easy to switch.
- I am not going to compare their features, drivers, or any other technical details. These have been done with various channels in YouTube and many articles. I also don’t have technical equipment as hardware or software. So sounding experience is based on my personal preference.
Bowers & Wilkins PX7 S2e
This was like an instant return from my side because of 2 reasons:
- It smells very heavy and very bad. I have never had such a smell even in the cheapest Chinese products and it is not only me experiencing it: https://www.reddit.com/r/BowersWilkins/comments/1e8wkbx/chemical_smell_of_the_new_px7_s2e/ . Some people like, some hate… For me, it is disgusting and the smell sticks to your head — in my case, my glasses too.
- When I have multipoint connection, the non-active device drops randomly.
- PX8 has design faulty in the headband and I don’t know it is the case for PX7 because they are very similar by design: https://www.reddit.com/r/BowersWilkins/comments/1dcqgxn/px8_headband_issue/
Sony WH-1000XM5

After having 4 good years with Sony XM4, I decided to try XM5 because I head that microphone is working better:
- I returned it after a month of usage.
- Its design is like a toy from a toy store. The headband is so narrow, not enough padding for me, cups are weird with a very tiny earpads. I haven’t enjoyed single minute using it.
- Although it is not a big problem, it is a fingerprint magnet with touch controls.
- I don’t want to enter sounding discussion but this is really not so good but yes, microphone is improved comparing XM4.
- It has a weird ANC and you cannot close it neither in headphone physically nor in its software. It is called “auto optimisation” (AI-based ANC optimisation) and if you are wearing eyeglasses like me and turning your head, you feel like losing ANC randomly. It is a disaster feature. Sony related a firmware to lower its automation but it is still a problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/SonyHeadphones/comments/vu6smu/is_the_whxm5_auto_anc_really_that_bad/.
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Wireless Headphones

I have never been a big Bose fan but their headphones are OK in the market when you want to sell after several years:
- I returned it after nearly a month of usage.
- The left earcup gives me extreme pain even I try to adjust it as they advised. After using it a day, I feel like my ear is ready to drop. It was very weird feeling and searched if someone else has the same problem, and found one: https://www.reddit.com/r/bose/comments/1c32c2v/struggling_with_bose_qc_ultra_left_earcup/.
- Multipoint connection is not a disaster, but it doesn’t always work properly or when you need it. However, this headphone has a great feature: You can disable multipoint connection and use the Bluetooth connection/power button to traverse between connected devices via Bluetooth. I really liked it.
- Microphone is very good, sound is debatable. For me, it was not a big deal but it is classical Bose.
- Too many functions on single buttons. I don’t know why they are trying to be minimalist because they have never been about buttons all these years.
- It doesn’t power off or on as promised with the button. Same button is also for Bluetooth discovery: https://www.reddit.com/r/bose/comments/176ceau/bose_qc_ultra_power_on_issues/.
- It is foldable.
Not Tried and Why?
- I didn’t try Bowers & Wilkins PX8 because of the headband design flaw as mentioned above.
- I didn’t try to buy any Bang & Olufsen product. I could try HX but its circle ear design doesn’t fit the autonomy of ears so I felt pain during trial at their store. They fixed the design in H95 model which is close to 1000 euros. I tried at the store and I couldn’t convince myself to pay this price because of Bluetooth technology, you can never get lossless audio properly. So if I need to use it with cable, I have better options with better prices.
- I haven’t tried any Anker Soundcore products. I have some doubts for any brand which produces both very cheap and expensive products at the same time. Especially in headphones, it requires sound engineering, not just drivers, and covers on top each other. I am unsure how they handle sound engineering for cheap and expensive products. I am happy to try if they provide it for free, but I am hesitant to pay for it.
- I tried Sonos Ace and I really liked it but I decide not to buy because of their recent Sonos App disaster. I also have Sonos One at home and I curse every time I open the new Sonos App: https://www.forbes.com/sites/danpontefract/2024/08/24/the-sound-of-failure-at-sonos/ . For me, Sonos is a very unreliable company in this regard so I am not willing to pay nearly Apple AirPods Max price.
- Sennheiser is in my blacklist. No matter what they produce, I am willingly skipping it. Maybe they’ve fixed their problems until now, but I don’t care. I have disastrous experience with their Momentum 1 earbuds (they call Sennheiser Momentum True Wireles) because of random battery drain issue and even they accept that it doesn’t work properly, they refused release a firmwire to fix it or refund the money: https://www.reddit.com/r/sennheiser/comments/assnth/sennheiser_momentum_true_wirelessmtw_battery/. I spent many hours discussing with their customer service both in the physical shop and by telephone. At the end, I sent them to electronic garbage.
Marshall Monitor III

Now, it is time to come to the point that why I purchased Marshall Monitor III and want to keep. Let’s first start with the pros:
- 70 hours of play with ANC.
- We don’t need to discuss the design, there is no brand can challenge it.
- Soundstage audio is better than majority of other spatial sound options in the market.
- Extremely foldable.
- Very good physical buttons to manage ANC, custom button (called M-button), joystick style 4 direction button (press to power on/off, Bluetooth connection; next and previous tracks, volume up and down)
- No single drop of multipoint connection and switching the sound between them. I hope they can keep this functionality reliably in the coming releases.

Cons:
- Multipoint connection is weird. You can connect to 2 devices at the same time after connecting one and connecting to another with Bluetooth discovery again but it is not visible. You don’t understand neither in app nor in sound command. If you do multipoint connection successfully, you can hear 2 beeping sound when you power on only but you don’t know which 2 devices are.
- Spare parts and user manual are not like popular brands. It was very challenging to find factory reset for example but then I saw that Marshall recorded a video about it.
- ANC is not strong with the popular brands in this category like Sony and Bose. On the other hand, you don’t have “hissing” sound when you have ANC on which is a pros.
- I am not sure if I need to put this on pros or cons: It is coming with Marshall equalizer by default. It is great for me but as you know from the brand itself, it may not be the best equalizer for your taste. It is superior when you are listening Rock and Metal but less attractive when you are listening Classical or Pop and similar. There is an option to add your custom equalizer too.
- If you assign Soundstage change (normal or with spatial audio) to custom M-button, it doesn’t change when you click the button. I think it is a bug, and most probably will be fixed in the coming releases. If you use custom M-button as Spotify tap, it is working properly.
- In general, app of these headphones are bad. For me the best one is Sony, second Bose and Bowers & Wilkins, and the worst Marshall. It is very limited and most probably has been developed by the third party. While the design of headphone is great (black and shiny gold brand name), the app logo is a weird gradient gray with white M logo. Of course, I am not judging the app icon but it shows me that it is developed by 3rd party because it doesn’t match with the brand color palette in anyway. It has a tab in the middle to purchase more Marshall products, which is unbelievable.
- Headband is not the most comfortable one. Although you see like padded headband, it is actually the top part. Under the top part, there is plastic weird band that touches your head all the time. It doesn’t hurt, at least for me, but I didn’t like it.
- The cables are open. It is highly foldable but when you fold it, all the cables are open and vulnerable. I didn’t like this design at all.
- The carrying case is good but it is not ideal based on its shape. It is more like a ball-shaped than flat. When you put it into your backpack, it consumes too much space.

If it is that good, why did I return Marshall?
- The internal of the ear cups are so narrow that it feels like on ear although it is over ear. I have medium size ears so as long as you don’t have small ears, you feel the same. I never like on ear because it is painful experience for me, not exception for Marshall.
- Its price dropped by 100 euro in a month of the release. It shows me a bad sign because of the market value of the product. Although I use the product for a long time, I don’t use them forever so when I will buy the new one, I have a rule to sell one. If I cannot sell it for proper price then I need to pay too much money for the new one which makes this purchase useless.
What’s Next?
To be honest, I don’t know. If I could get a black Friday deal, I want to test Beyerdynamic Aventho 300: https://www.beyerdynamic.de/p/aventho-300 but they provided “free (useless) speaker” without direct discount on price so I skipped it.
I don’t want to go with Apple Airpods Max because I am trying to get out from Apple environment but thanks to the producers, Apple seems the only one can produce normal things for abnormal prices. The rest of them produce mediocre things for abnormal prices of their quality.