Marshall Monitor II A.N.C

As we've already established in our relatively recent review of Marshall's Major IV, there's just something about the way Marshall has chosen to take classic amplifier design and use it to mould relatively modern, but still old-school, consumer electronics.

This is equally true of the Monitor II A.N.C, which acts as a small step up the feature and price ladder compared to the more mainstream Major IV. The Monitor is over-ear instead of on-ear - making them larger and more bulky, but you get more comfort and passive noise cancellation in exchange for the added weight.

Monitor II, however, retains these design conventions, fortunately, but also adds a few more features. There are now two additional buttons, in addition to the almost iconic brass button used for track skip and such. One turns active noise cancellation on and off, and the other, bearing an enigmatic Marshall "M", yes, is more flexible, and can be used to activate Siri and Google Assistant, among other things.

It's extremely refreshing that everything on the Monitor II is activated with a button, it's analogue but infinitely more responsive than ambiguous touch surfaces, and after a few days of using your fingers you can easily navigate with it - this is on par with Apple's AirPods Max - and that's saying a lot.

The sound itself is provided by 40mm drivers that provide an impedance of 32 ohms. They sound clear and defined, but without losing the balance that is so often lacking in some headphones from, for example, JBL. No, it's B&O warmth, a tuning that benefits densely instrumented music and podcasts.

There's a good 30 hours of battery life, which is plenty, and that's with solid ANC turned on. No, the noise cancellation is not as effective as Apple, or Bose for that matter, but it works fine in most situations, and there is also a Transparency Mode if you need to amplify the noise outside instead of removing it.

They'll set you back £280, and that sounds like a lot, yes. But that's around £50 less than Sony's WH1000-XM5, and £250 less than the AirPods Max. This still puts Marshall at the cheaper end of the spectrum. Yes, you're also sacrificing the more complete ANC, but you're still getting something that oozes quality and identity for your money.