Marshall Motif II ANC vs AirPods Pro 2 (USB-C) Review 🤔
Written by Aaron - 7 October 2024
The first-gen Marshall Motif ANC earbuds made a bold statement when I covered it a few years back. What I liked about its design is its ruggedness. The case’s vinyl texture means you don’t have to be so gentle with it, you can go ahead and put it in your pocket with your keys and coins. The earbuds also fit much better than AirPods. They’ve got a grippy, non-slip surface as opposed to the AirPods Pro 2’s glossy shell. And this time with the Marshall Motif II ANC, it’s got improved battery, rated the same as the AirPods Pro 2, faster charging, and it also supports multipoint pairing.
You also get app support on both Android and iOS devices providing a greater level of control. You can adjust noise canceling, transparency, customize its sound manually or with EQ presets, and there’s even a battery preservation mode.
The rechargeable batteries in TWS buds have a lifespan and there are several factors that determine how long it lasts. If you’re concerned about that, this lets you put limiters in place to prolong the batteries’ lifespan.
The temperature limit setting is quite interesting because how would they know not to charge when it’s hot, except if there’s a sensor inside?
But how does the new Motif II ANC actually perform in terms of sound, noise canceling and call quality, benchmarked against the AirPods Pro 2 USB-C version?
Microphone Quality
The AirPods Pro 2 USB-C definitely has the cleaner mic here, but it’s one of the best right now compared to many others. The Marshall’s mic pickup in quiet situations is good, clear and crisp. In challenging scenarios however, it doesn’t filter noise from my voice very well. In fact, this is similar to what we saw on the Sony WF-1000XM4’s mic pickup. Of course do bear in mind that the noise levels that I test these mics at is often louder than most situations. More realistically it’s going to perform okay, as you saw in the beginning of this video. Listen to the samples.
(Tested under simulated noisy cafe conditions and wind from a fan. It is important to note that with iPhones running iOS17 and later, there is a ‘Voice Isolation mode’ when making calls, which cuts background noise regardless of whether the earbuds’ noise gating is effective or not.)
Active Noise Canceling
The Motif II ANC’s active noise canceling feature does work, and when I’m using this in the real world, it could also bring down noise levels in most situations. But there is still quite a bit of noise getting through, especially in terms of human voices. And I’ve had to raise the volume riding in the train to be able to hear my audio.
So it isn’t extremely effective, and it’s definitely not canceling as much noise as the AirPods Pro 2. Listen to the samples.
Transparency Mode
In terms of transparency it feels pretty mild, so in a sense, it sounds very natural, but it still does have an occlusion effect. But like most transparency modes it’s good enough for general awareness, and it’s possible to have conversations with people around you. (Not that I talk to random people around me. Singaporeans generally keep to themselves.)
Sound Quality
In terms of sound quality, if you were expecting something close to what Marshall is generally known for which is growling bass and heavy mids, this isn’t it. It’s tuned in a way that there’s a lot more emphasis on the upper mids and treble. Here’s what it sounds like compared to the AirPods Pro 2 USB-C. Listen to the samples.
What I do like about its sound is it’s quite clean and intimate, which lends itself very well to faster types of music like deep house or rock or trance. Compared to the AirPods Pro 2, the AirPods Pro 2 sounds heavier for sure, bass is also fuller, and it sounds slightly more detailed. But it doesn’t allow you to tune its sound like the Marshalls.
With the Marshall Bluetooth app, I could manually make the Marshalls sound closer to what I want so I bumped up the bass, pulled down the mids a bit, and now it sounds closer to that iconic Marshall sound. And you can do this on both iOS and Android devices.
Pros and Cons
The first thing that appeals to me about the Motif II ANC is its fit. It doesn’t plug all the way in just like your typical stem type earbud but it grips a lot better. You could actually work out with these without worrying about them falling out. It’s also rugged, even the case is water and dust resistant, and you do get all of the features on both Android and iOS unlike the AirPods, with an app that is both polished and intuitive. On top of that, these buds are stylishly Marshall.
That being said, I do hope to see some improvement whether through software updates, or the next version, such as improvements to its ANC because that reduces the need to jack up the volume in noisy places. And also I want to be able to customize its controls more.
Right now it only lets me set what the long press gesture does. On the one hand this gets the buds to mirror each other in terms of ANC toggle, playback, and call controls, so you can use either the left or the right earbud and it will work the same. The problem is, since the long press gesture is shared between ANC toggles or volume, you can’t have both on one earbud. Furthermore, if you do choose volume, you can only choose volume up or down per earbud.
To solve the problem, I would happily replace skip controls and Spotify Tap with volume, since I don’t often use those controls from earbuds, but it’s not possible at this moment.
Another thing is latency. I know, I barely talk about latency now because on all the earbuds I’ve tested recently, I have not encountered issues watching videos on any device. Even when working on my video editing software, it compensates. For gaming, that’s a different story because of how Bluetooth works, you’ll get a tiny bit of lag, but it’s not going to throw you off when you’re slaying monsters in Elden Ring.
On the Marshalls though, you do get a bit more lag than your average earbuds, especially noticeable on PC - around 300 ms or so. When gaming on PC, it could be as high as 500ms. That’s very noticeable, and it’s something worth bringing up so that if Marshall is, perhaps, watching this video, they’re aware of it. Maybe address it through a software update. But if those are not major factors for you, and you do want a stylish alternative to AirPods Pro 2 that fits a lot better, the Motif II ANC is one option.
If you’d like to check the latest prices of these earbuds, click on the Amazon links below.
Marshall Motif II ANC - https://amzn.to/3FRaPyA
AirPods Pro 2 - https://amzn.to/3UoeJG8
(Affiliate Links Disclosure)
When you make a purchase through the Affiliate Links on this site, the site earns a small commission at no cost to you. Thank you for your support!
