Marshall Minor III

Design and features:

This model has customizable touch controls with play/pause, track skip, and receive/end call default settings. Either earpiece can be used alone for one ear monitoring of Bluetooth streamed audio and telephone communications. It has an automatic pause feature - the audio pauses when either earphone is taken out of an ear and restarts when the earphone is placed back in the ear. The charging/carrying case has a built-in rechargeable battery that the manufacturer claims can be used to recharge the earphone batteries for an additional 20 hrs. of playtime for a total of 25 hrs. It can be recharged via USB cable or optional wireless compatible charging devices. The free Marshall Bluetooth app download for Apple and Android devices adds additional features and software updates.

Sound quality:

We found the Minor III delivers sound quality that falls in the middling range - it reproduces music and voice reasonably well despite the obvious shortcomings in its sound. The overall sound can be summarized as somewhat grainy, and a bit telephone-like. With the Marshall Bluetooth app set at the Original Marshall Sound setting (as received state of the headphone) the bass (as in bass drums, bass guitars, stand-up bass, etc.) has good impact and goes fairly deep, but is a bit boomy. The midrange (voices, guitars, horns, etc.) is somewhat grainy, and a bit hazy, congested (think sonic traffic jam) , telephone like, and depending on the fit can sound somewhat harsh. The treble (cymbals, the upper range of violins, etc.) is dry, a bit sizzly (sounds that should have a delicate shimmer have a sound reminiscent of bacon frying) and smeared, and depending on the fit can range from somewhat prominent to a bit subdued. While the sound has a good sense of liveliness, it is somewhat closed (sound-wise it's fairly obvious you have something plugging your ears). This earphone does a decent job of recovering room ambience in the upper midrange, but ambience recovery is so-so elsewhere. The tone settings of the app do have a noticeable effect on the sound of these earphones.

Comfort and Fit:
These earphones do not produce any pressure in ear canal, but users may have to fiddle a bit to find the position that provides the best sound quality. Users with small, medium, and large sized ear bowls will probably find that this model stays in place with no problems for casual use, are stable during vigorous head movement, and are unobtrusive so it's easy to forget they are being worn. Incidental contact with the touch controls can cause unintentional playing, pausing, and hitting the stem that hangs out of the ear can knock an earphone loose and cause it to fall out of the ear.

The Marshall Minor III portable Bluetooth wireless earphones have a non-isolating earbud design.