This is the comparison review of Sony WH-XB900N and Marshall Mid A.N.C. headphones. Both are the noise cancelling headphones. The price of both the headphones is also same.

Sony WH-XB900N	Marshall Mid A.N.C.
BUY NOW	BUY NOW
PROS	PROS
Extremely comfortable. Impressive battery life. Quick Attention Mode is a brilliant addition.	Retro styling. Punchy, warm sound. Great battery life.
CONS	CONS
Disappointing ANC and isolation. Bluetooth 4.2 instead of 5.0. Uncomfortably bass-heavy.	Lacks detail. ANC switch. Uncomfortable.

Expert Reviews of Sony WH-XB900N: 

By T3
the Sony WH-XB900N delivers the right amount of bass and noise cancellation features to make it a less expensive alternative to the WH-1000XM3. For 899, casual users looking for a decent pair of everyday wireless headphones. can consider the…

By Digit
Essentially existing as a bridge between Sony’s Extra Bass series and the much-acclaimed Sony WH-1000XM3, the Sony WH-XB900N attempt to provide something of value to numerous kinds of users at a lower price point than the exorbitantly-priced WH-1000XM3….

By pickr.com 
The wonderful thing about sound is that everyone has their own preferences to what they hear, and that means there’s no “right” pair of headphones. We all listen a little differently and we all have a style we like.When picking a pair of headphones,…

By firstpost.com 
The Sony WH-XB900N is priced at Rs 16,990 with a one year warranty but can be purchased close to Rs 15,490 online. If you are looking for a set of wireless headphones with good sound clarity, active noise cancellation, loads of bass and excellent…

By Stuff 
People love bassy headphones. Sony’s Extra Bass range takes that to its logical conclusion, with so much of the stuff it dribbles out like sticky aloe vera gel. These headphones have categorically too much bass by any sane metric, and their active…

Expert Reviews of Marshall Mid A.N.C.: 

By TechRadar 
The Marshall Mid ANC are handsome headphones for those who want to stand out from the crowd with an interestingly designed headphone. Audio purists might not enjoy that the sound quality is strictly mainstream with tons of bass and emphasized highs and…

By Phone Arena 
The result here is a pair of on-the-ear headphones that undercuts most of its esteemed rivals, showing to us that Marshall is without a doubt becoming extremely serious about its wireless headphones. If you’re tired of being like everyone else and want to stand out, the Marshall MID ANC will undoubtedly offer a refreshing change of scenery.

By cnet 
While it needs come down in price, Marshall’s Mid ANC delivers strong performance in a compact…

By Trusted Reviews
Satisfying rocker headphones – just a little off the best at the price – for sound and noise-cancellation.

By iLounge 
If you’re familiar with Marshall’s other headphones, Mid ANC doesn’t offer many surprises. The same iconic Marshall branding can be seen here, and it’s packed with the same basic accessories — a 3.5mm audio cable and USB to micro USB charging cable — as…

Detail Review: 

INTRODUCTION:

Sony WH-XB900N

This headphone has touch controls, noise cancelling technology, and also extra bass for a great sound quality. This headphone is almost good in all the features. 

Marshall Mid A.N.C.

This is the noise cancelling headphone of the Marshall. This also has many features which will be more useful and the design and comfort is also pretty much good. The sound quality is also quite good.

DESIGN:

Sony WH-XB900N

The plastics do feel quite cheap, it’s this hallow feeling with textured plastic that I usually see on $100 headphones. They’re built to be lightweight but the texture is very generic, you can scratch that you kind of feel it or hear it though but they serve its purpose and honestly almost everything else about these headphones, I believe makes up for it.

If you test the flexibility of this headphones, they’re perfectly fine. There’s a little bit of chatter here and there but honestly the quality feels great for the price and I think it’s very much reasonable.

Marshall Mid A.N.C.

The over all build quality of the Marshall MID ANC is just top notch, you’ve got very textured leather on the headband and ear cups, there’s soft microfiber cloth underneath the headband, the frame is black anodized metal, and overall the headphones weigh in at just 208 grams. When the headphones collapse for storage they take up very little space. But personally, I don’t think the MID ANC are great for commuting because when they’re placed inside their carrying case, they do take up a good amount of room.

Marshall’s choice in materials and design make the MID ANC a pair of very good looking and well built headphones. I actually feel these are over all way better than the Bang and Olufsen H8i on ear headphones which retail for $400.

COMFORT:

Sony WH-XB900N

These feel great on the head. The XB900N is practically the same weight as the WH-1000XM3 and the Bose 700 headphones coming in at 254 grams. No where fatigue experience, clamping force around this jaw line right here is nice and the ear cups are comfortable but they do heat up my ears a little bit here. There’s not a super light airy feeling as the 1000 XM3 but Sony claims because this is their XB lineup, the ear cups have increased air tightness between the drivers and your ears to offer punchy bass.

Marshall Mid A.N.C.

When it comes to comfort, I just cant wear these headphones for long periods of time because they constantly press against my ears. But, the clamping force on these headphones isn’t too bad.

They do have a snug fit so they do stay in place very well and their very low profile design might make them better suited for women with smaller heads. The ear cups pivot a lot and since the flexible headband give the ear cups a good amount of swivel, these headphones have no problem conforming to most head types.

FEATURES:

Sony WH-XB900N

The right ear cup has very responsive touch controls: pause, play, skipping forward, and going back on your music. This does have audio pass-through, just hold your hand onto your right side of the ear cup like so and then microphones turn on and pumps in your environmental noises, so you could hear what’s going on around you and this happens very quickly with my experience. You can keep audio pass through on without holding the ear cup by pressing the multi-function button on the left ear cup with the physical custom button on the ear, it’s responsive and easy enough to find and allows you to switch between ambient sound on and ambient sound off and turning on active noise-cancelling.

Now within these Sony app, you can change this over and have it become your google assistant or amazon alexa activation instead. The voice assistants are awesome in my opinion, since one press and the headphones will tell me the time, read up the notifications. If you hold the button down, you can ask questions. Google assistant from my testing is highly responsive and there’s minimal delay. Now, the only downfall though with this you do lose audio pastoro even the activation of active noise-cancelling, you will need to use the app to adjust it.

On the left ear cup, you have power, there’s a USB C for charging which is awesome for future proofing yourself. If you’re able to use USB C to listen to your music on your computer and unfortunately, you’re not even able to turn on the headphones once you plug them into your laptop or PC. I noticed this was the same thing with the Sony 1000XM3 has as well.

There is a 3.5 millimeter port for physical connections which was nice and left ear cup has the near-field communication for easy pair and just tap your phone and it will instantly pair for you.

We only get Bluetooth 4.2 but here’s the crazy part. I tested this on both my Android pixel for excel and my iPhone 10, I’m able to achieve 90% coverage and for a video as well. Usually, anything below Bluetooth 5.0, I have video syncing delays on both devices and on both YouTube and Netflix, I also didn’t have any issues. It also supports Bluetooth codecs at a very high degree, we get the typical SBC but also AAC, APTx, APTx-HD and the highest at the moment which is LDAC. As you go higher in the list the higher resolution audio files, this thing supports. If you either buy or stream high resolution audio, these headphones will be capable of handling it.

Now the only issue with Bluetooth that I had with the WH XB900N I can’t have the headphones connected two devices at the same time for music playback. It’s very similar to be 1000XM3, I can’t connect this to both phones and when I press play on either one of those devices the headphones will automatically switch over and play from that source. You can though have one phone paired for music and the other solely for phone calls, those was actually switch seamlessly.

Marshall Mid A.N.C.

The MID ANC come included with a very good looking carrying case which is made of the same textured leather found on the headband on the headphones. Now this carrying case is nice, but I found that it can get a little cramped if you try to stuff the charging and audio cables with the headphones inside the case. But without a doubt, this is one of the best looking carrying cases that come included with a pair of headphones in this price range.

The included charging cable and audio cable are also way nicer than what most other ANC headphones come included with. Unfortunately, the MID ANC are still using a micro USB port for charging, and I strongly feel Marshall should have used a USB-C port instead. But, above the Micro USB port there is an easy to reach 3.5 millimeter audio jack for wired listening. If you wanted to, you can also chain another pair of headphones to the MID ANC, so you can both hear what’s playing when listening to music wirelessly.

When it comes to wireless connectivity, these head phones have about a 40 foot range and I never really suffered for any connection issues even with a wall or two between the headphones and my phone. But unfortunately, the MID ANC have a lot of latency so I would not recommend these headphones if you watch a lot of videos on your phone. These headphones can only connect to one device at a time which is something to take into consideration if you’re a power user.

I don’t hate the knob, but I also don’t love it. Its on the left ear cup and personally, I would have preferred if it was on the right ear cup. If you press the knob once it’ll play or pause your music, push up to raise the volume, push down to lower the volume, push right to skip a track, and push left to go back a track. If you double press you’ll activate your voice assistant.

The knob has very good tactile feed back any time you press or push it in any direction. It’s also very easy to find. But, when you first use the controls there is a bit of a learning curve, and even after I’ve gotten used to using the knob I still find myself using the wrong inputs to control my music. I feel the knob would be much easier to use if it only moved up or down the adjust the volume, double press to skip a track, triple press to go back a track, and press and hold to activate your voice assistant.

MICROPHONE:

Sony WH-XB900N

The interesting thing is the cheaper ones do sound better than the WH 1000XM3 which is the premium the flagships for Sony. The microphone sounds better if you are hanging around or you are in outdoors. It’s very clear though and evident that the Sony 1000XM3 blows these things out the water. But, the XB900N is comparable to other budget active noise-cancelling headphones like Sennheiser 450 BTNC. If you’re on a budget and looking for a good, respectable, and reliable entry point into the active noise-cancelling world. Here, voice gets heard but again reduces to a certain degree here, it’s not the best.

Marshall Mid A.N.C.

Most of the time, mic sounds very well and it’s easy to understand. But, in recorded speeches the mic misses some details. Also, the sound looks struggling in the noisier environments. Overall, I think the microphone is good enough if you’re going to take only phone calls.

The active noise cancellation on the MID ANC performed much better than I expected it to given that they are on ear headphones. They offer a lot of passive noise isolation with ANC turned off, but when the active noise cancellation is turned on, they do an effective job of blocking out a lot of noise pollution in the lower and mid frequency range. The ANC on these headphones have very little cabin pressure which most people should be able to get used to after awhile. There’s also no hissing with ANC turned on.

SOUND QUALITY:

Sony WH-XB900N

At 30% I’m using that for simple casual listening, at 50% I am so confident because of the music. These get loud. As for sound leaking, these performed on par with other over ear headphones with music slightly audible and very quiet environments and lower volumes and busier environment that sound leaking is very minimal, these headphones should be perfectly fine.

Since these are extra bass headphones, it’s quite bass focus. The XB900N and Sony WH 1000XM3 is below that then you get into whatever headphones are out there that’s punch your bass. It’s not necessarily sub bass, very deep bass. Now, you can always adjust this within the equalizer within the Sony headphone app.

Now from what you heard in the audio sample, it can go deeper from that and it can go a little bit lighter as well. For me, even at the factory default settings, I still had slight listening fatigue but again within the app though I turned it down slightly and then these worked out great.

When I’m wanting bass in my hip-hop, EDM or pop music, the XB900N with that additional bass, it definitely hits it. The mid-range is separated for the most part from the lower frequencies, very minor muddiness on vocals on the very bottom end for bass heavy songs but for the most part, the mid-range that includes vocal work instruments and such are independent and it stands on their own. If you really want the mid-range to be a bit clearer, I use the excited audio preset within the app and then turn down clear bass just by a smidge and I think then these sound great for bassy and non audiophile headphones.

The high frequencies for me never pierced my ears and within reason. They’re sharp enough without being tinny but just enough to complement the heavy bass side of things. The biggest critic though these are lacking sound-stage. It doesn’t sound eerie at all or wide in the audio samples you can hear the 1000XM3. It sounds a bit more spacial but again there’s a flagship headphones what the XB900N doesn’t have in sound-stage, it makes up an excellent audio separation and excellent left and right audio channels.

Marshall Mid A.N.C.

When it comes to sound quality, the Mid ANC have a for the most part neutral sound signature with just the right amount of bass and treble. These headphones have very good clarity, the bass never bottoms out and there’s no tinning in the highs. But, I cant help but want a wider sound-stage on these headphone. For the most part, I haven’t had to adjust the EQ on the MID ANC since I got them, but it would have been nice to have any app where I could play around with the EQ.

These headphones do get unnecessarily loud, but I feel these are best for easy listening cause the bass on the headphones isn’t going to rattle your head like other headphones out there. But whats really amazing is the amount of sound leakage these headphones have, there’s barely any which I feel is a testament for how well these headphones are actually built.

BATTERY:

Sony WH-XB900N

The XB900N, Sony is claiming up to 30 hours of use and that’s actually with noise cancelling on and with music playback. In my experience, this will give you approximately 44 hours and 39 mins by ANC on and LDAC. This does have quick charging, from a dead battery give this 10 minutes on the charger and you will get back an hour worth of music playback and you can also check battery performance by tapping the power button once and you get the audio readout.

Marshall Mid A.N.C.

Marshall advertises a battery life of 20 hours with ANC and Bluetooth turned on and in my testing with ANC and Bluetooth turned on and with the volume set at 50%, the MID ANC averaged 16 hours of playback time. With ANC turned off the MID ANC managed to hit 25 hours of playback time. So, battery life on these headphones isn’t amazing compared to other headphones in it’s price segment, but for their small size its still passable. Unfortunately, there are no official quick charging.

CONCLUSION:

Sony WH-XB900N

I think this is a great alternative to the 1000 XM3. If you’re on a budget, you can get these on sale, they’re worth it then I just wish the plastic was a little bit better.

Marshall Mid A.N.C. 

The Marshall MID ANC aren’t for me because they are on ear headphones. But I cant deny they are still very good for what they are and I think the premium accessories, build quality, and materials used on these headphones justify this much price tag. They sound pretty good and the ANC actually does a very good job at blocking out a fair amount of ambient sound.