House of Marley Redemption ANC 2 review: eco-conscious wireless earbuds

This House of Marley Redemption ANC 2 review is for anyone who cares about making eco-conscious buying decisions, but who also needs some of the best true wireless earbuds.

House of Marley is known for its more sustainable approach to audio, using more eco-friendly materials to build its products. At the time of writing, House of Marley actively supports global reforestation through One Tree Planted, and ocean conservation through the Surfrider Foundation.

The House of Marley Redemption ANC 2 wireless earbuds reflect that ethos, they’re made from bamboo and bamboo fibre composite while the included USB-C cable was created from 99% post-consumer plastic. Even the packaging is plastic-free and recyclable. 

If you're interested in the brand but the price tag has put you off, then check out this House of Marley Rebel review for a more affordable option. 

House of Marley Redemption ANC 2 review: price and what’s new 

Having launched in May 2022, the House of Marley Redemption ANC 2 are available to buy now for $170 in the US, £150 in the UK and AU$250 in Australia. To see the best deals on them from across the web right now, check out the widgets on this page. 

One of the most significant differences between the House of Marley Redemption ANC and the House of Marley Redemption ANC 2 is the price. At launch, the new headphones are $10 / £30 / AU$50 cheaper than their predecessors - so what’s changed? 

Firstly the design has been refreshed with a new shape for the case and a new metallic logo, plus the IP rating for water resistance has been boosted from IPX4 to IPX5. The battery has been improved from 5 hours from a single charge with ANC switched on and a total of 20 hours with the case to 6 hours from a single charge with ANC switched on and 24 hours with the case. You’ll also now be able to charge the case wirelessly as well as adjust the sound through the House of Marley smartphone app.

Using Bluetooth 5.2 the connectivity range has improved so it's now about 20m which is up from about 10m before. 

House of Marley Redemption ANC 2 review: design and fit  

You can’t mistake these as being from any other audio company because they carry House of Marley’s iconic design language. 

The black speckled case has a bamboo panel across the top with a silver HoM logo, and there's a row of small LEDs along the bottom to indicate its battery level. When you look inside, the wide main body of each earbud is made from plastic while the dangling stem has a strip of bamboo covering the outside, with the same small silver logo as the case which doubles up as the touch panel. 

Not only are they a good-looking pair of headphones, but as I mentioned before, the House of Marley Redemption ANC 2 are made from more sustainable materials than other wireless earbuds. But that doesn’t mean House of Marley has skimped on the build quality, these buds feel durable and they’re IPX5 sweat and water-resistant. Right now you can only buy them in black but there is a cream colourway coming soon. 

To make the earbuds feel comfortable and secure, you get three sizes of silicone ear tips to choose from. I used them for everything from work to workouts and they stayed put without any problems at all. The wider body of the bud feels a little heavy though which meant I did get tired of wearing them after a couple of hours. 

Each earbud has a touch panel on the outside so without picking up your phone, you can adjust the volume, skip backwards and forwards through tracks, call upon your smartphone’s voice assistant and switch through noise-cancelling modes. The gestures are both easy to remember and reliable but they are a little different to other headphones by default. A single tap will turn the volume up or down, not pause or play the music as you'd expect, to do that you need to take one of the earbuds out. 

The House of Marley Redemption ANC 2 will give you 6 hours of music from a single charge while the case provides a total of 24 hours of listening time. If you get caught short, a quick 15-minute charge will give you about 2 hours of music.

A USB-C cable is included in the box to charge the case but you can also charge it wirelessly.

House of Marley Redemption ANC 2 review: performance and features  

The House of Marley Redemption ANC 2’s sound quality has its ups and downs. Packed with bass and plenty of depth, if you like high-energy music then these will be a good choice, but the soundstage could be wider and they lack sharpness and clarity in the higher frequencies. 

Another issue I found was volume, when I listened to podcasts I had to dial it up almost all the way to hear what they were saying, especially when I was somewhere noisy like on a busy tube. 

In saying that, these do give you quite a lot of control over the sound so you can make it better suit you. The manual equaliser is very detailed and you also get 8 preset sound modes to choose from.

You get two noise-cancelling modes built-in, ANC and Ambient. The ANC won’t drown out everything that’s happening around you but it will dull a lot of sounds like the train's rattling or other people’s talking. If you want a pair of headphones that blocks out noise entirely then take a look at the best noise-cancelling headphones. 

The ambient sound mode is there for when you do want to hear what’s going on around you. It lets noise in but balances it with the music so you’ll know if someone talks to you or if you need to hear traffic out on the road. It’s not the most effective transparency mode I’ve used because I did still miss someone saying my name a couple of times before I heard them, but they were stood quite far away from me, and other than that it worked fine.

I was pleased about the addition of a brand new House of Marley smartphone app which is available for both iOS and Android. Admittedly it could be polished up a little, at the moment it’s not the most intuitively designed and it’s a little sparse. Despite that, I did get some good use out of it. You can see the earbuds’ battery percentage, switch on the ANC and Ambient modes, adjust the manual equaliser settings and pick from the eight available preset sound modes. You’ll also be able to customise the touch controls from the settings page. 

Call quality is also good, I could hear everything the recipient was saying clearly and vice versa. Connectivity on these is great as well, I could walk into another room without them disconnecting or faltering at all, they also connected quickly to all my devices. 

House of Marley Redemption ANC 2 review: verdict 

The House of Marley Redemption ANC 2 are a solid pair of true wireless earbuds that will be good day-to-day headphones - they look great, they’re comfortable and they’re secure. The sound quality is adequate for the most part, especially if you’re all about the bass, but admittedly if you’re more about refined classical music then these may not be right for you. 

The battery life is perfectly fine as well, and it’s great that the case can be charged wirelessly. I was also pleased to see the House of Marley app for the first time. Even though it could be improved, it still gives you lots of control over the sound as well as the ability to switch between ANC modes more easily. 

House of Marley Redemption ANC 2 review: also consider  

A similarly priced pair of earbuds that I’d recommend is the Marshall Motif ANC. They look really cool, they sound great and the ANC works really well. Granted you won’t get as much control over the sound and the battery life isn’t quite as good but they’re still worth a look. 

If you’re hunting for a pair of the best budget wireless earbuds then take a look at the Sony WF-C500. They cost half the amount of the House of Marley Redemption ANC 2 but they sound fantastic with manual equaliser settings in the app, although they don’t have any noise cancellation. 

All of our tests are done in a real-world environment – not in a lab. You can find out more about how we test at T3 here.