I think these slim headphones that mix '80s looks with 2025 features, including noise cancellation, are wild… but pretty damn cool

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These retro headphones offer wired, wireless and ANC too

KM5 Lightwear headphones HP1 on a grey background
(Image credit: KM5)
  • KM5 Lightwear HP1 cost $189 / £159 (about AU$331)
  • 1980s looks, but with Bluetooth 5.4 and active noise cancellation
  • 24-hour battery life, but two different parts to charge

Whenever I feel nostalgic about the orange foam Walkman headphones I used in the 1980s, I have to remind myself that they sounded absolutely awful. But what if they returned, and sounded good, and had active noise cancellation too? That's what the new KM5 Lightwear HP1 headphones are here to deliver.

The headphones work both wirelessly and in wired mode, and come in at just 103g without cables. Sadly they don't come in that '80s orange, but there are white and black models with swappable colored cushions.

KM5 Lightwear headphones HP1 on a grey background

(Image credit: KM5)

KM5 Lightwear HP1 headphones: key features and pricing

The thin headband is made from stainless steel and behind the cushions there are 40mm drivers with a frequency response of 20Hz to 25kHz.

Bluetooth is 5.4 with Bluetooth LE Audio, and battery life is a promised 24 hours from a three-hour charge. The ANC has a transparency mode as well as normal cancellation.

There are two big downsides here, however. The earcups are not connected to one another, and that means you need to charge with two cables. And for wired listening, a USB-C cable will have more weight than the skinny audio cables of old-school cans. I'm assuming that in wired mode the cabled earcup sends audio wirelessly to the other, although KM5 hasn't made that offically clear.

They're definitely an interesting new addition to the world of the best noise cancelling headphones – a very different style to anything from Sony or Bose. That goes double since so few of the best on-ear headphones have ANC, so these provide something genuinely rare.

The HP1 headphones are available now from km5.co.jp for £159 / $189 (about AU$331), making them a pretty fair price – now we just need to see if they're any good, assuming they (hopefully) become widely available.

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Carrie Marshall
Carrie Marshall
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Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now and her next book, about pop music, is out in 2025. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.

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