Marshall Motif ANC Earbuds Evaluation Ranking
Abstract
The Marshall Motif ANC are a beautiful and wonderful pair of earbuds. They’re greatest fitted to individuals who worth sound high quality above all else. They fall quick in a few areas which makes them troublesome to face out in a aggressive premium market.
Execs
- Wonderful sound high quality
- Preset profiles are excellent, although you may’t personalise them
- Enticing design
Cons
- Battery life ought to be higher
- ANC is OK (seemingly a match problem)
- Potential issues with the App and Pixel telephones
Having beforehand been impressed with the Marshall Emberton II, and I’ve just lately been testing their first pair of energetic noise-cancelling earbuds, the Motif ANC.
These are premium-priced earbuds with the quintessential Marshal design.
Specification
- DRIVER SENSITIVITY: 106±2 dB @ 1 mW (0.126Vrms) 1 KHz
- DRIVER TYPE: Dynamic
- DRIVER IMPEDANCE: 16 Ω
- FREQUENCY RANGE: 20-20,000 Hz
- DRIVERS: 6 mm
- BLUETOOTH: 5.2
- CODECS: SBC + MPEG-2 AAC
- ANC: Sure
- PLAYTIME:
- 4.5 hours in earbuds with ANC (6 hours with out)
- 20 whole hours in case with ANC (26 hours with out)
- WIRELESS CHARGING: Sure
- ECO CHARGING: Non-compulsory
- QUICK CHARGING: quarter-hour offers 1 hour of playtime
- CHARGING TIME:
- 3 hours to recharge earbuds
- WEIGHT: 4.25 g
- WATER RESISTANCE
- APP: Sure
- TOUCH RESPONSE FUNCTIONS:
- Activate Transparency mode
Design and Match

There’s probably not an ideal deal you are able to do to make earbuds look good, however Marshal has finished their greatest to use its distinctive model to those.
The case has a cracked leather-based look with the long-lasting emblem, it’s paying homage to the amps and audio system they do. I really feel like they might have made the case extra rectangular and sq. and have it look a bit just like the Emberton, however that may have made the design border on tacky.
The case has USB-C however may also be charged wirelessly. I’m a fan of wi-fi charging earbuds, it is simply way more handy to plonk the case down on a charging mat than plug it in.

The earbuds themselves look good so far as these go. They aren’t fairly the generic black design you see on a regular basis. It’s a stem design with a textured stem and the Marshal emblem on the earbud.
The earbud part is angled and appears to be designed to try to match as a lot bulk of the burden inside your concha.
For my ears, the match is OK. They go in comfortably, and I have never had them fall out, even when on the fitness center, however they do not really feel fairly as safe as different earbuds. You solely get three sizes for the silicon ideas, the biggest is not very giant, and I feel this can be why they don’t seem to be as safe as different buds. At this worth level, I prefer to see a wider vary of ear ideas, and a foam ear tip can also be a welcome addition.


App and pairing issues with Pixel 6 & 7 collection





My each day telephone is the Pixel 6, and I’ve had fairly a number of points getting the app to price with this telephone. I think it’s extra a Google/Pixel drawback than a Marshal drawback, however it’s not very best.
Issues began effectively. As quickly as I opened the case, the pop-up and pair dialogue appeared. I paired the earbuds, and the dialogue informed me to obtain the app. Nonetheless, that is the place the issues begin. The app recognises that I wish to pair the Motif ANC, however it stays caught on the trying to find earbuds display indefinitely.
When it searches for the earbuds, you get one other Bluetooth dialogue for Bluetooth LE; this appears to be the place the issue lies. The Pixel appears to disregard me agreeing to this connection.
I attempted unpairing and repairing it a number of instances. I got here to the conclusion it was the bizarre manner that there might be several types of Bluetooth connections. You might have the pop-up and pair, which names the machine, or the old style manner, the place you manually pair the machine from the Bluetooth menu.
Dismissing the pop-up dialogue and manually pairing it labored. I used to be then informed to replace the firmware. I assume this labored, however after I tried to make use of the app once more, I had the identical drawback. Sadly, I discovered no solution to get it to work this time.
I used to be pretty certain this was Pixel associated, so I switched to my Realme GT 3 Neo, and the whole lot labored instantly. Pop-up and pair labored, I downloaded the app, it recognised the earphones, I then needed to pair once more with Bluetooth LE, a second or so later, the app recognised the earbuds, and I might management them correctly.
As soon as I obtained the app working, it was fairly good, actually higher than common. You might have the assorted ANC controls, an equaliser, you may customise the contact controls and in addition customise the totally different ANC ranges.
I’ve appeared by way of the Amazon critiques of those earbuds, and at the least one individual described the very same drawback as me however with the Pixel 7 Professional. I’m assured that this can be a Pixel associated drawback, nonetheless, lots of people appear to dislike the app typically (I discovered it really works effectively with my Realme).
Sound High quality
Once I used these earbuds with the Pixel and with the app non-functional, I felt underwhelmed by the sound high quality. They appeared very flat. I would not say they sound manner unhealthy; in actual fact, some individuals would seemingly argue the dearth of bass emphasis is sweet. However for me, I like some bass.
With the Realme GT 3 Neo, I realised the ANC was not enabled by default and with this switched on, the sound profile fully modified (a typical quirk with ANC earbuds). The bass lifts considerably, and also you get a a lot richer, heat sound profile that may swimsuit most mainstream client tastes.
Throughout the app, you may tweak the equaliser, and you may arrange three presets. The primary is the signature Marshal sound, however you may then faucet on the second preset and choose hip-hop, rock, spoken, digital and extra.
Oddly, they present the bars which point out which frequencies get enhanced or recessed, however there is no such thing as a solution to manually regulate these. The drop-down menu lacks a customized preset choice. Personally, I appreciated the preset and I by no means actually know what I’m doing with guide changes, however it could be good to have.
Because of the equaliser and with the ANC on, I discover the general sound high quality to be wonderful, and for me, I might say that is the primary promoting level of those earbuds.
Energetic Noise Cancelling
The efficiency of the energetic noise cancelling is commonly the factor that actually differentiates a premium pair of earbuds from reasonably priced ones.
I might say the efficiency is just common. When utilizing my regular airplane cabin noise check, they had been capable of remove a very good quantity of the low finish, however they left a number of the mid to high-end frequencies. I had the FreeBuds Professional 2 at hand after I reviewed this, they usually carry out rather a lot higher.
I think that a part of the problem is that the eartips do not feel like they’ve the identical seal and match as different earbuds with bigger silicon ideas. When you don’t have large ears like myself, you’ll have higher outcomes.
Battery
The quoted battery life is 4.5 hours with the ANC on and 6 with it off. This was your common battery life for lots of earbuds, however in recent times it has improved considerably, and I might now regard it as fairly poor.
The final two generations of the Sony ANC earbuds have elevated the battery life, with the WF-1000xm4 now at 8 hours with ANC on. Even the AirPods Professional can do 5.5 hours with spacial audio enabled.
The FreeBuds Professional 2, that are an analogous worth to those, have a battery lifetime of simply 4 hours, and I’ve recurrently discovered that they die in the direction of the tip of my fitness center periods (they do not final 4 hours with ANC on). I have never skilled this with the Marshal earbuds but, however I might assume twice about sporting them for any lengthy periods.
Worth and Various Choices
The Marshall Motif ANC are priced at £180 RRP, which places them effectively into the premium class. Amazon, there has not been a major worth discount throughout this time, usually various between £170 and £180.
That places them towards some large hitters.
You might have Jabra with both the Elite 85t, which recurrently drops all the way down to round £150 or the newer Elite 7 Professional, which regularly will get discounted to round £130.
The Sony WF-1000XM4 is just about the gold customary for ANC earbuds, they usually have been £160 since mid-November.
I feel one of many issues many of those premium earbuds have is that reasonably priced earbuds are getting more and more good. The Soundcore by Anker Liberty 3 Professional are at the moment simply £90. They aren’t fairly nearly as good, however they’re round half the worth!
Total
The Marshall Motif ANC are a beautiful and wonderful pair of earbuds. They’re greatest fitted to individuals who worth sound high quality above all else.
I feel they fall a bit quick elsewhere. The ANC and battery efficiency might actually be higher.
My expertise with them has been a bit tarnished by the problems with my Pixel 6, and that is one thing that is value contemplating in case you have a Pixel telephone (it could not have an effect on all Pixel telephones although).
I feel the pricing is a bit excessive for my liking, however I assume you might be paying a premium for the Marshal identify and design.
Final replace on 2022-12-18 / Affiliate hyperlinks / Pictures from Amazon Product Promoting API