Marshall’s latest set of cans look to compete against some of the best everyday bluetooth over-ear headphones on the market, from the likes of Sony, Bose and Sennheiser.

Marshall’s updated Monitor headphones bring active noise-cancellation, useful features, unique styling and good sound quality, making them perfect for everyday use, and really shine as one of the best commuter sets on the markets.

The design looks great and sturdy. Steering away from their aggressive rockstar brand style. The headphones still keep a unique look with stitched hangers, curly cables linking the drivers and white ‘Marshall’ branding, positioning themselves for Marshall fans and non-fans alike.

While sound quality is not perfect, they produce a warm, bassy and energetic sound with a wide soundstage and excellent stereo separation, making them sound great for loud bass heavy electronic music without distortion. Other genres sound good, but details can be lost in more subtle music. The sound will appeal to most. Unfortunately these lack AptX, AAC and AptX HD support, limiting sound quality over bluetooth. This will be unnoticeable for non-HiFi grade streamers, such as Spotify.

The control are the best on the market. No ugly buttons or faulty touch controls. The Monitor IIs feature a nice looking gold joystick on the right earcup. This is used for play/pause, next/previous track and volume up/down. The ANC button on the left cup toggles the headphones between noise cancellation off, audio passthrough and maximum ANC. Sound quality remains solid through all settings, but the ANC while good, falls slightly short of the competition. The “M” button on the right cup acts as the equalizer controls, but can be customized in the iOS and Android app to bring up Google Assistant. The app also shows battery life, equalizer adjustments and noise cancellation options.

  • Joystick
  • ANC button
  • M Button

You’ll have no problem getting through a full week of listening. 30 hours of battery life with noise cancellation on and 45 hours as regular bluetooth headphones, positions them at the top end of the market, matching Sony WH1000XM3’s 30 hours, and easily beating the Bose 700 and Sennheiser Momentum 3 at 20 and 17 hours respectively. Charging these from zero to full takes just two hours.

A 3.5mm jack will help you out for those occasions with no battery or bluetooth and a USB-C port will play nice with most new chargers.

Comfort is up there with the best, being lightweight with quilted leather pads. The Marshall’s are compact when folded down and come with a soft bag, perfect for transportation.

Marshall Monitor II

At $279.99 on Amazon ($319.99 RRP), they position themselves up with the best on the market:

For Apple fans, you may want to hold out till the reported AirPods X over-ear headphones drop later this year.

With features, sound quality, style and price that near matches or even beats the competition, these are a great all round pair. If you’re after an excellent set of headphones with a solid battery, control system and listen to a lot of energetic music, these are the ones for you.