Master & Dynamic MW65 Active Noise Cancelling Wireless Bluetooth Over-Ear Headphones with Mic - Premium Lamborghini Black/Gray Alcantara & Black Metal Design - Perfect for Travel, Work & Music Lovers

For context, I've had 2 pairs of MW65's over the last year. The first were exchanged due to an issue with the microphone and voice calling, the second returned (after much wrangling) due to an electronics issue relating to charging.I absolutely love the physical quality of the housings and leather. Top notch in every regard. The buttons are great, but a little small for daily use. The pads and headband are comfortable, but definitely on the smaller side. I can't say I have abnormal ears, as every headphones I've purchased from the big brands have fit fine. These though, were snug. I managed to be comfortable without my glasses, but with them, I'd get an ache after a few hours of listening. The oval shape makes them quite snug front to rear.The sound quality is superb! Keep in mind though, these are NOT for bass lovers. These are (God I hate this term) "audiophile"...nope, let's call them "studio" headphones. The tuning is flat, leaning to the sharper side. Not harsh, but the clarity can be disconcerting if you're not used to it. It gets even better when you skip the Bluetooth and wire them directly using the included headphone cord. Superb. I used a simple USB dongle-dac from Amazon it it was miles better than Bluetooth. This is the only category where I felt the headphones were flawless, not the Bluetooth, not the Noise Cancelling, as a wired pair of headphones. Lol.Anyways, on to the not fun stuff. Ok, so the headband is short, the ear cups rub and the buttons are small, but that's not quite the full story. The mic was abysmal. OMG, the fact that an $80 set of cheap garbage headphones sound better is really sad at this price point. Yes, that comparison is totally fair, as I did A-B call and sound tests back to back with most of the other major ANC BT headphones out today and my kid's Anker set. Terrible. M&D did send me a dirty firmware update that increased the mic level a bit, but, while louder, had a negative effect on voice quality.Noise Cancelling was, at best, adequate. Same as most others, but nowhere near Bose or Sony. It works.Now, charging and battery. What a mess. I almost never use noise cancelling, except when flying, so it remains off most of the time. The battery life was a fraction of what was advertised. Charging was quick enough, but the electronics obviously need updating. They can't seem to consistently run for the same amount of time. The battery State of Charge immediately drops from full charge to 80% just by turning them on, say, within 10 minutes. Then, they drop to 30% fairly quickly, then 10%. At 10%, the low battery notification starts alerting you, but they continue to run for hours, stuck at 10%, repeatedly alerting. My first pair wasn't as bad, the second, terrible. These feel like a first attempt. Maybe the new gen MW75's will be better, but these are not.As I said, I no longer have either pair. I bought both new from Amazon, not returned or refurbished. I can't say I'd recommend the MW65 to anyone. Maybe the aforementioned MW75 will do it right, but skip the 65's.I'll try to be brief.I decided to buy wireless phones because my ears have degraded over the last several years, and I knew that asking my wife to tell me what someone said on TV many times a night was really getting to her. My hearing loss is mostly in the upper mid and the high end. Above 8K cycles to be exact.Once i decided to buy, I did my due diligence and read the reviews and decided on several pairs to consider. Here's what I got in no particular order:1. Shure Aonic 502. Sennheiser Momentum 33. Bowers and Wilkins PX74. Focal Listen5. Massdrop x Beyerdynamic DT177X6. Beyerdynamic Amiron Copper7. Master and Dynamic MW65They all arrived on the same day, and the testing began. I listened to them all for about 2 hours each. I'll start with the ones that I didn't like:Focal Listen - Honestly, these felt so cheap for a pair in the $300.00 to $500.00 range, I didn't even listen to them. I reboxed them and set them aside. Am I a snobby audiophile? Quite the contrary, but I do expect build quality to be commensurate with the price.Shure Aonic 50 - A very brief listening session. They also felt rather poorly made, and the bass was overwhelming.Massdrop x Beyerdynamic DT177X - These actually had a few things going for them, but not enough.Beyerdynamic Amiron Copper - Loose, mushy bass, decent mids and highs. I hated the touch controls. Much too complicated for someone who staunchly believes that less is definitely more.Sennheiser Momentum 3 - Getting closer. Bass was boosted, mids were quite good, highs unremarkable, instruments sounded distant. Build quality was also very good.Bang and Olufsen PX7 - Closer still. Excellent, wide soundstage, bass was too boosted for my liking, midrange was excellent as well as the highs. Comfort, again a close second.Master and Dynamic MW65 - The holy grail. My god, it was like entering a different dimension. Bass was dynamicbut not bloated, mids were lush and articulate, and the highs crystal clear. The soundstage was a bit wider than the PX7's, but not by much.I heard things not heard in any of the others. Cymbals sizzled, you could hear the air rushing through the horns, fingers striking the strings on upright bass, hammers hitting the wires on piano, and human voices were quite literally astonishing.Obviously, my main criteria here was the sound. I don't care at all about ANC, making or taking calls, how good the app is, etc. I wanted a neutral but not dry sound signature. Perhaps analytical by most people's liking. These babies put out exactly what you put in. The better the recording, the better they sound. They are also very comfortable. On ear, not over the ear for me at least. The PX7's once again came in a close second.I would easily recommend the PX7's if cost is an issue, but the B and D's simply blew the rest out of the water.I forgot to mention build quality. As for the MW65's, I cannot imagine a way in which you could improve upon them. CNC machined, the finest leathers available, nothing to wear out really, aside from many years of use. Lastly, they have beryllium drivers. I don't believe that any others on my list use them. I have to believe that there is some significance to that when it comes to their elegant sound. The PX7's once again came in a close second.Last night while surfing I found these in an all black version. How I didn't see that configuration in my many hours of doing nothing but searching for headphones, will forever remain a mystery. They must be quite limited. So now I'm even happier with my purchase. I didn't think that was possible.Ich besitze auch die neusten B&O H9, die Bose QC35 und die Sony XM1000m3 und habe auch die Bose 700 getestet. Ich werde daher am Ende auf die anderen auch kurz eingehen:Zunächst zu den guten Eigenschaften des MW65:Design: Retro, hochwertig und trotzdem leicht. Sieht edel aus.Verarbeitung: Tolle Materialien, sehr hübsche Knöpfe.Sound: sehr analytischer Klang. Mitten und Höhen klar und differenziert, Bass trocken. Für klassische Musik besser geeignet als für Hip Hop oder RnB.Und nun zu den schlechteren Nachrichten:Tragekomfort: die Ohrmuscheln sind zwar länglich, aber nicht breit genug, dementsprechend liegen sie halb auf. Ist wie eine Mischung aus On Ear und Over Ear. Tragekomfort ist subjektiv, ich habe aber kleine Ohren und trotzdem waren sie nicht besonders bequem.Die Knöpfe sind teilweise mit Funktionen überladen (der + Knopf ist 3x belegt). So erzeugt man öfters Fehlbedienungen. Schade, denn ich finde Knöpfe ansonsten gut und die Haptik ist top.Und nun aber zu dem grössten Problem der MW65: ANC! Noise Cancelling ist de facto nicht existent. Es gibt 3 Einstellungen (High-Low-Off) und der Unterschied zwischen den einzelnen Modi ist nicht wahrnehmbar (bis auf den Voice Prompt). Ich hatte nicht das Level von Bose oder gar Sony erwartet, aber die B&O sind recht mittelmässig beim ANC und sie sind um Welten besser als die MW65.Der Preis: You get what you pay for? Nicht hier. Es gibt in jeder Kategorie deutlich bessere KH und meistens für die Hälfte des Preises! Der MW65 hat leider keine einzige herausragende Eigenschaft. Schade, aber so wird es nichts.Je nach Präferenz würde ich folgende Alternativen nehmen:ANC: Sony oder Bose sind in einer eigenen Liga. B&O unterdrückt aber auch ganz gut.Tragekomfort: QC35, gefolgt von den anderen. Bose 700 für mich unangenehm, da zu viel Druck auf dem Kopf.Sound: B&O H9 wischt den Boden mit allen anderen. Wenn man ein Schnäppchen machen will holt man die H9i, die deutlich günstiger sind und fast identisch sind. Sony klingt auch ganz gut, sehr basslastig, kann man per EQ zwar recht gut korrigieren aber dann verliert man die hochwertigen Bluetooth Codecs .Viel telefonieren: Bose 700 gefolgt von Beoplay H9 und QC35. Sony und MW65 haben schlechte Mikrophone. Ist aber natürlich nur für den Gesprächspartner relevant.what a disaster, pure crap. feels like the cheapest aluminum, leather looks good but doesn't make up for anything, in the past they've used magnetic detachable ear pads, oh lord. i took mine off out of curiosity and now I literally cannot get it to stay on whatsoever. It's permanently detached.i studied engineering and even i cant see what the **** was holding this thing together. laughable.I seriously recommend against these headphones. everyone else is falling for the charm of premium materials but that's where it ends the drivers are weak, the sound is dull. not loud enough to satisfy me at all.please, please. please do not get these I promise you with all my heart they just aren't worth it. I literally can't get the ear cup back on. they've put no effort into this and they don't deserve your money. for another £150 you could have the AirPods max which is overpriced but unmatched.The look and build of these headphones is very good with real leather and aluminium used in prettyuch every part of the headset.Sound is ok but not what I would have expected for this price range.Earcups are really narrow so your ear dosent fit into the cups which causes fatigue after about 40 mins of use.Noise cancelling is also under par and dosent compete with the likes of Sony or Bose.For nearly £400 I expected a lot more and ended up returning.These are good headphones, but not at the price, which is about $150 more than the B&W PX, the latest Sony 1000 (version 3), and the Bose 35. I tried them all.Sound quality: While tastes differ, a rather thin midband in the M&D makes for a bang-and-tizz sound. Bass articulation is also somewhat lacking, though better than the Sony, which has too much "bloom" and loses detail in heavy bass. For sound quality you cannot surpass the B&W, with superb detail retrieval, a slightly warm character, and absolutely alone among these headphones a sense of soundstaging. If you prefer a more clinical sound that you can customize with digital effects and an equalizer, then the Sony wins, but at the expense of too much muddy bass. Bose is not even a contender; its sound quality is poor.Noise cancellation: Here is where Bose wins, with the Sony a very close second. Either one will pretty much sever you from reality, if that is what you want. The B&W is less able to erase ambient noise, but good enough for walking in the city unless you listen at very low volume. The M&D is worse than all of these.Build quality: The B&W PX wins clearly, with good use of metal construction and attractive design. While the M&D is also very pretty and weighs much less, which might be important to some, it is not quite as solid to the touch as the B&W and has some plastic where metal would be better. Sony and Bose are so light that you hardly notice wearing them, but also so fragile that they will break--definitely--and one ought to think of them as verging on disposable. Here the M&D is a good compromise, since it has the low weight of Sony and Bose, but is definitely more durable.If the M&D were priced the same as the others, there might be reason to buy it. But at the current price, you can get more for less, regardless of which feature you prioritize.I kept the B&W.Ich besitze den MW65 nun schon geraume Zeit und habe ihn gekauft, da ich den MW60 auch besitze und den Klang sehr gut fand.Der Klang des MW65 ist deutlich klarer und detaillierter als beim MW60, auch besitzt er nicht dessen deutliche „leakage“, das einen mobilen Einsatz so gut wie unmöglich macht.Die Beryllium Treiber sind extrem schnell, was eine extrem gute Detailwiedergabe ermöglicht (man darf sich jedoch nicht den Detailreichtum eines Focal Utopias oder Stellia erwarten). Von allen BT Kopfhörern, die ich besitze (B&O H9i, Bose 700, B&W PX und PX7, Focal Listen) besitzt er für mich den besten Sound (wie immer sehr subjektiv), der sehr neutral ist. Besitzt die Aufnahme keinen Bass, dann ist da auch keiner, Mitten und Höhen werden sehr detailreich wieder gegeben. Klassik und Jazzmusik kann man wunderbar damit hören, alles andere geht aber auch.Die Verarbeitung ist tadellos und mit das Beste in der Preisklasse, der MW60 liegt allerdings satter (da aus Stahl) aber auch schwerer in der Hand.Nun zum NC. Dieses ist zwar vorhanden, reicht aber nicht an das eines B&O H9i heran und bei weitem nicht an einen B&W PX7 oder gar einen Bose 700 (einen Sony WH-1000XM3 besitze ich zum Vergleich leider nicht, da er mir zu basslastig war). Es ist aber auch nicht so, dass dieses gar nicht vorhanden wäre, ich denke 3-6db schafft er locker, insbesondere kommt es zu keiner Klangveränderung im NC Betrieb.Fazit:Wer den MW65 kauft bekommt imho einen der aktuell best klingenden BT Kopfhörer inkl NC auf dem Markt (wenn man neutralen, analytischen Klang mag). Das NC ist sicherlich verbesserungsfähig, aber entgegen einiger Rezensionen hier sehr wohl vorhanden und sollte eher als Zugabe denn als Kaufargument gesehen werden.