Marshall - Milton A.N.C. Wireless On-Ear Bluetooth Headphones with Adaptive Noise Cancellation and Microphone for Calls - Black

I feel particularly qualified reviewing the Marshall Milton A.N.C. headphones given my previous experience with its older cousin, the over-the-ear Marshall Monitor III ANC, which are amazing in their own right. As on-the-ear headphones, the Milton isn’t quite the same experience, especially when it comes to the noise canceling. They are objectively not quite as quiet as Monitor III when switching between the 2 in my moderately busy office space with 8 coworkers, plus the noise that comes through the brick walls from the factory on the other side. But, they still do a really good job, the factory noise completely disappears and it’s only the louder people in the office whose voices penetrate the noise canceling technology, although it’s kept to a muffle. I particularly like the feel of these headphones compared to full over-the-ear headphones, especially when wearing for a full 8 hour day at the office. They are lighter and you hardly feel them. The other substantial advantage is battery life. After an entire shift the battery life was only down to 88%, and that was with multiple Teams calls, listening to Spotify (more on that later) and keeping the ANC fully engaged the entire day. Because of my ownership of the Monitor III headphones, using the Milton is seamless; exact same buttons with the same functionality, used for turning them on, pairing, toggling the noise canceling on and off, controlling the volume, and even skipping ahead when using Spotify. It also uses the same Marshall app on my phone which allows you to adjust the equalizer, customize the buttons, and use a feature called Soundstage which lets you adjust a virtual room size and effect level, which I find that when turning this on and setting the room size to large, the sound just feels more “full” I don’t know how else to describe it, but it’s noticeable. During one of my Teams meetings with my 8 coworkers, I switched between the Milton and the Monitor III and noted the sound quality I heard, and asked my coworkers about the sound quality they were getting from me. I can report that there is no difference in the sound quality at all between the two, microphone nor headphones, even though the Milton has a retail price substantially below the Monitor III. Included with the headphones is a short charging cable (but no charging brick, you’ll need to provide that yourself), a longer cord that connects the headphones to a standard audio jack should you want to connect these to a device that doesn’t have Bluetooth, and a pouch for carrying everything. The only constructive criticism I have for these headphones is that there is nothing on the headphones that indicate which is the Left and which is the Right ear, and there most definitely is a correct way to put them on (the gold button goes on the right ear) I would have put an L and R perhaps under the Marshall logo on each ear piece, or somewhere less conspicuous. If you put them on backwards, the microphone will not pick up your voice well at all and the people you are speaking with will definitely let you know about it, which of course I figured out right away using the Monitor III. In my opinion, the Marshall Milton A.N.C. headphones are a super high quality on ear headphone set from a world class company, with easy-to-use features at a very accessible price. I highly recommend them.

This is my first go at using Marshall audio products. They have been on my radar over the last few years, but I haven’t taken the plunge until I saw these Miltons and I am thoroughly impressed. For some context, I use a lot of different headphones and earbuds; my wife says I have a problem. I have a few other ‘high-end’ headphones from a couple of other brands so I was curious how the Miltons from Marshall would stack up to those more expensive offerings. I can confidently say that the Miltons hold their own and in some places go past those more expensive options. Let me start off with the most important part of any headphone, the audio. I have left the Mitons EQ tuned to the original Marshall sound, and toggle on the Adaptive Sound that is supposed to adjust the tonal balance based on playback volume and what’s going on around you. I have been very happy with the sound. I have an eclectic taste in music and some of my playlists will bounce around between genres. I might have an old 90s country song, then the next will be a newer Hip-Hop track, then flip to some old school 80s music. Every song sounds great. Mids and Highs are clear, and Bass is prominent without overpowering the song. I’ve also used it connected to my laptop to watch movies and was again impressed with the sound. AND and Transparency are good. I was very happy with the ANC, it did a great job of eliminating my wife’s show playing next to me as well as the noise from the fan we have in our room. Voices are also eliminated which is good and bad. You can adjust the level of the ANC, but I just left it at the highest setting. Transparency can also be adjusted, but I would say Milton's transparency isn’t quite as good as what other brands are offering in this area. Still passable, but not the best. I love that Marshall included the ability to use Apple’s Find My or Google’s Find Hub. It was super easy to get it connected to Google’s Find Hub when I connected it to my Android phone. It was a little more involved trying to get them connected to Apple’s Find My when I tried connecting them to my iPhone. Another great note is since I had it connected to my Android and connected to my Google account, the headphones can easily switch over to my Google TV. This is great when I am trying not to wake my dozing wife. I have really enjoyed using these headphones from Marshall. The sound is great, what I would expect from Marshall. They are lightweight and comfortable to use for long periods of time. The battery has been great and something I don’t worry about. The only issue I have had so far which I hope is fixed in a firmware update is that the Spotify Tap feature has not worked. This issue is on both my iPhone and Android phone. The M-Button still works to toggle AND and Transparency, but I have not been able to get the Double Press to start Spotify. These are an amazing pair of headphones, and I prefer them compared to my other similarly priced headphones, and more expensive options. They are an easy recommendation.

I'll preface this that my review was done on a Mac and iPhone, so apples own headphones with their built in controls always have an advantage. But with these, the simple setup on the buttons doesn't really make that much of a difference. I always hate having to go into an app to change ANC, but the Marshall app has this though you can instead edit the M button and simply click it to what you like. The sound itself is also amazing. Good base and awesome sound, for headphones that are so small. The small size also doesn't mean they are too small, it more that it makes them light. They still fit over my hears and feel like any big over ear headset when it comes to sound and ANC, but are super easy to wear. The passthrough also works great. The music still sounds amazing but you can hear and talk to people. Using them both on my phone and my Mac, music and videos where all really nice, either ANC or passthrough. And they are easy to carry around as well because of the small size. The one interesting thing is that they have on USB-C spot for charging, you get that cable, and also a usb-c to audio cable. This is nice, but don't lose that cable as I don't think many people have that laying around. Overall though, awesome headphones especially if you like over the ear but want them portable and easy to carry.

It’s the name, branding and signature style that makes these special. Directly compared to some other headphones, I personally didn't notice any major sound difference until I made some changes. Don’t get me wrong, these are still nice headphones, just don’t feel like they are something I would go out of my way for unless I just wanted the Marshall logo to show off. The adaptive active noise canceling is decent. Sometimes it works so well it almost feels like my head is stuffed up. It also has transparency mode that helps with being able to hear louder sounds if you are out and about, so you don’t stand in the path of that bicycle. The audio quality is on par with others I have tried of the same size. You can use the Marshall Bluetooth app to modify lows/mids/highs to your liking and get some deeper bass if that is what you prefer. I do like the metal directional button that lets you skip, adjust volume and play/pause. You also have the “M button” on the other side that you can change settings with the app. You can have it cycle through noise control, equalizer, enable/disable soundstage, activate the voice assistant or do nothing. Which leaves you out of the other cycles as you can only choose one. The soundstage kind of adds like a small reverb effect, giving the sound a bit more of an open sound, like you are in a large room, or smaller room if that is what you set it to. You really have to cycle it to notice the difference, but it is there. Battery life is listed as 50+ hours, but as with all battery items, depends on usage and this is at medium volume with ANC. I have not timed it myself, but a few hours here and there over several days before it finally needed a charge was pretty impressive. With about 2 hours to full charge. These do fold up and come with a little bag. This is good to keep with you as these are not water resistant and best to be stored away if it starts to rain on you. They aren’t a whole lot smaller when they are folded, but do make them a bit less bulky. They also come with a coiled 3.5mm to USB-C cable if you still have one of those, but it does still need to be powered on. Now, the changes you can make are with the extra codecs of LC3 and LDAC, which on my Android device you have to go into the settings of the Bluetooth device and enable LDAC. This allows for hearing higher bit rate audio files, like FLAC for instance. I was not able to figure out the LC3 option though, but should also allow higher bit rates at lower latency. Overall, these are nice headphones. They clearly have that signature Marshall look to them, like having two miniature amps on your ears. I do feel that you can get similar audio from other headsets without the added brand premium. But, those also don’t typically offer the ability to replace battery and ears pads like these do.

I have always related the Marshall brand with rock music and that couldnt’ have been so far from the truth. The Marshall Milton A.N.C headphones sound amazing with all genre of music, I used it with several music apps which all worked to profection using the hi-res version of the apps. There is not a music app included but use the one you are most comfortable with. You are able to use presets to setup the different genre of music to dial it into the way you like hearing your music. I wore these for long listening sessions and they were extremely comfortable, light and non sweating to my ears. The build quality is very durable. The seperation was great but this may vary with preamamp and equipment you use. You can use the the equlizer to adjust the bass, mids and hi frequency and save to the presets. The battery life was good no issue there. Stated in the manual to last up to 3 days. With the included cables you not only use bluetooth but wired to your preamp as well. Setup was straight forward just scan the QR code and follow the prompt. All in all I enjoyed these headphones and would recommend taking them on for a test drive I believe you will be impressed with the quality.