ANC on Anthony Cossey Blog -- Music, HiFi, Studios and Stories

Sennheiser Momentum 5

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Sennheiser Momentum 5 — The House Sound Goes Wireless

Sennheiser has always sold restraint as a feature, and the Momentum line is where that philosophy meets Bluetooth. The Momentum 4 was already a sensible, unshowy flagship; the Momentum 5 arrives with a genuinely useful hardware upgrade — a user-replaceable battery — bolted onto sound tuning that borrows, quite deliberately, from the wired side of the family. For a company that also makes the HD600, that’s not a coincidence.

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2

Mon, 31 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Bowers & Wilkins Px8 S2 — Leather-Clad Flagship, Refined

B&W has always sold wireless headphones as furniture for your ears — proper materials, proper finish, a price that says “hi-fi maker” rather than “consumer electronics brand.” The Px8 S2 is the moment that pitch finally has the engineering to back it up across the board, not just the leather. It’s a genuine, comprehensive rework of the original Px8, and at £629 it’s asking you to pay for craft over spec-sheet showmanship.

Sony WH-1000XM6

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Sony WH-1000XM6 — The ANC Benchmark, Refined Again

Every couple of years Sony quietly resets what “best noise-cancelling headphone” means, and everyone else spends the next eighteen months catching up. The XM6 is the sixth swing at that target, and it’s the first in a while that actually changes shape rather than just the numbers on the spec sheet — the folding hinges are back, which tells you Sony listened to the one complaint the excellent XM5 never lived down.