With the KEF Mu7, KEF becomes the latest high-end audio brand to offer an over-ear wireless headphone with active noise cancellation. The company has been extraordinarily bad about keeping this announcement a secret, however; the Mu7 has been listed on the company’s website for at least a week, even though the news officially dropped only today.
This article is part of TechHive’s in-depth coverage of the best noise-cancelling headphones.
KEF’s first noise-cancelling over-ear headphones, the KEF Mu7, sell for $399.99.
KEF
From the documentation that’s been provided to date, it looks as if the Mu7 will come closer than either Bowers & Wilkins’ or Focal’s efforts when it comes to achieving high-tech feature parity with Sony’s WH-1000XM5 noise-cancelling headphones. KEF’s cans feature a capacitive touchpad on the right-hand earcup that will allow users to answer calls, skip tracks, and adjust the volume with finger taps and swipes.
The Mu7 feature 40mm full-range dynamic drivers “custom-tuned by KEF engineers to bring consistent voicing while on the move,” according to the manufacturer and deliver frequency response from 20Hz to 20kHz. The headphone has a Bluetooth 5.1 radio onboard and it supports the SBC, AAC, aptX, and aptX HD codecs. That last codec supports high-resolution (up to 24-bit/48kHz) streaming from compatible devices. Sony’s equally high-resolution LDAC codec is apparently not supported.
The KEF Mu7’s earcups fold flat to fit inside their carry case.
KEF
KEF says the Mu7’s active noise cancellation “uses multiple filters to capture the environmental noise around the headphones and applies a specialized noise cancelling algorithm that targets certain frequencies and adjust the noise cancellation to be much more effective.” That’s a lot of words to say the Mu7 have adaptive noise cancellation.
The KEF Mu7’s industrial design is credited to Ross Lovegrove, who also worked on KEF’s $225-thousand-dollar Muon loudspeaker and its $230 Mu3 ANC in-ear headphones. KEF attributes the Mu7’s aluminum frame for its light weight, 10.9 ounces, although the leatherette covering the memory foam earpads suggests the level of luxury B&W offers with its Px7 S2 rather than Focal’s admittedly more-expensive and Bathys.
Power is supplied by a Li-ion 1100mAh battery rated to deliver 40 hours of wireless playtime with ANC engaged, and KEF says a 15-minute quick charge will yield 8 hours of play time. A USB-C cable is provided for charging; a 3.5mm audio cable and an airline adapter are also included.
The KEF Mu7 is available now for $399.99 in silver or charcoal finishes. We’ll publish an in-depth review of the new noise-cancelling headphone as soon as we land a sample.
