Sony WF-1000XM6

Design

• Bigger size
• Good comfort
• Fiddly fit (if you believe the app)
• Two different finishes

In something of a surprise, the WF-1000XM6 haven’t shrunk Ant-Man-style – this new model is chunkier (there’s a reason for that), and I imagine the overall aesthetics might polarise.

Which is not to say that Sony has gone avant-garde with the WF-1000XM6. As you can see, the WF-1000XM6 looks like a true wireless earbud, the design verges on incognito, similar to its WH-1000XM6 sibling. Nondescript seems to be what Sony is going for.

It’s the fit that I imagine some might have trouble with, which at a pre-reveal event was already causing some to figuratively gnash their jaws (causing an even looser fit). It’s not that the WF-1000XM6 don’t fit – comfort hasn’t been an issue for me, and as I’m writing this review, I’ve worn these headphones for nearly 24 hours over the two weeks.

For the best ANC performance the seal needs to be airtight – and the Sony WF-1000XM6 can be very fiddly in that regard.

Slimmer in profile, but chunkier overall, there’s a feature within the Sony Sound Connect app that measures whether the seal of the earbuds is airtight. A familiar sight has been for the app to tell me that, no, it isn’t.

I spent ten minutes trying to appease the app to no avail, stumped over whether it would accept any honorific sacrifices and certain there weren’t many more ways to squeeze the earbuds in (aside for some potential Blu-tack).

One time, I managed to get both ear-tips sealed, stood up, went to another room, came back, sat down and did the measurement test again. It failed.

However, this is not, I feel, quite as big a problem as it may look, for reasons I’ll come to later. But it is annoying, and frustrating and I’ve reached the point I’m tempted to ignore this feature and trust my ears. I feel it was an issue with the WF-1000XM5 (it was always the left ear) but not as frequent as this.

You get four ear-tip sizes (extra small, small, medium which is default, and large). You’re encouraged to play around with the sizes and employ different sizes for each ear. After all, not even your own ears are the same.

It’s also worth highlighting that Sony has stuck with the same noise isolation ear-tips used since the WF-1000XM4; which are stiffer but aim to plug holes better than silicon tips.

Other points of interest include the earbuds’ finish. Interestingly, the black version is glossier, smoother to touch; the platinum silver version is slightly coarser with metal flakes, so they’re not identical.

I don’t find that it has any effects in terms of comfort – the earbuds slot in without complaint. The platinum silver finish marks more easily – the inside of my ears are filthy – but marks can be wiped off.

The earbuds are also rated to IPX4, the same as the last few WF-1000X models and slightly disappointing. Like the Apple AirPods 3 Pro, I’d have hoped for a stronger water resistance. While you can use them during workouts or in drizzly weather, I wouldn’t recommend more than that.

The (responsive) touch controls cover playback, switching ANC modes, skipping tracks, as well as volume control (via multiple taps), bringing up voice assistance, and Sony’s Quick Attention mode. The control scheme can be customised within the Sound Connect app.

The charging case is slightly bigger, definitely taller but the same width. It’s still pocketable, and Sony believes it’s made it easier to re-insert the headphones into the cradle (it was a little fiddly before). It too shares the coarse, metal flake as the earphones.

Around the back is a USB-C input for charging and a Bluetooth pairing button. Accessories amount to a tiny USB-C charging cable in the packaging.

Features

• Scene-based Listening
• Background music feature
• Sony Connect app

As always with a pair of premium Sony headphones, the feature list is absurdly comprehensive.

Back again is Quick Attention Mode (hold the left earbud to hear what’s around you). Speak to Chat (which detects when you’re speaking and pauses audio), Adaptive Sound Control, which you can tailor the headphone’s settings to how you use them, for example, automatically switching to a different setting based on your location.

There is voice control with Sony’s own version (tell the headphones to pause music or skip tracks). You can access voice assistants on your mobile device such as Siri and Google Assistant. There’s also a Digital assistant, which, appears to be Hey Google. Or you can choose to ignore voice control completely. The choice is yours.

Head gesture control is included with calls and the Scene-based Listening feature, so you can look strange by accepting a call in public by nodding your head or rejecting it with a shake.

Service Link features refer to smarts such as Spotify Tap that open the app, album or playlist (whatever you assign to it). Amazon Music Play Now offers the same, as does YouTube Music Quick Access.

The Endel Quick Access feature offers personalised soundscapes for focus, relax, or sleep, but requires a subscription once the initial free trial is over for first-time users. Sound Connect slightly scrambles the visibility of these features, having to enable Service Link in one part with the actual features squared away in a couple of places.

The Discover section has some interesting features (if enabled), such as your Listening History, which tracks the music you listen to, seemingly across all music services. It also logs how long you use the headphones, throws in some badges to game-mify the experience.

There’s also Scene-based Listening, which offers instant resumption of audio from the music services mentioned above as soon as you put the headphones in (and it works), or when you start running, or walking, or when you’re at the gym. It’ll send you notifications if you want it to as well (“Good evening, it’s 10pm”).

This feature, and a few others, mark the Sony WF-1000XM6 as a pair of productivity headphones. The smarts they offer are impressive given they’re the size of a nut.

The Find Your Equalizer plays sounds and asks you to choose which ones you prefer as a more intuitive way of creating your own personal sound rather than fiddling around with bands and frequencies. There is a selection of presets to choose from, including a Game mode for the mobile gamers.

Within the Sound Connect app you can also customise touch controls, noise-cancellation, the Bluetooth Connection (choose between audio quality or the connection). The DSEE Extreme feature ‘restores’ high-frequency sound lost during compression.

There’s 360 Reality Audio with head tracking support, though with few apps supporting it, it doesn’t feel essential to the WF-1000XM6’s experience.

Listening mode takes the audio you’re listening to and places it in the background, almost mimicking if you were listening to music in a public space. It’s an interesting feature and it works, taking the intensity of music playing inside your head and putting it… around you. It does feel strange at first but I’ve got used to it.

I do not love the Sound Connect’s app layout. You’re able to customise the sections seen on the landing page, but delving into the ‘Device settings’ submerges you into a series of nested rows. It’s rather drab and workmanlike in function and speaks to just how many features these headphones carry. This interface, however, doesn’t make me want to try them out.

Bluetooth multipoint provides the means to use the WF-1000XM6 with two devices at the same time. You can also do this with LDAC on, though Sony can’t repeat the trick of the Technics EAH-AZ100 where it supports multipoint with up to three devices at once.

The LDAC codec covers higher quality streaming over Bluetooth, along with SBC, AAC, and LC3 Audio. There may also be Auracast support but I’m waiting for confirmation. Google Fast Pair makes it quicker to connect to Android devices.

The wireless performance has been fine, a few stutters here and there, and while in LDAC mode it does stutter more frequently in busy signal areas. If that’s an issue, you can prioritise connection over sound in the app.

If there’s one thing about the feature list here, it’s that it doesn’t feel like there’s anything new in terms of ideas. Virtually everything I’ve mentioned was on a previous WF-1000X model or has featured in the WH-1000X over-ears.

Given the amount of features, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to customise the controls to bring up, say, Background listening, rather than delving into the app…

Noise-cancellation

• Adaptive ANC
• Four mics in each earbud
• AI/bone conduction call

Sony claims the WF-1000XM6 offers the best true wireless for noise-cancellation bar none, packing four microphones (up from the WF-1000XM5’s three) in each earbud to combat internal and external noise – hence why they’re a bit chunkier.

I’m confident in saying that these are the quietest pair of earbuds I’ve used, though that comes with a caveat, maybe even two. The first is that, according to the Sound Connect app, the noise-cancelling performance is dependent on an airtight seal. The second is that I don’t think you should believe what the app is telling you about the airtight seal.

Getting what the Sound Connect app says is an airtight seal is helpful, to a literal degree, but finding an airtight seal the app agrees with is like carrying out tedious admin on an Excel sheet or being on Family Fortunes and the survey constantly saying “no”.

I’ve found that getting a fit that works, playing music, and letting the adaptive ANC click in makes for a very silent world.

Over two weeks I’ve worn these headphones on planes (twice), on public buses, coaches, trains, walked around London – the outside world becomes little more than a murmur.

Not getting the right fit does mean that periphery sounds leak through, but once the WF-1000XM6 settle in, I honestly haven’t heard quite as convincing a noise-cancelling performance as these.

For me, it gets rid of slightly more noise than the Bose QC Earbuds Ultra II, both on a plane and via a pink noise test. With the Bose it feels as if there’s some slight noise leaking through, with the Sony it closes the door and shuts it tight with its fit, reducing the sound of the air conditioning and hum of the engines.

It’s an improvement on the WF-1000XM5, curbing people’s voices better, though there have been moments where they’ve been close in their performance; the fit of the WF-1000XM5 is easier to get than the latest pair. Performance is stronger than the Technics EAH-AZ100, which, like the Bose let a little more noise inveigle itself into your ears.

It also cancels noise naturally, without the slightly processed sound the Technics incur. Wind noise is rarely an issue aside from a couple moments where it’s slightly spiked as air passes by.

The transparency mode is clear, and clean enough but not as natural-sounding as Bose as it feels slightly noisy. Both the Speak to Chat and Quick Attention sound similar.

Call quality was pretty solid with the WF-1000XM5 but had this odd aspect of letting in noise whenever I spoke and being completely silent when I didn’t. During calls, the WF-1000XM6 are completely silent, my voice the only sound that gets through to the other end of the line.

The person on the other end did notice that my voice sounded a little bassier and muffled, but they’ve never heard this level of precision in focusing on my voice during all the call quality tests we’ve done.

Battery Life

• Same as before
• Battery care preservation
• Wireless charging

There’s no change in battery life with the WF-1000XM6. Sony says this is down to the improved noise-cancelling, soaking up more power, so better ANC with the same battery life is the compromise presented.

Those figures are eight hours per charge and 24 in total (eight + sixteen). But the battery life tells a slightly different story. Doing my usual battery drain test at 50% volume from a Spotify playlist, the battery fell by 14% over three hours, which implies a lot longer than just eight hours.

I suspect the falls become steeper over time, but even after an hour, the earbuds still registered 100% battery. A five-minute quick charge brings another hour of listening (not as good as the WF-1000XM5, interestingly), while both USB-C and wireless charging are supported.

The Battery care feature says it extends the lifespan of the battery by stopping charging before the headphones reach their full charge. This isn’t a feature I can put the sword to unless you want to wait a couple of years for the results.

Sound Quality

• Improved high frequency
• Detail rich sound
• Weighty, balanced bass

Like with the WH-1000XM6 over-ears, Sony has employed the help of Grammy-award winning mastering engineers to tune the WF-1000XM6’s sound. A bigger 8.4mm driver is present but the sound is not altogether different from before.

In short, the buds go for a clear, balanced approach across the frequency range. Sony mentions the word ‘rich’, but don’t confuse that for ‘warmth’ – these are detail-rich.

The soundstage is wide (wider still with immersive tracks), and compared to the WF-1000XM5, the highs are improved (more clarity, detail and brightness); the bass is slightly sturdier, hitting with a little more weight and depth.

The WF-1000XM6 pick up a little more vibrancy, dynamism and energy too at default volume, an area I felt was a little lacking with the WF-1000XM5.

Tonally, I can’t hear much change in the midrange, aside from vocals sounding bigger and a little louder. This isn’t a sea change from before but a finessing and refining to what was already a terrific sound from the WF-1000XM5.

The sound is not what I would term as ‘flashy’ or even necessarily spectacular because of its balance, but it offers a sense of precision that leading candidates from Bose and Technics don’t match.

A play of Maye’s La Canción and the Bose QC Ultra Earbuds II deliver a bassier response and warmer sound. The WF-1000XM6’s bass response isn’t as big but feels more balanced and tonally it feels more consistent and varied. The Bose brings a sharpness to vocals at the risk of sounding a little thin, while the Sony is smoother and more natural; which has always been a trait of Sony’s headphones.

A listen to Rage Against the Machine’s Bulls On Parade versus the Technics EAH-AZ100 and the Sony does slightly beat it for clarity and detail, the WF-1000XM6 sounds defter at retrieving detail, and tonally instruments do come across more naturally. There’s not a whole lot in it to my ears aside from the warmth of the Technics.

Spatial sound mixes sound bigger and wider, though I’m even more sceptical about the 360 Reality Audio feature now than I was a few years back.

It’s not as widely supported anymore, and having created a profile many years back, I still can’t hear a difference pre- or post applying my ‘personalised’ hearing profile.

360 Reality Audio also doesn’t seem to upmix stereo into immersive (as far as I can see) like Bose’s Immersive Audio feature does. And I, for life of me, can’t fathom how Android Head Tracking works either. The activation point doesn’t seem to exist in the Bluetooth settings of my Android smartphone(s).

Should you buy it?