Audio Technica ATH-ANC3 earphones review

This helped us appreciate that, sonically, the ANC3s are generally good. Super Mal's gorgeously filthy Bigger Than Big hit us with strong, tight electronic bass, punchy mids and an attractive high end. There's a great deal of transparency, too -- instrumentation was well-layered, Luciana's turned-on vocals were defined as they should be, and no part of the electronic composition appeared harsh in the treble.

John Lennon's Imagine was excellent -- vocals were well conveyed, strings were nicely separated and although bass-heavy, the piano track sounded grand (pun intended -- the song was recorded on an upright piano).

Metal-heads, take note: your twin guitars, double-bass drums and throat-shredding vocals also sounded decent. However, at higher volume, bass-heavy distorted guitars -- and don't laugh here -- had an element of background distortion that appeared to interfere with the general cleanliness of the guitars and cymbals.

Now distortion produced by a guitar amp and distortion generated by earphones are very different, and the subtle struggle with ultra-meaty, downtuned guitars -- seemingly a result of the upper bass interfering with the mid-range -- highlighted a weakness in the ANC3's when it comes to intense metal from the likes of Slipknot or Decapitated. Though general rock, such as Green Day, suffered only very little as a result of this. Most people won't notice, or indeed be bothered by this flaw.

Conclusion
Combined with decent general performance, excellent noise cancelling and passable comfort, the ANC3s are a pleasant pair of earphones that the casual listener will be perfectly happy with. Should your battery die, you can still use them in passive mode.

There are very few earphones we've seen with noise cancelling this good, but for cleaner, more powerful bass, check out the Denon AH-C551s; for improved passive sound isolation and comfort, and superb performance, be sure to see our thoughts on Etymotic's ER-6is.

Edited by Shannon Doubleday