Audio-Technica ATH-ANC3

Tour

The Audio-Technica ATH-ANC3 headphones are made out of white (or black) plastic with silver detailing.

The headphones have a symmetrical ‘Y’ design. This means the cord runs from the plug up to a neck split, then forks off into equal lengths, ending in the ear buds. The headphones feature three different sizes of gray, soft plastic sleeves.

The control pendant is a few inches from the plug, and will safely reach your front pocket if you want to tuck it away. The pendant will let you turn the active noise cancellation feature on and off. When cancellation is on, the LED next to the power switch will glow red.

The cord ends in a standard 1/8-inch plug. The plug has a substantial cord guard and the thick cord should resist wear and tear better than thinner cords.

In The Box

Inside the ATH-ANC3 box, you’ll find the headphones, a AA battery, an airplane adapter, two extra pairs of sleeves, and an extension cord.

Durability (7.43)

While there are a few areas on the ATH-ANC3 headphones that could become durability issues, for the most part they seem solid. One of the main areas we see problems in other headphones is where the cord connects to the plug (the cord can bend sharply at that junction if the headphones don’t have some kind of guard.

Aesthetics (5.50)

There isn’t much about the ATH-ANC3 headphones that are noteworthy in terms of aesthetics. First of all, there’s never much space on in-ear headphones to do anything particularly eye-catchingly beautiful. The ATH-ANC3 headphones come in white and black, but we’d actually recommend the black ones for optimal aesthetic appeal. Unfortunately, thanks to Apple, white in-ear headphones are all being lumped into a ‘standard headphones’ label. While this means you’ll be following a mainstream aesthetic, it also means everyone will assume you’re wearing packed-in iPod headphones and no one will give your brand new $170 headphones a second glance. Again, however, this phenomena is something all in-ear headphones have to suffer through, since they’re too small to make any real aesthetic statement.

The one (potential) aesthetic issue with the ATH-ANC3 headphones is the noise cancellation control pendant. At best, you just plop it in your pocket, which is the optimal route. At worst, you have a bulky control pendant clipped to your lapel or — heaven forbid — you walk around with a bit of plastic thumping against your leg. Although it’s a bit big, to be fair, we really can’t see the pendant shrinking much while maintaining its functionality or space for the battery. Chances are, however, the pendant will find its way safely into your pocket, leaving you with an attractive, clean-looking pair of in-ears.