KEF Mu7 Wireless Active Noise Cancelling Headphones, Charcoal Grey

Product Information

For the most part, the Mu7 are premium wireless over-ear headphone business as usual. The slender arms and yokes are of smooth, expertly fitted aluminium, while the earpads and the central portion of the headband are breathable leatherette – the earpads are filled with memory foam. Don't worry, I didn't damage my ears because these headphones aren't particularly loud even at full speed.

Its recent team-up with Lotus proves it's a brand that understands luxury and style in equal measure, so I jumped at the chance at trying its noise-cancelling headphone range, which have been designed in collaboration - like many a KEF product - with brilliant designer Ross Lovegrove. The way any piece of audio equipment sounds is ultimately a judgement call. Someone (or some group of people) has decided on the ‘voice’ a pair of headphones (for instance) is going to have, and then fingers are crossed as to whether or not it finds favour. In the case of the KEF Mu7, it’s not difficult to picture the wish-list: five minutes inside these headphones and words like ‘judicious’, ‘precise’ and ‘mature’ all start to muscle their way to the front of the mind… The faux leather encases the ears nicely and having it on the top of the band as well means that the comfort levels are superb.The KEF Mu7 Wireless Headphones should prove to be a solution with a noble design, high wearing comfort, but above all fine sound. It can happen for various reasons that we do not report on products even though we have corresponding test products. For the design of the Mu7, KEF has enlisted the services of long-time collaborator Ross Lovegrove. Anyone familiar with this work for the company, from the huge Muon loudspeakers to the grabbable Muo wireless speaker, will know what to expect here (beyond a model name that starts ‘Mu’) - the Mu7 are an organically flowing combination of bumps and recesses. Or, at least, they are as far as the earcups are concerned - that’s about the only area of a pair of over-ear headphones that doesn’t have its form utterly dictated by its function. The overall sound signature is neutral-warm and very comfortable to listen to for long sessions. The dynamics are pretty good as well as you can clearly differentiate the highs and lows, but again, not as good as other wired Hi-Fi headphones that are cheaper. First of all, we would like to emphasise a point that we have already praised, namely the really very high wearing comfort that the KEF Mu7 Wireless Headphones offer. Even after hours of use, we didn’t find the headphones annoying, which has been the case with many other models.

For example, I only use the USB-C cable once before I leave to charge the batteries in the headphones. They got the deep rumbling of the ICE well under control, but overall the driving noise was still easy to hear despite the combination of passive and active insulation. I love the sleek design of the KEF Mu7. Everything from the case they come in to how they looks screams premium.

User reviews

While I must have listened to music and watched movies for two to three dozen hours with the Mu7, I only charged it that one time. Which means that aside from the aluminium earcups, the rest of the KEF are unremarkable where design is concerned. Faux-leather covered memory foam forms the earpads, and there’s more of the material covering the central part of the headband. The rest of the headband, the arms and the yokes are aluminium too, and the earcups fold flat to allow the KEF-branded sem-rigid carry case to be of manageable size. As a rule, we wait until we can get test devices or game versions that are identical to the retail versions. For telephone calls and video calls, the microphones themselves ensure the best voice quality, because they are so-called cVc microphones (Clear Voice Capture), which isolate the user’s voice and minimise all other noise. Crystal-clear conversations are thus guaranteed, regardless of the environment. Bluetooth with aptX HD or cable for hi-res audio