Marshall Motif ANC 2 Earbuds complete review and information: So earbuds have changed a lot a couple of years ago. If you wanted to buy a pair of earbuds, you would choose one or two things you really care about – maybe it’s sound quality, maybe it’s microphone quality, but you couldn’t have everything. You had to choose what you wanted, and as a result, most people ended up having the same pair of earbuds or the same couple of pairs of earbuds. You couldn’t really choose good sound, good microphones, good noise cancellation, and a cool expressive style.
Exploring the Features of Marshall Motif 2 Active Noise-Canceling Earbuds
We have a pair right here: the Marshall Motif ANC, and the second generation Marshall Motif ANCs. These allow us to do pretty much everything. I have a list of what I want in a pair of earbuds, and these check every box. But unlike really any other earbuds, these look really unique. They have more character; they have a style that is very signature to Marshall. So in this article, I’ll be talking about everything I like about the Marshall Motif 2 active noise-canceling earbuds. I’m happy to partner with Marshall to showcase these.
Testing the Microphone Performance of Marshall Motif ANC II
Earbuds really demonstrate what they’re actually able to do. And of course, as always, I’ll be doing as many tests as possible to show you for yourself what these earbuds are actually all about. So active noise-canceling test results we’ll talk about, we’ll do a microphone test, and we’ll do all of that throughout this article. However, I mentioned that there was a checklist of what I wanted to see in a pair of earbuds. So just kind of getting into that. First of all, these do have mono mode; you can listen to just one ear. But if you want to, these also have water resistance; they’re IPX5 in the earbuds, which is better than most other earbuds out there, and the case is also water-resistant. So if you drop the case or the earbuds, you’re good.
Fit, Comfort, and Durability: Marshall Motif 2 Earbuds
The case is IPX4. The style on these, the aesthetic, looks really good. Looking at the case, it looks a lot like a classic Marshall amplifier. It’s black; it looks really nice. You’ve got that signature Marshall logo on the front. You have a very subtle button there as well, just blends right in, and it’s a tried and true case design that a lot of other earbuds use. So I like that it has wireless charging, of course, again, another tick in the box. And when you open the case, the earbuds themselves are just so unique, again, matching that same aesthetic we see on the Marshall amplifiers, which is really like a very iconic look, and bringing that over to earbuds, I’ve always thought was very impressive.
Battery Life and Connectivity: Marshall Motif ANC II in Action
Now these have that kind of textured look on the outside of the stem; they’ve got the Marshall logo on the ear, and what I really like about these is the brass accent on the bottom. I think that looks so nice, so clean; it just ties everything together to make these look even more premium. As far as fit and comfort go, it’s a hard plastic, but they stay in pretty well because the outside kind of flexes out a little bit there, so it grabs the inside of my ear so I can work out with these.
I’ve gone for runs with them; I’ve done push-ups, and burpees, like all three levels of intensity with workouts. These have stayed in. These have actually stayed in better than Apple’s AirPods for me. But I will say my ears do tend to get fatigued after maybe an hour or so; everyone’s ears are different, but the hard plastic does kind of fatigue my ears just after maybe like I said an hour or two.
Active Noise Cancellation Tested: Marshall Motif 2 vs. Competitors
Okay, so tying in with the stability, let’s do like a quick little headshot test; like this is they’re solid, they’re not going anywhere, but if you just like, so as you can see, like these don’t even budge; they stay in my ears really, really well. But now let’s actually get into a microphone test. Okay, so here’s a microphone test, um, just hanging out in my studio right now; obviously, this is going to be a very easy environment for these earbuds.
There’s no echo; there’s really not a lot going on here, not much ambient sound. But let me know what you think of this. I tested these out before, and I thought honestly they sounded pretty decent, but let’s go to a tougher environment; let’s go outside on a busy road on the sidewalk next to a busy road and, uh, see how they sound there.
All right, it’s really bright out, but this is a microphone test near a busy road. So you can see there’s some traffic behind me; it’s also kind of breezy out here. So leave a comment and let me know how this sounds to you; obviously, this is a pretty tough environment for any microphone.
Customization and App Features of Marshall Motif 2 Earbuds
These do have the latest Bluetooth 5.3 LE, which gives you good battery life, and good connectivity – so good stability, that is. And what I really like, most importantly, is multi-point connectivity. So these can connect to multiple different devices at the same time; so two phones, think a phone and a laptop, and it’ll switch easily, seamlessly, actually, whenever you get a phone call or you start playing music or an article or whatever, it does that well.
The battery life on these is also pretty impressive, offering six hours in the earbuds and 30 hours when you include the case. I believe that is with active noise-canceling off, so depending on what settings you have and what volume you use, it might be a longer or shorter battery life. I tend to keep active noise-canceling on, and I do tend to play these at a higher volume than I do most other earbuds; perhaps that’s because of the EQ, but regardless, that will all affect the battery life. Still, it is pretty impressive and definitely above average. And of course, another requirement on my checklist is to have an app, and once again, Marshall has that,
Sound Quality and Performance of Marshall Motif 2 Earbuds
so these earbuds have an app – the Marshall app – that you can customize a lot about these. You have a five-band equalizer to choose exactly how you want it to sound (we’ll talk about sound quality in a minute). They also have the ability to customize the touch controls because on the outside, these are touch-sensitive, and you can customize them. You can’t customize everything, but you can customize, like, the touch and hold feature, for example.
There is actually a really cool feature I haven’t seen on really many other earbuds ever, and this is battery preservation. You have options based on temperature, based on max charge limit, and based on charging speed, which should ideally help your earbuds to last longer. Again, I’m pretty confident other earbuds are going to copy that; I think that’s a really great idea to add that. That should really make your earbuds last a lot longer, and I always like it when earbuds add fun little features.
Spotify tap option
So there’s a Spotify tap option, so if your phone is like in your bag, you just take out your earbuds, put them in, tap for Spotify, and you can start playing music without ever having to take your phone out. You can also disable interaction sounds, which I personally do; some people like interaction sounds, but it just gives you a quieter experience. You don’t have noise, but you have to, you know, once you get used to them, I recommend doing that.
At first, it’s nice to have interaction sounds just so you know if you actually did tap and kind of get used to the controls here. And of course, this app does work on iOS as well as Android, so pretty universal. And of course, these connect to anything that connects with Bluetooth – smart TVs, laptops, whatever, pretty much anything that has Bluetooth, these will connect.
SBC and AAC codecs
As far as sound quality goes, these do have the adaptive EQ to configure the bass depending on, well, the environment and the situation and music. So much like the previous generation of the Marshall Motif ANC earbuds, these have SBC and AAC codecs, which is going to work on iPhone and Android, of course, and they have 6-millimeter drivers which, when you’re listening to these, I’ve listened to quite a few different genres, specifically rock is probably the main one people would listen to with these; they’re definitely slightly heavier on the bass as the default EQ.
But like I said, when you go into the app, you’re able to adjust that on a five-band EQ to figure out exactly what you like. And it’s really important when you get these earbuds to find the right ear tips; there are several different sizes of ear tips in the box. Choosing the right one is going to help them sound better in your ears but also it’ll affect the active noise cancellation, which is probably one of the better aspects of these, I think one of the bigger improvements.
the bigger improvements
So looking at this chart right here, these are 15 recent pairs of earbuds I reviewed, and so it’s not necessarily my top 15, but I ran the same test for all of these where you play a white noise at a set distance away, turn the volume up until the earbuds are no longer able to block that out, and then I measure the volume where I am of what the sound was actually being blocked. So these did a pretty decent job, about 55 decibels approximately, and that is definitely above average.
So if you look at the green bar versus the white bar, you’re looking at active noise canceling – how much volume is being blocked versus the price. You’re actually getting a pretty good value on these in that regard, and while the sound quality is largely similar to the first-generation Marshall Motif ANC earbuds, the second generation, I think the active noise canceling was definitely one of the big steps up, in my opinion, one of the big improvements, and I was really happy to see that in the second-gen.
transparency test
Okay, so let’s do a quick little transparency test. I can hear everything; I hear my voice. It doesn’t sound like a little bit of tunneling; it doesn’t sound robotic; it just sounds like my ears are slightly plugged. So it’s a little bit less natural, but I can certainly hear everything.
Let’s just try – yeah, I can hear myself typing; actually, the typing sounds very natural; that sounds very normal. So I could hear everything, and one of my music’s playing, I can still hear. Really what matters is like if somebody comes over and talks to me or if there’s like a train stop or a bus stop – like, I can hear that, and so I’ll be able to manage with that.
Marshall Motif ANC 2 Earbuds
So those are the Marshall Motif 2 ANC earbuds. These are, like I said, they’re checking all the boxes. So if you’re looking for a pair of earbuds that does everything – like, you have a lot of options, but this is an option that goes above the others because it looks so unique. You have this expressive style that honestly you’ll probably be getting compliments about. Personally, I’ve always been listening to a lot of rock music, classic rock, modern rock, everything, and so this iconic style brought to earbuds is just,
I’m so happy to see it, and I’m so happy that these are checking all those boxes to be a really solid pair of earbuds. Like, these really compete with the best out there. If you enjoyed the article, consider checking out the link below. You can buy yourself a pair of Marshall Motif 2 ANC earbuds;
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