Review: Marshall Major III Bluetooth On-ear Headphone

If you’re a fan of those retro style vintage headphone, we just might have the perfect one for audiophiles like you. Iconic British brand Marshall just released its latest on-ear headphone the Major III Bluetooth, a modern classic headphones that has been re-engineered with a new refined design, slimmer than the previous model, exceptional wireless audio quality and convenient to use while staying true to its original form.

Taking out the contents of the box we have the Major III Bluetooth headphone, Micro USB Charging Cable, 3.5mm Cable with Mic and Remote, User Manual and Legal and Safety Information.

Design and Build

The very recognizable retro design of the Major III BT follows the Marshall signature leather look but instead of using real leather they chose faux-leather or another artificial leather-like material, as we all know that Marshall products are actually Vegan-friendly. These faux leather material are present in the head band and the thick padded on-ear cushions. The on-ear cushions surround mostly in your ear and makes it very comfortable when placed on top of them. A nice embossed Marshall logo can be seen outside the earcups and the black anodised 3D hinges rotates freely to adapt to your head for a nice fit.

In case you need to keep it or bring along this Marshall headphone in your travel, it features a collapsible design wherein the hinges folds’ down putting it safely into your bag.

Located at the right earcup are the mic and two available ports. The first port is a standard 3.5mm input for you to use the wired cable with mic/remote in case the battery runs out. Using an extra earphone or headphone you can also share your music to someone else, even if your using the headphone wirelessly, just simply plug it into the 3.5mm port of the Major III BT.

Next, you have a Micro USB charging port that can full charge the Major III BT after 3 hours. Beside it you’ll see a red dot LED indicator that will light up whenever you’re charging it. Marshall claimed that you can use the headphones up to almost 30 hours of playtime on a single charge.

We used it for almost 4 hours straight listening to music as the battery of the Major III BT still remains at 80% with medium volume range. So, our test period wasn’t enough to fully drain them so we’re going to take Marshalls word for the battery life of 30 hours’ of playtime.

In the left earcup there’s a dedicated small copper “control knob” where you can do a series of function by just holding it down, double press and moving left or right. The control knob can power on and off the headphones, play, pause, shuffle and adjust the volume of your paired device. Phone functionality can also be made such as answer, reject or end a call in a few simple clicks. I loved this built-in feature of the Major III BT as its much easier to control the device instead of the other headphones who uses touch control feature.

Because this is a on-ear headphones it does not support any noise cancellation feature, sound isolation is not at 100 percent as we could still easily hear a little of people’s conversation or any background noise. We just move the volume up more to have those little noise drown out from our ears.

Wireless Listening Connectivity

The Marshall Major III has an exceptional seamless audio quality thanks to its Bluetooth APTX feature. It’s more convenient as you can move freely within 30 feet or almost 10 meters of wireless listening range.

With aptX it has been a proven technology that compresses and then decompresses audio as it travels from a source device such as a phone into a receiving device like a wireless headphones transmitted using the Bluetooth connectivity. This ensures that you get the very most from your audio without damaging the quality.

Iconic Sound Quality

As for the specs, it has a built-in 40 mm dynamic drivers that are custom tuned for enhanced bass, smooth mids and clear highs. We tried it on different music genre from rock, new wave, R&B and even some orchestral tracks. Marshall really delivers a sound performance like no other, it’s truly well-balanced and provides decent sound quality to give out a great listening experience to audiophiles.

Listening to Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine delivers out those screeching and distorted guitar riffs, aggressive drums, Zach de la Rocha clear vocals and that famous cowbell sound as well. I noticed that it has a good full bass reproduction and with the trashy sound musicians made during this time it was more important to have headphones that can precisely recreate it and Marshall did a good job.

For the orchestral track, we listened to the opening scene from Brian Tylers’ Iron Man 3 recording session, the sound was excellent as it delivered high register from the brass and strings while the solid bass depth from the drums is on emphasis not too thunderous. We added more as we also listened to some John Williams famous movie sound tracks such as the Imperial March from Star Wars, Main Theme of Superman, and Indiana Jones intro The Raiders March that got excellent sound quality as you feel those lower register instruments gets push forward slightly up to its highest point.

Overall, if you’re going to invest an on-ear headphone that focuses on sound quality then the Marshall Major III Bluetooth will not disappoint you. Hey, we all know that famous musician and bands choose Marshall as among the sought after and popular amplifiers in the music industry.

Built Not Only For Music

Aside from music, the audio quality is excellent as well when we tried watching videos from binge-watching multiple series on Netflix, YouTube, and movies.

If you love playing online games such as Mobile Legends, Call of Duty, PUBG and many more the Major III BT can do a nice game sound that can highlight important noise effects from gun shots, explosions and sword fights. We did not experience some sound lags so its pretty seamless so far during our review.

Lastly, we used our smartphone to try making a call, we encountered a crystal clear call with no static which goes the same as the other end of the call was able to hear you clear as a bell.

Price and Availability

The Marshall Major III Bluetooth retails for only PHP7,890 available at any Digital Walker and Beyond the Box stores. You can also avail it online on: Homeoffice.ph (https://homeoffice.ph/product/marshall-black-major-iii-bt/) and Marshall Lazmall (https://www.lazada.com.ph/products/marshall-major-iii-bluetooth-headphone-i1082802583-s3708786993.html).

Catch the exclusive launch sale of Marshall Headphones and Speakers at Lazada and get as much as PHP5,300 off, just simply visit: https://www.lazada.com.ph/shop/marshall