Shure AONIC 40 Over Ear Wireless Bluetooth Noise Cancelling Headphones with Microphone, Studio-Quality Sound, 25 Hour Battery Life, Fingertip Controls, iPhone & Android Compatible - White

These fit perfectly over my ears, allowing for a full and satisfying listening experience, They’re comfortable with well padded cups and they sit firmly in place without gripping my head too tightly.Sound quality is incredible. All the lows, mids and highs are just as I expect and want them to sound and I get a fully immersive experience with the AONIC 40 that’s so much more enjoyable than when listening through earphones. I only play my own .flac ripped CDs & Hi-Res .flac downloads and, when streaming, Amazon HD, and these really do reproduce the sound perfectly. A rich, deep and full sound, if you go into the Shure Play app, there are seven EQ presets and you can also set (and save) your own. The sound doesn’t distort even when pumped up to the max. Bluetooth 5 with AAC, Qualcomm aptX, aptX HD audio and SBC support.Coupled with the over ear fitting, the ANC when set to Max blocks everything out. The fully adjustable Environment Mode allows you to let in as little or as much outside noise as you want whilst keeping the music playing and again, it works very well.The four Control buttons on the right cup offer a full array of the standard music and phone call controls and I do like that there are dedicated volume Up & Down buttons. Toggling between ANC and Environmental Mode involves one push of a button.I rarely make phone calls these days (WhatsApp serves most of my purposes), but incoming calls sound fine and people on the other end can hear me. The Bluetooth connection is rock solid with no dropouts.Make Shure (sic) you install the Shure Play app to use them to their full potential. There's a firmware update waiting to be installed and, in addition to the standard controls, there are some further minor setting options in the app. Additionally it has a fabulous music player that’ll index your music library and utilise all your tags and album artwork, allow you to make playlists, etc. and it can be used even when you're not using Shure headphones or earphones.Battery life is a respectable 24 hours. It arrives with a a zip closing rigid carrying case, 2.5mm-3.5mm audio cable (if you really want to plug them in, but there’s a massive drop in sound quality) and USB-C cable for charging & audio.Overall, I think these tick all the right boxes. If you’re in the market for headphones in what I would class as the upper end of the mid-range price bracket, these will fit the bill.

In general, the Bluetooth does work well when you establish a connection to whichever device you use. You can also 3.5mm phono connections as well as usb-c connectivity.I find they do become uncomfortable after long periods of wearing. It is difficult to find headphones under a certain price that do.In flat mode, the equalisation is transparent enough to hear things and spatially these are wide so may not sound great with dual-mono recordings.Bass and treble clarity alas badly encoded audio suffer with harmonic distortion will be audible. That is a sign of quality rather than a fault.For their price, I would say pretty good. Battery life averages at 20 hours depending on how you use them. Use them passively then their battery life is sustained a bit longer.

Superb headphones! Very comfortable to wear, even for hours at a time. Despite how big the headphones are, they are very lightweight and don't press tightly on my head or make my ears ache.Build quality is top notch. They're certainly a pair that'll last years. The frame is sturdy and hard-wearing, and the earpads don't flake. The ear cups are prone to scratching easily though, so be sure to keep them on a stand or in the headphone case. The design looks sleek and high end too.Unlike the Aonic 50, these fold in towards the headband with the ear cups laying flat inside the case. Really good portability.The buttons are pretty easy to control whilst wearing the headphones because of the raised design. I prefer these over touch controls because I personally find them easier to press, and I don't have to worry about accidental functions when I adjust the headphones.Sound quality is very good. Crisp highs, punchy bass, warm mids. Calls are crystal clear on both ends.I love the equalizer in the app. The presets alone deliver amazing audio, especially bass, and I love how I can alter the different EQ settings so specifically to suit whatever it is I'm listening to. For a change, the app works flawlessly without any glitching and the setting features are plenty to work with.The noise cancellation blocks out most background noise, but train rides still have a considerable rumbling in the background. The Aonic 50 performs a lot better in this case, but the 40's ANC is excellent for the price.At the time of writing this review, the Aonic 50 was on sale for £187.99 from £339, which is incredible value for money (with the white Aonic 40 at £184.30). If portability isn't really important, I'd recommend going with the Aonic 50 because of how refined the ANC is. For more a compact pair though, the Aonic 40 is excellent. I'd be happy to recommend it.If this review helped, please click on the ‘helpful’ button to let others know! Thanks ツ