The DALI IO-6 is an exceptional wireless ANC headphone. It’s well made, comfortable to wear, and easy to operate. Most importantly, it sounds superb on a wide variety of music. Its tonal balance is on the warm, rich, sumptuous side—which I love—and activating ANC does not change the tonality much at all.

To be honest, I consider the DALI‌ IO-6 more of an audiophile wireless headphone like the non-ANC Beyerdynamic Amiron Wireless Copper or the Hifiman Ananda-BT than it is a jetsetting noise-cancellation headphone. It has all the audiophile chops of the Beyerdynamic headphone: detail, soundstage, imaging, but with decent active noise canceling as the cherry on top. These are the first ANC‌ headphones I’ve found myself doing critical listening with.

The sweet spot. For this type of product, that is where the DALI IO-6 Wireless NC headphones seem to land for me. They provided a nicely balanced, high-fidelity stereo sound over both Bluetooth and wired connections, along with an effective level of noise-cancellation when called for. The build quality and aesthetics are excellent, and I found the comfort level to be top of the heap among all similar types of ANC headphones that I’ve tried so far. As you read earlier, the other person around here who likes these headphones an awful lot is my wife. She periodically absconded with them and found both the aesthetics and the sound quality of the IO-6 to be much to her liking. Enough so that she has taken ownership of the review pair, so they won’t be going back to DALI. I don’t know if I (or she) can give them a higher recommendation than that. If I had one suggestion of something that I’d like to see added to these headphones would be the inclusion of an app that allowed adjustment of the level of ANC. I don’t personally need it, but the added flexibility might be appreciated by other prospective buyers. Otherwise, for a pair of noise-canceling headphones, the DALI IO-6 feels “just right”. Thus, endeth the fairytale.

If you’re looking for an ultra premium option, and don’t mind not having the best noise cancellation out there, then these are well worth the cost.

With the IO-6, Dali combines a well-balanced design and high-quality workmanship with high sound quality and effective noise cancelling. The focus is on honest sound reproduction, behind which functionality consciously takes a back seat. With this approach, the target market for these headphones is clear: the music lover who wants a high-quality set of headphones for travelling.

These Dalis have the potential to be class-leaders, but their beautifully precise sound lacks a little dynamic punch

Other usability factors are all in order and top notch too, the buttons, side panel ear-cup controls and on/off button are all well thought out, with only one nitpick. There are too dang many of them. I felt like a kid who’s been hunched over the cookie jar too long, and what made the headphone easy to use while on the head, also made the removal experience a bit frustrating. Every time I took the headphones off, I inevitably bumped one or other of the controls because they were all clustered so close together where the hand naturally falls when removing them.

You’d expect headphones from a brand like Dali to sound great – and, sure enough, the IO-6s do. Unlike some equally great-sounding rivals, though, they’re missing a feature or two.

With the IO-6, DALI aims to ruffle a few feathers in the premium wireless noise-cancellation arena – but falls short of the best. Despite this, these are a well-judged pair of headphones with an appealing sound and effective noise-cancellation. They're worth considering if you don't want the bells and whistles of other pairs