Shure AONIC 50 Wireless Noise Cancelling Headphones, Premium Studio-Quality Sound, Bluetooth 5 Wireless Technology, Comfort Fit Over Ear, 20 Hours Battery Life, Fingertip Controls - White

In the beginning, it was the surprise. I opened Amazon's package and found a circle inside it . Somebody at Shure had a good idea.The box is not a square, it's a circle. Shure is thinking outside the box as it shows in many aspects of this excellent headphone.The sound is pretty good so is the noise cancelation. There is a clear difference, even without music, between having noise cancellation on or not.A review is moaning about 3KHz or something like that. Who cares? Most people buying wireless headphones won’t be using it for professional purposes as wired mics are better for that. Besides, most people here are not sound engineers or even keen amateurs who will be able to notice the 3 KHz and say “ I can’t live with it”.The same review complains about the case. I realised then that the guy there just wants to complain, no matter what, because the case is excellent. Yes, it is big but so what? Are you going to carry it with you in the public transport? Like a book? Or are you going to use it to protect your headphone when you are travelling and put the headphone in a backpack or a suitcase? The case is hard and strong and does protect the headphone. Just chuck it in your backpack or suitcase and relax because your headphone will be protected against damage.The case has 25 cm diameter (about 10 inches) and is 6 cm high (a bit more than 2 inches).The charger cable is 110 cm and this is quite handy as I don’t need to put the headphone almost on the floor to charge it as I had to do with a Bose Quiet Comfort 35 series II I had.Once connected it remains connected unless you go beyond the reach of the headphone. I can go anywhere in the house with it.The controls are fingertip which is good because those touch controls are rather unreliable as I found out.This Shure headphone stands out in many aspects. Even the recorded voice is special. It's a nice and cheerful female voice. It's the most pleasant voice and it does sound human, unlike in some headphones I tried where the voice sounds artificial, robot like.I really like this headphone. It looks good, it’s comfortable and it does the job. I tried several different models and sent them all back for one reason or the other. But this Shure headphone is a keeper. I have just one complaint: The information about the battery could be more accurate. They only say something like full battery, medium and low. The Bose I had, for example, would let me know that I had 90% or 20%. It makes a big difference.Now, a bit of history. I am new to wireless headphones and use them only at home, connected to a Mac. No mobile phones.So I tried several headphones.Monster Persona. A beautiful sound to listen to 1940s and 50s crooners such as Jo Stafford. Strong hard case. short charging cable. Disconnects all the time so I sent it back for a full refund.Sony WH-1000XM3 . Comfortable and good sound but I didn’t like the touch controls as they would work or not. Rather unreliable and quite annoying. I sent it back to Amazon for a full refund.Bose Quiet Comfort 35 series II. It is all very good with this headphone apart from the fact that its name is misleading and the headphone is too bl…y uncomfortable. I sent it back to Amazon for a full refund.Master and Dinamic MW 65. Luxury item not worth its price. Too uncomfortable. Don’t they try these things before mass manufacturing them? It comes with a soft case which protects nothing, zero, nada, niente. I sent it back to Amazon for a full refund.Sennheiser Momentum 3. Excellent sound and comfortable to wear. But the connection kept breaking regularly and the audio would get distorted even if I just switch on the blender! I had the Monster at the time and didn’t have those problems with it.I tried and tried to keep this headphone until I finally got tired of the constant distortion and breaking of audio . I sent it back to Amazon for a full refund.I suspect that most wireless headphones are designed having mobile phones in mind. I think this is a short sighted idea and it limits the quality of the headphone.As for the comfort factor: No, I don’t have a big head. In addition, I asked a friend who has a small head to try those headphones and she agreed with me.Wireless headphones are very nice to listen to music and relax but I use a wired headphone for work: Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro 32 Ohm.

Finally decided on the Aonic 50 gen2 after weeks of agonizing amongst the myriad of ldac anc headphones out there. Decided on them after reading/watching various reviews and remembering an old Shure headphone I had many years ago.Very glad I did, the out of the box sound was fine, but after tweaking the excellent eq in the Shureplus app and adding the music spacializer I'm delighted with the audio. Basically added a slight bass boost and left everything else flat after fiddling.The treble is excellent with no sibilance and great extension to the highest pitches. Mids are excellent, vocals sound superb for male/female artists, guitars sound lovely in acoustic or electric. As for the bass with a 4db boost they're grin inducing, sub bass is excellent, as is mid bass. Tightly controlled and very engaging.The app takes moments to figure out, everything is very well done and the parametric eq is a delight. The spacializer has particularly surprised me as I really didn't think I'd care, but what a difference it makes to the sense of soundstage width and depth, a very pleasant surprise.Basically I adore the sound and to my ear the ANC is excellent and has little to no effect on sound quality. For my intended at home use they are perfect.As for the headphones - build quality is superb, metal hinges, very positive ratchet to the headband extenders which stay put when adjusted. Very comfortable earcups, nice headband design and padding. Very impressed!Love them, thank you Shure, so glad you made them.

The shure aonic 50 was launched in 2020 competing with a handful of super premium Bluetooth headphones like the B&O H9, Bowers and Wilkins PX7, Masters and Dynamic MW65 and most recently the Apple Airpods Max and Drop Panda have entered the fray. They recently dropped 40% from £380 to £220 so the question is are they now worth considering?Shure is a pro audio company founded in 1925 famously producing professional microphones that can be found all over the world. With the Aonic 50"s stated combo of studio quality sound and premium luxury materials, they straddle the professional and consumer audiophile markets but do they achieve that aim? And are they candidates for the most accurate and truthful sounding Bluetooth headphones in the world?Well we're going to need to go on a bit of a journey to understand the sound of the Shure Aonic 50 by considering them against icons from these 2 quite different sectors - the Beyerdynamic DT 990 Pro professional studio monitor and the Sennheiser HD 600 consumer audiophile headphones. Recordings of how they sound against eachother are on my Amazon profile.In terms of sound the Shure is straddling these camps and more or less successfully incorporates sound characteristics from both - even though by their very nature the DT 990 and HD 600 are a bit like matter and anti matter in that certain characteristics can't coexist in the same place at the same time.The £115 DT 990 Pro's most obvious characteristic is its prominent and incredibly detailed treble. It is fast so not harsh or sibilant but it is just too bright ie it is too much in quantity. It puts treble under the magnifying glass and while not the most natural or realistic presentation is very resolving of details. It has a similarly fast bass with good quantity and speed or impact though not the resonant reverberance of a closed back. The other big characteristic is that the mids are recessed so vocalists are just too far back in the mix. Now if you've only listened to consumer grade before you may not notice this and they will just sound amazing. The open back design gives a good soundstage width. Ironically with the DT 990 you can feel a bit tethered due to the inertia of the weighty coiled cable.The £230 Sennheiser is almost completely the opposite. The treble is perfectly balanced. It is resolving and fast -- almost electrostatic fast - without being too much in quantity or analytical and picking apart the music. The bass is its main failing being fast but not extending very deep and being even less in quantity than the DT 990 and so on occasion (but not all the time) unsatisfying for genres that rely on deep or heavy bass like edm and rock. Now the mids are where the Senns shine having arguably one of the best representations of any headphone in the world up there with electrostatics and the most expensive dynamics. Clear natural and lifelike. I have turned my head listening to these thinking someone was in the room. Soundstage wise these are considered fairly narrow despite being about as open as you can get though this never really detracts from the music.Now at last we have the language to be able to consider the Shures. These have a punchy extended bass like the DT 990, natural mids like the HD 600, and a very resolving but not sibilant or harsh treble which is more present than the Sennheiser, perhaps unnaturally so, but comfortably below the sometimes ear piercing level of the DT 990. Bass extends to sub bass well in Hans Zimmer's "Why so serious" however while Samsung Adapt Sound shows them to be flat I sometimes felt they didn't quite deliver a satisfying amount of mid bass particularly when used wirelessly. Switching ANC on improves the bass noticeably and combined with a narrow deep bass boost via the Shure Play apps equaliser I could bring the mid bass to a good level however unfortunately the EQ only applies to music files played through the app and not streaming services. I could also get a satisfying bass response by driving them wired while powered on so while the Shure clearly has the potential to be a great sounding headphone the current implementation means it doesn't fully satisfy my tastes for my typical wireless streaming use case.Moving on to comfort, despite the very comfortable leather pads we can't get around their 334g weight and closed back design warming up one's ears. My medium sized head needed the headband extended to 7 of the 10 clicks so big heads beware. Like the old wired Shure SRH840 the headband is quite flat so creates a hot spot on the crown which for me was only made manageable by the support from the clamping force and over more extended listening sessions I found myself repositioning the headband from time to time.Note that these headphones don't fold in on themselves but the cups do fold flat which is fine for slipping into a rucksack or satchel but not a small bag.Considering features ANC boosts bass but also highlights the upper and lessens the lower tones in male voices so Sinatra's voice sounds a little more natural with ANC off. The ANC control is a slider with OFF rather unsatisfyingly at the mid point since while there is a bit of a click there it's very easy to slide past to one of the extreme positions of ambient or anc on. The slider may loosen up over time making this less of an issue however. The anc performance is on a par with the Soundcore Life Q30 but not class leading like the Sony WF-1000 XM3. It adds a little hiss but as we talked about also some much needed heft to the bass so my preference is to keep ANC turned on at least when used wirelessly.Unlike the other 2 of course, with the Shure, no amp or wires are needed and one can't undervalue the effect of that freedom on one's enjoyment of music.So in summary the Shure is like a more convenient but slightly less comfortable HD600 sharing that headphone's very natural mids but with some of the dt990s studio monitoring characteristics with bass extending down further to sub bass and a more analytical treble. Wirelessly at least it has less mid bass quantity and punch than either which while I found unsatisfying on occasions some may appreciate for not assaulting their senses - I personally like my senses assaulted now and again!In all aspects other than wireless mid bass level then the Shure really performs very well however whether its additional clarity, detail and premium materials make it preferable over much cheaper Bluetooth ANC offerings is something only you can decide.A good first attempt from Shure with some room for improvement in their next iteration.