House of Marley Redemption ANC

The mix of materials, with natural wood fibre composite, Regrind Silicone and bamboo, looks high-quality and robust at the same time, especially as these in-ears are water-resistant according to IPX4, meaning that they are protected from weather-related moisture outdoors. While the transport case, which serves as a charging station, has a compact, pocket-friendly format, these headphones do not appear very delicate at first glance. However, the Redemption ANCs embed themselves well in the ear, so that they can be worn under a cap if the cap is not too tight. Favoured by the rather low weight of six grams per side, the fit is not uncomfortable even during longer use, and there is enough stability in the fit to allow you to go for an intermediate sprint.

Running times

In terms of power, these wireless headphones offer a running time of five hours at a higher volume, which is slightly reduced to just under four and a half hours in ANC or Ambient mode. If the batteries are flat, the quick charge function can also be used, allowing two and a half hours of use after 15 minutes of power. A full charge cycle of these in-ears, on the other hand, takes 40 minutes, with the battery reserve of the case being sufficient to recharge the headphones four times. The total running time is therefore 25 hours, while approximately 22 hours are available with continuous use of the noise-cancelling or ambient mode. The battery capacity of the charger, which has a USB-C connection, is restored in almost exactly 100 minutes. A USB-C to USB-A charger cable is supplied for this purpose.

Device control

Pairing the headphones, which in combination with various Android and iOS devices offered a range of up to ten metres with high stability, is activated as soon as the case is opened, this turns the system on and automatically puts it into pairing mode. Once a wireless connection is established, a double tap on the bamboo surface of the right in-ear controls playback, and this is also used to answer and end phone calls. Triple tapping the right-hand side of the in-ear allows you to skip to the next track, while voice assistants can be called up by double tapping the left-hand headphone. In addition, these in-ears have a so-called ear recognition feature, which automatically pauses playback when you remove them and resumes it when you put them back on, and this works reliably. However, jumping back to the previous track and volume control are not supported. It is possible to use one of the two headphones separately, in single mode, in this case double-tapping gives access to voice control, calls can be answered and ended, and triple tapping allows you to jump forward, while the sensor-controlled automatic playback serves for pausing playback. The excellent speech intelligibility during telephone conversations is a positive feature; both sides of the conversation were good and had no restrictions whatsoever. However, patience and attention is required with the remote control, as multiple tapping has proven to be prone to misinterpretation. Another shortcoming is that you cannot switch the headphones on and off manually.

Sound

The full, round basic sound of the Redemption ANC has a warm, soft imprint with a down-to-earth character and reproduces sound with appealingly clear contours. The deep bass could be more compact and shows a slight dullness, while the middle and upper bass range sounds well defined and impresses with a lot of punch. The powerful low frequencies have a certain fullness, but don’t seem overloaded at all. Vocals are also reproduced neither timidly nor with pompous obtrusiveness, but occupy the space energetically and are characterised by high intelligibility. The likewise clear, softly rounded trebles are a little more restrained, but even at high levels have no hardness and do not drop off. In this respect these headphones are suitable for a wide range of applications, particularly for many contemporary productions which benefit from their bass-friendly tuning.

ANC & Ambient mode

By tapping the left headphone surface three times, you can switch first to ANC and then to Ambient mode. Although the noise cancelling function does not produce any perceptible background noise, it can only slightly attenuate external noise. It is well implemented as not only low frequency components but also complex sources such as street noise are reduced overall, their weak point is in the intensity. A completely different picture, however, can be seen in the ambient mode, which has a background noise, but amplifies the high-frequency range strongly and extremely clearly via the microphones, which allows good localisation and provides helpful orientation. The speech intelligibility of voices is excellent when paused, making communicating with others possible and making announcements easy to understand. Even at low playback volume, intelligibility is still good, while at medium level voices can still be heard, allowing you to react.