Nixon has been doing headphones for a while, but none has ever particularly impressed. They fall into the looks-over-quality department, alongside the likes of Skullcandy and WESC.

Nixon's latest set, The Stylus, promises to bring decent looks and sound quality to match. But does it manage it?

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From our time spent with them, it appears so. Nixon definitely has it nailed in the design department, with the white or black matte plastic headphones being perfectly set off against the subtle Nixon logo. The big plastic headband on the top looks great and, for the time it spent on top of our heads, is comfortable also.

Also thrown into the package is a detachable coil headphone cable with inline remote. We like that it is replaceable, as headphones like this which tend to travel with you on trains and buses often have their cables break. The cable comes with colour-matched remote and headphone jack, to match the headphones.

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As for the earphones themselves, the noise isolation isn't great, but they are very comfortable, getting rid of the comfort issues that most over-ear headphones cause. The top headphone band also has plenty of flex and adjustability, so it should suit various head sizes.

Sound quality is good. Things aren't quite as bass heavy as some of the competing brands like Beats, for example. Conversely, we could have done with a touch more treble, simply because the headphones appeared to be giving far too much emphasis on the mid-tones. A bit of playing about with the EQ on our phone however and this was easily fixed.

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The headphones do succeed in giving a nice rich and warm sound and, for the price, are definitely up there in quality with some of the more audio-centric companies. We can't help but think, however, that saving for a set of B&W P3s is the thing to do - that way you get the looks and the best-in-class sound quality. That's a lot of saving though, because the P3s are twice the price.

A nice set of all-rounders then. For those after a good-looking set of headphones, the Nixons certainly have it covered. They sound okay as well. Build quality and materials used could be a touch more premium but are no different from anything else in the price range. The Nixon Stylus headphones can be picked up here for £82.