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Master and Dynamic MH40 Review: Beautiful Austerity

Master and Dynamic MH40 Review: Beautiful Austerity

Style, build quality, and sound. These are the core essentials in the new MH40, Master and Dynamic’s latest update of a classic that goes back to the New York City-based audio brand’s early days as a market disrupter in 2014.

It’s not a lavish formula for a pair of $400 wireless headphones in 2023, especially compared to models loaded with modern features like Sony’s WH-1000XM5 (9/10, WIRED Recommends). But these aren’t your average pair. With a dead-gorgeous design built from elements like anodized aluminum, lambskin, and titanium, the MH40 look and feel different than the monolithic plastic shells of most rivals. Their obstinate minimalism in the face of the current trend is almost freeing, especially since the trade-off for loads of features is brilliant sound and construction designed to last.

The MH40 skip a lot of extras, but their biggest transgression is a lack of noise canceling or transparency mode, which are all but prerequisites at this price. You can get both features in M&D’s step-up pair, the MW75 (8/10, WIRED Recommends), for $200 more. The price and lack of ANC means that the MH40 wouldn’t be my first choice for most folks, but the headphones’ sterling sound and head-turning style could be hard to pass up for those with style who don’t want noise canceling, or who simply are willing to pay for premium headphones that stand out from the crowd.

Really, Ridiculously Good Looking

Master Dynamic MH40 headphones

Photograph: Master & Dynamic

Pulling the MH40 from the box, you can’t help but smile. They’re just beautiful cans, especially in our review unit’s burnt-brown leather (they’re also available in four other colors, including solid black). The latticed exterior screens reflect the light like ripples on a sunlit lake. The metal chassis feels at once elegant and robust, thanks to solid base materials matched by a speckled aluminum finish.

Polished industrial posts at the sides provide smooth action and numbered settings for the ear cups as you slide them in place. Even the lambskin-cloaked pads feel classy, set on magnets for easy removal and replacement. The pads also offer one of the MH40’s best attributes: good noise isolation that kills a lot of sound around you when you add a bit of music. I can’t hear my keystrokes as I type this review, for instance. That’s a great thing for a pair that lack noise canceling.

The headphones are fairly comfortable, thanks to plenty of memory foam along the ear cups, and with their quality leather skins, they should become softer and more tailored to your head as they wear in. They aren’t as comfy as Sony’s older WH-1000XM4 or new XM5, at least not yet, but few headphones are. My biggest complaint is the dearth of padding on top, which can wear on your head after a few hours. But the MH40’s light weight (around 280 grams) keeps this mostly in check.

9 Best Earplugs (2023): For Concerts, Sleep, and Listening

9 Best Earplugs (2023): For Concerts, Sleep, and Listening

You only get one pair of ears, so it’s a good idea to look after them—and a good set of earplugs can come in handy in all kinds of situations. A proper set is a much better solution for blocking out noise during the night than a pillow over the head and is more comfortable than headphones. What you’re looking for in earplugs really depends on what you want them to do. When you’re sleeping, for example, comfort is paramount. Plus, you need an indiscriminate approach to blocking out snores, traffic noise, or a car alarm down the street.

If you’re watching a band play live, though, you want to maintain as much fidelity as possible and just cut out the frequencies that might be harmful to your hearing. The average concert pumps out about 100 decibels, but if you’ve ever seen My Bloody Valentine, you’ll know some bands seem to have a personal vendetta against your ears—and continuous exposure to sounds over 85 dB can cause permanent damage to your hearing. That means it’s not possible to pick out one pair of earplugs that’ll work in every situation. Instead, we’ve picked several that satisfy different needs.

Be sure to check out our other buying guides, like the Best Sleep Gadgets, Best Wireless Earbuds, Best Wireless Headphones, and Gifts for People Who Need a Good Night’s Sleep.

Updated April 2023: We’ve added the Vibes High Fidelity Earplugs and Sony WF-1000XM4 earbuds for travelers.

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The Best Wireless Earbuds for Every Need

The Best Wireless Earbuds for Every Need

wireless earbuds are one of those ideas that sounded like a dream at first: Pop a little headphone into each ear and listen to music or take calls untethered from everything. The first wireless buds were gigantic, died after a few hours, and had a bunch of other problems. Luckily, times have changed. There are tons of new models that sound fabulous and work perfectly. After testing dozens for the past four years, these are our favorite wireless earbuds right now, in a wide range of styles and prices.

For more top picks, our guides to the Best Wireless Headphones, Best Noise-Canceling Headphones, Best Cheap Headphones, and Best Workout Earbuds may help.

Updated April 2022: We’ve added the Sony FitBuds and Shokz OpenRun Pro and moved the Master & Dynamic MW08 Sport to the Honorable Mentions section. 

Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you’d like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

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The Best Noise-Canceling Headphones to Escape Reality

The Best Noise-Canceling Headphones to Escape Reality

Shaking off the world and sinking into a new album can feel like a train ride through the countryside … unless you’re sharing that seat with two young toddlers. Or your neighbor’s dog is constantly barking. Come to think of it, there are a lot of sounds that can ruin a good song in the work-from-home era. That’s why we have headphones that isolate and actively cancel out noise. Below are the best noise-canceling cans and buds you can buy, handpicked and tested by the Gear team here at WIRED.

Not seeing something you like? Be sure to check out our other guides, like the Best Wirefree Earbuds, Best Workout Earbuds, and Best Wireless Headphones.

Updated February 2022: We’ve added the Beats Fit Pro and Jabra Elite 7 Active.

Special offer for Gear readers: Get a 1-year subscription to WIRED for $5 ($25 off). This includes unlimited access to WIRED.com and our print magazine (if you’d like). Subscriptions help fund the work we do every day.

If you buy something using links in our stories, we may earn a commission. This helps support our journalism. Learn more. Please also consider subscribing to WIRED

These Solar-Powered Headphones Let You Ditch the Charger

These Solar-Powered Headphones Let You Ditch the Charger

‘Infinite’ is a tricky one, isn’t it? Something’s either ‘infinite’ or it isn’t. So when Urbanista describes its Los Angeles wireless noise-canceling over-ear headphones as having “virtually infinite” playtime, that’s basically the same as saying the Los Angeles don’t have infinite playtime.

Although, to be fair to Urbanista, the Los Angeles get a lot closer than most.

At a glance, there’s nothing particularly noteworthy about the Urbanista Los Angeles. Like the Miami wireless headphones on which they’re closely based, they’re discreetly good looking and nicely finished. And like every Urbanista product, they’re named after one of the planet’s more evocative places.

It’s on the outside of the headband, though, that the Los Angeles suddenly become unique. ‘Unique’, like ‘infinite’, is an absolute but currently, this is a description the Urbanista deserve. Because integrated into the outside of the headband there’s a big strip of a material called ‘Powerfoyle’ that’s supplied by a company called Exeger. It’s a solar cell material and it can derive energy from any type of light, from sunshine to the lightbulbs in your home. It’s always pulling energy, always charging, whether the headphones themselves are switched on or not. And it means the Urbanista Los Angeles will play for an enormous length of time without ever needing to be charged from the mains. Which, as unique selling points go, is pretty impressive.

Urbanista Los Angeles
Photograph: Urbanista

This piece of engineering brilliance aside, it’s mostly Urbanista business as usual. Which means the Los Angeles are a robust pair of headphones, comfortable at every contact point and not (like so many rival designs) about to swamp the smaller-headed listener. Build quality is unarguable, the choice of materials is judicious, the color options (‘midnight’ black or ‘sand’ gold) are pleasant, and there’s a degree of tactility about the Los Angeles that is by no means common in headphones below the £200 mark. 

Wireless connectivity is via Bluetooth 5.0, which is adequate but hardly at the cutting edge. Sound is delivered by a couple of the same 40mm full-range dynamic drivers fitted to the (suddenly slightly lo-tech) Urbanista Miami. There’s three-position active noise-cancellation: ‘on’, ‘off’ or ‘ambient sound’, and hair-trigger accelerometers that pause music if you take the Los Angeles off your head (or even shift them slightly on your ears). Happily, the ‘on-ear detection’ can be defeated in the nice new Urbanista control app.

As far as headphones control apps go, it’s one of the better-looking and one of the more restricted in what it can actually do for you. There’s a nice big display that explains whether the battery is being topped up or drained, there’s switching for the three-stage noise cancellation and there’s the ability to define the function of the physical ‘control’ button on the outside of the left earcup. That’s your lot.