Labs

On looks alone, you could be forgiven for thinking these were the most expensive headphones. Even next to the Bose they look like luxury products, with brushed metal finish and plush cushioning. Other high-end attributes include replaceable ear pads and cables and gold plated connections.

As with the Bose units, the single AAA battery

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(not supplied) and all the electronics are housed in the cans themselves, leaving a dongle-free cable. They'll also function as passive headphones, and the sound quality is superb.

The thick ear pads give some physical dampening, and there's astonishing bass, good for both music and movies. It can border on distorted at high volume, but for the most part handled kick drums and brooding soundtracks equally well. The high end was clear, although we found the mid-range a touch too sparkly at times.

Noise cancelling was the let-down. It did knock out most of the low-frequency ambient noise, but also took a little of the punch out of the music. We also found it could produce unpleasant low-frequency vibrations: sometimes just an increased pressure on the eardrum, sometimes an audible tone. It's an unacceptable side effect that we put down to a one-off fault until we saw complaints about the same thing online.