Normally the downside of in ear headphones is the small speaker size which usually compromises the sound quality. That is why I have used over ear versions, mostly by Sennheiser. The downside of those is you have a brace that either goes over your head or behind your neck.

When I saw the 2 headphones created by Marshall I immediately was interested in the Minor. Using a different way to wear these in ear allows for lager speakers. So as soon as they were available again, I ordered a set.

About a week later, I received a nice package from Sweden.

I really like the way they boxed the headphones, good out of box experience :)

In the box you find:

• headphones
• conversion cable for standard headphone connection
• manual
• 4 different sizes mounts

The 4 different size mounts are easily changed on the headphones. Just mount a set and put them in your ears to see how they fit. For me it was no problem getting them to fit correctly.

The wire used looks like it is covered with some sort of canvas. The wire is pretty strong and doesn’t like to get tangled up.

In the wire to the left speaker is a remote control button and microphone. I tried this on my Motorola Milestone 2, and both the remote and microphone work perfectly. The microphone seems sensitive enough to have a understandable phone conversation. On my Milestone 2 the remote only works to play/pause music or to pickup or hangup a conversation. The manual states that 2 or 3 clicks can go to the previous or next track when listening to music, but that doesn’t work on the Milestone 2.

I used the normal plug to connect the headphone to my iPod. No problems there, the iPod doesn’t seem to mind the connector with the extra remote/microphone signal. I haven’t had to use the supplied conversion cable that removes the remote/microphone signal from the connector.

Sound

Being used to both the Sennheiser PMX100 and PMX200 I was afraid the sound from the Marshall Minor would be disappointing. But it most certainly wasn’t! For me the sound is more neutral. The Sennheisers have the tendency to overdo the low end, the Minor’s don’t do that. Don’t get me wrong, they have plenty of low end, but they are more balanced over the whole frequency spectrum.

The other thing I was surprised at was the clarity. The last time I noticed such a big difference was when listening to my Hepta loudspeakers. I’m not saying the Minors are on the same level, but they can come pretty close.

I’m very happy with the Minors. The sound quality is great and the remote and microphone functionality is a really useful functionality when using the Minors combined with a phone.