These Marshall Monitor III have quickly become my favorite headphones, after extensive listening sessions with: Bose QuietComfort Ultra (V2), Bowers & Wilkins Px7 S2e and S3, Cambridge P100 SE, and JBL Tour One M3.

Summary:

Love the Marshall’s sound quality for all my listening. The “Marshall” baseline EQ is very good, and I’m really happy with a single Custom EQ that resolves personal sensitivities (more below) better than most of those competitors above. I hear a lovely balance with just-right bass, mids and treble, appropriately placed vocals, lots of detail and layering. Soundstage is plenty wide enough without spatial augmentation (not a priority).

Great, plush comfort for long listening sessions, although more earcup depth would be nice for my big ears. My apparently large head doesn’t cause any clamping pressure and the headband is unnoticeable. The Marshall controls are fantastic - love that joystick on the right shell! They’re easy to learn and use intuitively, and the App allows some customization of the two hinge buttons. Build quality is confidence inspiring, battery life is incredible and the compact fold is handy, in or out of the beautiful case. Connectivity is easy including source switching.

While I couldn’t be considered an audiophile, whatever that is, my musical preferences have become more engaging with good headphones. These ears are over seven decades old, aided by Sennheiser-branded hearing aids to combat high frequency hearing loss. EQ adjustments have become a big decision factor among those candidates to deal with my HA-boosted sensitivity to sibilance and stridency that distracts from the music.

Top decision factors are sound quality and comfort. Then there’s build quality, easy connectivity and switching between sources, battery life since fewer charging cycles translates to longer overall battery life. Controls have turned out to be important.

My sources are iPhone, iPad, and Bluetooth connection to TV, with no requirement for higher quality codecs that I probably wouldn’t fully appreciate at this age. As a retiree with no commuting and few Zoom calls, noise cancelling (ANC) and call quality aren’t important in my decision.

My musical tastes run strongly toward classic rock and modern variations, with playlists dominated by guitarists including Mark Knopfler, Pink Floyd/David Gilmour, Zeppelin/Plant, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt (her voice can slip into sibilance) and similar. I’ve recently discovered Joe Bonamassa - really enjoy his live acoustic concerts, and at other ends of the guitarist spectrum, Tommy Emmanuel, Jake Shimabukuro (amazing ukulele!) and mellower albums from Buckethead!

Way too much about me! The headphone decisions:

The P100 SE and Px7 S3 are both fantastic but their EQ’s couldn’t sufficiently tame the sibilance/stridency that those guitarists and vocalists can create. They both also had an uncomfortable clamping force on my big head. The Cambridge App was quite buggy, frequently not being able to “find” the P100 SE’s. The Px7 S3 was surprisingly uncomfortable on my large ears, unlike the Px7 S2e which was comfortable except for clamping pressure. That one had a usually delightful SQ despite essentially no EQ, to deal with sibilance, and there was always a slight veil over the often recessed vocals.

The Marshall, Bose and JBL were all very comfortable on head and ears. But Bose controls and connectivity switching were really frustrating and its minimal EQ made my music less satisfying than the Marshall or JBL. The Bose and JBL App have many options, but Bose’ was difficult to decipher. The Marshall App feels like just enough choices.

It came down to a close call between Marshall and JBL. The excellent JBL met all my criteria, but there’s a sense that they won’t hold up over time, and there are no user-replaceable pads or anything else. I used JBL’s fantastic EQ to create several Custom curves that worked for sibilance sensitivity, with variations in mids and bass. Realized that I prefer to stick with just one EQ curve for everything. Interesting that I modeled the JBL curves from my Marshall Custom curve with a notch on its 2.5kHz slider that nicely deals with sibilance.

JBL didn’t meet their battery life spec despite minimal ANC use, and I disliked that ANC defaults to ON. The separate JBL SmartTX seems like a good idea, but just another thing to charge and not lose. I always have my phone anyway, so not much use.

The Marshall Monitor III’s allow me to be fully engaged with music for hours without ever thinking about the device. Nearly perfect!

There's literally nothing I can ding these headphones for. Extremely comfortable, great fit, great sound, probably the best battery life I've seen. I had the prior on ear model and not only do those still perform exactly the same as the day I bought them (despite taking an enormous beating as my daily drivers), but this model carriers everything positive about them forward. I also like the movement of the ANC buttons and the customizable button to the band itself, I actually was confused where they were for a moment.

Noise cancellation is very, very good, especially for this price range. Battery life is, as many have said, probably better than advertised to be honest. I charged the old set maybe twice a month, and these track to perform the same. And of course - audio. I'm NOT an audiophile by any stretch, but I like and need good crisp and clear audio that works for everything from calls to listening to podcasts to every type of music. I haven't even messed with the EQ. It just works.

So short version - yes, these are super worth it. They're an excellent value proposition, they're designed EXTREMELY well (also love the change in how these fold up vs the older models), and they sound great no matter the scenario. Marshall definitely won my dollar with the last set I had, and this just solidifies to me that they consistently deliver.

I love, love this headphone! The sound quality is great and the build quality is top-notch. The Marshall Monitor III came across my feed and I was immediately taken with its style. So I poured over many positive reviews and made the purchase. I couldn't be more pleased!

Upon first opening the package I was immediately impressed with the presentation. Inside a high quality box rested an impossibly small leather-like headphone case with a pebble finish that housed the headphones. The MM3 is very light. The ear cushions are plush, the softest i have experienced and very comfortable. The rest of the headphone is covered with a leather-like material that feels very premium.

The sound quality is fantastic. The MM3 has bass but not as thumping. They have a bright clear sound, I am no audiophile so that's the best I can describe it. I like them so much that they are the first headphones I pick up when I wanna listen to music, news or podcasts. I recently took them on a weekend trip to my son's basketball tournament with no regrets. Noise Cancelling was decent, not as good as the Momentum 4 but still good. I really like the button placement. The single button for vol +- and prev/next was really easy to navigate as well as the unique positioning of the ANC button was extremely convenient. I never made he mistake of pushing he wrong button as I often do with my other headphones.

Finally, these headphones come at a premium price and I am price conscious but I in no way regret this purchase. They check all the boxes of what's important to me: comfortable, portable and stylish...along with excellent sound quality (I was initially concerned that they don't support hi-res audio, Apt-x or Ldac but they sound great to me ...go figure!)...and long battery like...I could go on and on about these things...LOVE Them!!

Update: 3 Months Later

These are still my favorite headphones. One thing that I like a lot about the headphones is how compact they are when they are on your head and when they are folded up. I wish ANC was a little better but still pretty good. Still very very comfortable to wear and sound great.

I wanted a good quality pair of headphones so I could really enjoy my music. I did my research and finally landed on this beautiful pair.

Good headphones are expensive, but they are in the price range of comparable brands, so no complaints there. They are also the most comfortable pair I've ever used. The inner ear cups feel like clouds.

They connect to my phone easily. I use the wire for my console and PC. The wire is a 3.5mm on one end and USB-C on the other end. Hopefully they sell replacements in case it breaks though no issues so far.

The battery life is good. I often forget to turn them off and it kills the battery. Make sure you set it up to have auto turn off in the app.

There are 3 modes of noise cancelling: on, off, pass-through. Pass-through is nice if I'm playing a game but someone wants to talk to me. Off, I can still kind of hear them but not clearly. On, I can't hear anything people say. The noise cancelling isn't 100%. You don't go into a silent bubble and this is actually why I got these over other ones. I don't want 100% noise cancellation. However they are still pretty good at blocking out noises enough that once your music or game is playing, you won't hear anything but what you're focused on.

The headphones function great. The sound is beautiful, the sound stage is an interesting mode. One thing I love about these is the intuitive physical buttons. Left ear cup has a button to control noise cancelling. Right ear cup has a button to control the soundstage on or off. And another button on that ear cup to control power, volume, and next song.

There's no voice saying "power on" or whatever. Instead it's a pleasant little sound effect for each thing you're trying to do.

There's an app for these headphones and I recommend getting it. It contains an equalizer, a way to fine-tune Soundstage, battery life, and a bunch of other things.

I would buy these again and again.

I had some Beats Pro over ears and then Sony wh1000xm4. I literally wore the Sonys out over 4 years. The blue tooth connects still but the sound cancellation squeals causing horrible ear pain. Lost the beats in Amsterdam. So here I am giving the Marshalls a go. I have Marshall guitar amps stanmore and Middleton. Had one Marshall Bluetooth that sucked but it’s the only Marshall I’ve ever had that had a defect. Marshall wasn’t helpful either.

Now to these headphones.

If you are looking for deep base, these aren’t for you. Moving from Sony to Marshall is night and day different. Even when using the equalizer, Marshall doesn’t cut it.

The noise cancellation is solid but sub tech compared to Sony. Understand this by no way takes away from Marshall because the noise cancellation is still upper end and solid.

Fit of Marshall is much better than Sony. I hate being on a bench press set and the headphones slide off my Mellon. Marshall seems to be build a bit better for this and has a metal band supporting the headphones.

Sony has touch tech on outside of the headphones. If you accidentally touch the headphones with your meathead should while shrugging weights, you toggle the Sonys. Marshall’s won’t do this. Their one nob does it all and is nicely tucked away but easily accessible.

Marshalls turn on and connect and disconnect much quicker than Sony. So if you are on the run, that’s nice. The app Marshall has is very functional and easy to use.

Marshall, just looks better than Sony;hands down.

I’m happy with my purchase but one star because theses aren’t so much better they should have a price point of $374. The sale price of $270 is a bit more reasonable.

Just wow! For the compact size and comfort they offer, these are so well tuned for genres such as rock and classical. Some would say that these lack a punch in the bass - and they are not wrong. I personally have never liked bass heavy headphones anyway, esp. the ones that don't leave enough space for the mids and highs. These I believe use 32mm drivers - and I find the bass sufficient for my taste. These are amongst the most sturdy yet lightest headphones I have owned. The way Marshall has done their soundstage feature is also fantastic - I find it way better than the implementation from other competitors under $400. Noise cancellation is 80% as good as that of Bose's or Sony's: They might not cut out highs in some environments. But Marshall's NC implementation does not have the same 'cabin pressure' type of feeling - which is another aspect I love about them. Multipoint bluetooth connectivity is seamless. The auto play/pause feature has a lag of about 3 seconds when you take them off (they are fine when you put them on). Its not a deal breaker - but hopefully something Marshall fix through a s/w update?

I generally love the sound profile of Marshall’s consumer lines of audio technology; however, the emphasis of the mids pumping directly into my ears and the slight sibilance of the treble were frustratingly fatiguing. I’m returning the pair not because of sound quality but because of the comfort of the quality in this form factor. These set of cans are wonderfully tuned for Rock music. They’re clear and distinct, with a decent soundstage that’s hindered by slight harshness at the high end. The cans are aesthetically pleasing and well built, but the ear cup depth and articulation left much to be desired by a headset that looks like it’d be on-par with Bose’s QCUs. I could not get a decent fit, no matter my adjustment. Bluetooth connection is reliable and future-proof at 5.3; the battery life is class-leading with ANC on & off, and the companion app opens up a world of functionality from EQ and spacial audio to Spotify Tap and battery preservation. My recommendation to you: if you know you enjoy Marshall’s sound signature, try out a demo unit in a retail store to see if you’re sensitive to the mids’ emphasis and the treble’s tuning beforehand. If you’re not, these headphones offer a lot of sound, functionality, and portability; but if you find yourself experiencing fatigue after a minute or two, there are plenty of other options out there. (As for me, I’ll be upgrading to the Bose QuietComfort Ultra V2 from V1 instead.)

I’ve come to say how amazing those headphones are. Literally, I've never worn anything this comfortable. They are extremely soft and they feel very nice, allowing me to have them on without any discomfort for my ears or whatsoever. Battery is also on another level ‘cause it can hold up for 60+ hours, which is quite a big advantage. Especially for people who like to travel a lot, since they can also fold into a compact thingy. The quality of the sound is decent, but I find that Marshalls overall work better for rock music with some heavy basses which gives them an opportunity to show their full true colours.

IL EST TOP , SURTOUT POUR LE ROCK ! CANON , le son est terrible

Muy buen producto, son cómodos y por lo menos con el Samsung s25 suenan muy bien solo hay que ajustar el ecualizador o instalar uno para tener un sonido personalizado al tipo de música que escuchas. La batería le dura muchísimo

Just epic sounds. The start of Jailbird by Primal Scream is awesome on these.

Personally I think value for money is spot on. They have a unique look too, which does get the odd double take and then the battery life is epic.

My one downside is the headband. The apple airmax or whatever they are, are THE comfiest headphones. But I dont like apple.

J'ai déjà une enceinte fixe Marshall à la maison dont je suis très satisfait depuis plusieures années, ce qui m'a sûrement influencé lors de mon choix mais c'est aussi l'autonomie monstrueuse qui m'a fait craquer pour ce modèle.

Très agréable à porter, les coussinets sont d'une douceur folle et facile à enlever. Le casque parait très solide, gage de durabilité, il se plie facilement et sa boite de rengement est très belle et fonctionnelle. Niveau prise en main et réglages c'est relativement facile avec l'application Marshall dédiée, la réduction de bruit est correcte, la qualité sonore Marshall me va très bien et pour ce qui est de l'autonomie ça fait plus d'une samaine que je l'utilise plusieurs heures par jour et encore 45% d'autonomie. Franchement j'adore ce casque, je vais sûrement acheter des coussinets d'avance car c'est ŝurement ce qui se détériorera le plus rapidement et j'espère que la batterie pourra se changer facilement pour le garder longtemps.

Simply amazing. You can tell the headphones are high-quality just by touching them, the case is really nice, and the sound quality is excellent. Marshall is at the top of its game, as usual.