The Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones are stunning and deliver superior active noise cancellation and superb audio quality to satisfy even the fussiest listeners. These are among the best headphones you can buy right now.
- RATING
It’s not often an already excellent product gets better. Sony can claim this with the release of the WH-1000XM6 noise cancelling headphones.
Tech Guide has been listening to the headphones for a little while and in that time has discovered the headphone’s comfort, craftmanship, engineering and design have gone to another level.
Available for pre-order from today, the Sony WH-1000XM6 will go on sale in June and come in three colours – Black, Platinum Silver and Midnight Blue.
Design-wise, the Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones have had an ever so slight change – they still offer a comfortable fit with a soft fit wider headband and earpads that are gentle on the ears, reduce pressure on your head and passively block external noise.
All the controls can be accessed between the tactile buttons and the touch panel.
There is a new folding mechanism which was crafted with advanced metal injection to add to the smoothness and durability.
The case now has, instead of zipper, a magnetic latch which makes the headphones faster to access and to put away.
Noise cancellation has been significantly improved through a combination of a new advanced processor and an adaptive microphone system.
We noticed a leap forward in the amount of noise the headphones can block. When we were wearing them we could barely hear the 65-inch in our office that’s mounted a couple of metres away.
Every other sound just melted away. We are looking forward to using the Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones on our next flight.
There are now 12 microphones onboard – six on each side, four on the outside and two on the inside to detect and block ambient sound so it doesn’t intrude on whatever you’re listening to – unless you want to.
The new Adaptive NC Optimiser does the heavy lifting when it comes to blocking the outside noise.
This would have to be the best quality of active noise cancellation we’ve ever heard.
Also included is Auto Ambient Sound mode which can adjust the level of noise cancellation based on your location and what you’re doing.
The regular Ambient Mode turns on all the microphones so you can hear everything around even more clearly. Great for those times when you need to talk to someone or listen put for an announcement while keeping the headphones on your head.
Users can also access the features, settings and equaliser through Sony’s Sound Connect app.
Now let’s get down to the audio. It’s one thing to have excellent noise cancellation, these do – but another thing altogether to offer the raw audio quality as well.
Here’s where the rubber hits the road for us. It’s alright to emphasise ANC and other features without addressing the actual quality of the music.
You can stand up any pair of similarly priced premium headphones beside the Sony WH-1000XM6 headphone and Sony comes out in front.
It has a nice warmth to the music with new specially designed driver delivering on the detail.
It is made from carbon fibre composite material sits next to a new voice coil structure to drag out even more subtleties.
We were now hearing added detail on songs we thought we knew quite well.
And to top it off the bass is also superb.
We put it through its paces listening to all kinds of music and podcasts and audiobooks.
It handled anything we threw at with style and elegance.
The Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones were sent away for testing to mastering engineers also known as “golden ears”.
And we’re not talking about any ordinary old engineers – we’re talking about the same engineers that worked with Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga, Depeche Mode and James Brown and mastered tracks for Bob Dylan.
The result is one of best audio profiles we’ve heard with all the nuances and large expressions we’ve ever heard.
Of course this quality applies even when playing your games and watching your content.
In fact it also comes with 360 Reality Audio Upmix which basically upscales the audio to provide a spatial sound experience like you’re sitting in a multi-speaker home theatre.
Naturally the Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones support High-Resolution Audio, High-Resolution Audio Wireless and Lossless Audio with a cable.
The headphones come with a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable which is fine for connecting to an audio player or stereo but not to our smartphone.
We had to use another USB-C to 3.5mm cable – it was the one recently by Apple to use with their AirPods Max.
Interestingly listening to Apple Music doesn’t allow you to enjoy the spatial audio the new Sony headphones can express.
That feature on Apple Music is reserved for AirPods and AirPods Max – Apple’s own products.
Listening to other music services like Spotify will allow you to enjoy spatial audio with the Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones.
Call quality on the headphones is outstanding and that’s thanks to all microphones and an AI-based beamforming system that homes in on your voice while it filters out the background noise.
You can also hear yourself through the headphones like you’re talking into a microphone so you don’t need to raise your voice.
We made several calls and it was the highest quality experience we can recall through a pair of headphones. And the person at the other end didn’t know the difference.
The Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones offer up to 30 hours of playback and can also be charged via USB while you’re listening to them. This is short of what some other ANC headphones offer at 50 and 60 hours.
It also has a quick charge feature – three minutes of charge for up to three hours of playback.
The Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones are available now to pre-order ahead of an on-sale date in June. They are priced at $699.95.
VERDICT
The Sony WH-1000XM6 headphones are stunning and deliver superior active noise cancellation and superb audio quality to satisfy even the fussiest listeners. These are among the best headphones you can buy right now.
