Schuberth C5 ANC | Ultimate noise-cancelling touring helmet?

The Schuberth C5 ANC is potentially the most important new motorcycle product of 2026. Or even, and this isn’t hyperbole, of the decade.

By working closely with Cardo for the past three years, the new C5 promises active noise cancelling that could minimise fatigue when riding by significantly reducing wind noise. It might even mean an end to ear plugs, though Cardo wisely states that it will be up to the rider to decide.

This news follows Cardo’s own announcement that it’s releasing the full-face Beyond GTS helmet with active noise cancelling, and the tech seems likely to be very similar, but how it’s implemented and tuned could be quite different between the two.

We’ll have to wait until we’re able to properly and thoroughly test them both, but this is what we know about the world’s first modular / flip-front helmet with active noise cancelling…

The Schuberth C5 ANC was developed in a partnership with Cardo

Schuberth C5 ANC flip-front helmet revealed

The Schuberth C5 ANC isn’t simply a standard C5 with active noise cancelling electronics, and you won’t be able to upgrade a ‘normal’ C5 to ANC.

The largest speakers seen in premium intercom systems are 45mm in diameter – the ones fitted to the Schuberth C5 are 53mm, with a soft headphone-style sealing pad around the outside that enhances the noise cancellation. The microphone’s new and the cable harness is revised too, but otherwise the new Schuberth C5 ANC is expected to retain the excellent performance that makes the standard model one of our favourite flip-front motorcycle lids (full review here).

The electronics in the C5 ANC will of course retain Cardo’s excellent Mesh and Bluetooth comms and voice control, being based on the Packtalk Edge (reviewed here).

The speaker fitted to the C5 ANC is noticeably bigger than the standard one on the left

Will I still be able to hear traffic and sirens?

Schuberth is very keen to stress the huge amount of work that’s gone into tuning the noise cancellation profile of the system installed into the C5 ANC.

While Cardo offers its own full-face helmet with active noise cancelling, it’s not a simple matter of shoving the same kit into another helmet – it has to be refined not just to suit the resonant frequency and noise profile under varying conditions of the Schuberth’s shell, it also has to suit what sounds are intended to be reduced.

Schuberth has worked closely with Cardo Sound Labs in Germany to achieve a claimed peak noise reduction of 10dB in the 100-700Hz range when riding at 62mph (100km/h). There are some keys things you need to understand here…

• A reduction of just 3dB represents a halving of the noise level you hear. 10dB is a big drop.

• Schuberth’s C5 ANC profile minimises sound levels in the 700-1,800Hz range that at least some tones of emergency vehicle sirens are typically within.

• Schuberth says it’s developed the system with testing on a variety of motorcycles, but it’s your bike’s screen, riding position and even clothing that can affect the noise you hear.

We’ll only know how effective the Schuberth C5 ANC system really is when we’re able to thoroughly test it on UK roads, but check back to this article soon for my video trialling a demo of it at EICMA.

A study by ISVR Consulting at the University of Southampton found that at speeds above 40mph, wind noise can exceed the noise levels of the motorcycle itself. By working with police riders, they discovered that bikers are exposed to anything from around 85dB at 40mph to 106dB at 70mph. At 125mph, noise levels reached 115dB.

If you only ride a scooter in the city and have a decent helmet, your hearing is unlikely to be damaged as 85dB can be safely endured for eight hours. But jump to 94dB (50mph on a ZX-12R) and your safe exposure time drops to around 1 hour.

Riding a BMW K100 at 70mph generates around 106dB – a level of noise that the Tinnitus Association says has a maximum exposure time of just three minutes and 45 seconds.

It’s clear that the potential reduction is noise levels that the Schuberth C5 ANC is claimed to offer could make a huge difference, but a drop of 10dB will still potentially require earplugs to be worn. Still, it’ll be a big improvement regardless, and if you listen to music on the bike it could also mean far greater clarity and less need to have a high volume.

How long will the battery last?

The Schuberth C5 ANC is claimed to have a 10 hour battery life – we’re gonna test that.

Is it available in colours other than black?

Schuberth is going to initially offer the C5 ANC in matt black, gloss concrete grey and gloss white, though it seems likely that if the demand’s there other colours will be released. We’d love to see it in the gorgeous matt blue that the standard model’s offered in.

At the time of writing, the concrete grey option won’t be available in the UK, but it’s worth checking with your dealer if that’s the colour you want, or contacting the distributor, BikerHeadz.

The Schuberth C5 ANC will be available in two carbon/glassfibre outer shell sizes, one covering XS to L, the other XL to XXXL. This is the same as the standard C5, but the new helmet has had to go through certification again to ensure that it passes the requirements of ECE 22.06 with the larger headphones fitted.

It will be certified as P/J (meaning it can be worn open or closed while riding), come with a preinstalled Pinlock 120 anti-fog insert, and have the same ‘visor memory’ function of the regular model, which puts the visor back where you left it when you open and close the chin bar.

The Schuberth C5 ANC will also be compatible with the E2’s peak and visor, making it extremely practical in low-light conditions.

How does active noise cancelling work?

Put simply, active noise cancelling uses microphones in and around the ear area to ‘listen’ to the noise coming in, then plays back a mirror image of it to cancel it out.

Imagine a steady sound as a sine wave, then overlay a flipped version of that sine wave and the two will cancel each-other out. Get it right, and unwanted noise virtually disappears.

This tech has been in Bose Quiet Comfort headphones for many years, and has found its way into various brands now, with even tiny in-ear headphones offering good noise cancelling.

Think about that for a moment… as sound travels at 343 metres/second, it means an ANC system needs to listen to it, process it and generate the noise-cancelling signal in about 15 microseconds.

That’s 0.000015 seconds.

It’s clever tech in a headphone, but imagine the challenges of doing it in a dome that covers your head and is being attacked from all angles by wind vibration that generates the noise you want to reduce. Aviation helmets have head it for a while… now it’s our turn.

How ANC works

A very quick video that does a good job of visualising the tech

Schuberth C5 ANC release date

The flip-front Schuberth C5 ANC is likely to hit the shelves sooner than the full-face Cardo Beyond, with a claimed on-sale date of March 2026.

Schuberth C5 ANC price

Like the Cardo Beyond active noise cancelling helmet, the Schuberth ANC isn’t going to be cheap, but keep in mind that the RRP of the current standard Schuberth C5 and the Cardo comms system makes for a total of £879.98 when bought separately…

It’s expected that buying the SC ANC comms unit at the same time as the C5 ANC helmet will reduce the accessory’s price by 16.6% as you don’t pay VAT this way. It’s still a step up from the standard C5, but we’re confident that there will be a market for what could be one of the most comfortable and convenient helmets on the market for long-distance touring.

Prices for the USA are not yet confirmed due to a lack of clarity regarding tariffs.

Will the Schuberth C5 ANC be any good?

Schuberth is known for relatively quiet helmets, though it does always depend on the bike you’re riding and many other factors. If the active noise cancelling is as effective as we’re hoping, long rides could be far less tiring and – depending on your bike – it might even mean the end to needing earplugs. Even if they’re still required, they won’t need to be as restrictive and your rides should be far less tiring.

Time will tell, but given how well the standard C5 performs, this is likely to be 2026’s most anticipated product.

I’ll be trialling a demo of the Schuberth C5 ANC at EICMA in November so will update this article with the video, and I’m also hoping to carry out a full and thorough review as soon as possible in 2026, so keep your eye on the Bennetts BikeSocial homepage. If you have any questions, catch up with me and the team at our friendly and helpful BikeClub forum.

We probably shouldn’t read too much into the Shoei seen in the bottom right corner of this image of the Schuberth C5 ANC in development