Sony WH-1000XM6 review: Refined headphones worth an upgrade
Sony’s WH-1000 series of wireless headphones is quite well known in the audio space. The company globally launched the WH-1000XM6 a few months back, with the Indian market getting its taste just last month. These are priced at Rs 39,990, aiming to cater for the higher-end headphones segment, so let’s try and check what they are about and how well they sound:
The first major change you notice is that Sony is going back to the folding hinge—this time with a stainless steel hinge in place. The folding takes place slightly differently than you might expect when putting them back in the case for the first time.
Speaking of the case, it comes with a colour-matching material: Material Blue (the one I tried), Platinum Silver, as well as Black colour options.
The fit on the 1000XM6 has a little bit of glamping force towards your ears at first, but you do get used to it with a bit more usage. It can be a little daunting at first, though. These weigh about 254grams and aren’t too heavy for their size and performance to begin with.
The pleather material feels decent on your ears. The right side has touch controls for volume and play/pause controls, and control buttons for power, 3.5mm audio jack, USB Type-C port (for charging only), as well as ANC mode buttons.
The band at the top is wider this time, and Sony says you can now replace earcups yourself with very little effort required, as compared to the previous model.
The headphones are equipped with a QN3 processor with 30mm drivers and come with Bluetooth 5.3 with LE support and LC3, LDAC, AAC and SBC audio codecs (no aptX here). There’s Google Fast Pair for Android as well as Swift Pairing for Windows here.
Sound quality and EQ
The 1000XM6 sound really full and somewhat warm in my overall listening experience with these. They provide clear vocals and distinguished instruments without any distortion felt at just about any volume selected. I found. Their auto switch-off feature when removing the headphones and auto resume when putting them back on is reliable.
They aren’t too bass-y either. The default EQ setting needs a little bit of tweaking using the Sony Sound Connect app, which can give you a lot more bass, as per your liking. I also liked how the treble is handled in terms of balance, along with high-pitched vocals without overemphasis on either of them.
Active noise cancellation
The active noise cancellation performance on these headphones is solid. Even with ANC switched off and only passive noise cancellation, you can notice a considerable noise cut from the outside. The 1000XM6 does a fine job of cutting out regular commute noises during your music or podcast listening sessions.
I found the headphones to last well over a day of total usage (done in parts) with ANC switched off and around half a day more with it switched off. You can of course also use these wired using the 3.5mm audio jack in place.
There are half a dozen beamforming AI-enabled mics for noise cancellation and calls. I found the call quality to be decent for both indoors and outdoors. Sony says there’s some AI effect in use for cancelling out external noise, but I didn’t really see any huge difference when using these on the go.
In brief, the Sony WH-1000XM6 are a good, refined pair of headphones over the predecessors. These offer top-notch audio cancellation performance, a good, comfortable (though slightly too snuggly fit at first) fit and don’t disappoint in the battery department either. If you’re looking to splurge on an upgrade to your headphones and care for these things, the 1000XM6 can be on your consideration list for sure.
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