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Sony has announced the newest addition to the 1000X series: the WF-1000XM6. It’s the much-anticipated upgrade to the Sony WF-1000XM5 — themselves some of the best wireless earbuds around — and Sony has seemingly fixed all of the issues I had with the 2023 model.
While a couple of the features have stayed the same, such as the IPX4 durability rating and the 24-hour total battery life (more on that later), major upgrades make these new earbuds an ideal option for commuters, office workers, fitness fanatics, and audiophiles. Yeah, that’s right — these earbuds are for everyone.
During his keynote speech at Daft Studios in Belgium, Product Marketing Manager of Sony Europe, Mike Somerset, confidently described the earbuds as “the best noise-cancelling earbuds available” — and in my opinion, he’s not wrong.
Active noise cancelation upgrades
The new earbuds have a total of eight microphones — four on each bud — for noise cancellation processing. That’s two more than the previous model.
These mics feed into the HD noise-canceling QN3e processor, which is approximately three times faster than the QN2e processor from the previous model. There is also an adaptive noise cancelation optimizer, which will adapt to your wearing conditions and give you the best ANC response.
Ambient sound options have also been improved, so staying aware of your surroundings has never been easier. This can also be toggled in the Sony Connect app from total noise cancelation to ambient aware mode with a slider to get the perfect adjustment for the user. As someone who uses open-earbuds regularly for working out but also appreciates the focus bubble ANC can bring, this is a super exciting advancement.
Improved ergonomic design
An issue I had with the WF-1000XM5 earbuds was that they were too big and heavy for my ears. And while I still loved wearing them, they became uncomfortable after around an hour. But my prayers have been answered with the WF-1000XM6, which are much smaller. In fact, there has been a 11% reduction in width from the previous model.
They are also a lot more comfortable, which I can attest to after testing them out on the 7-hour journey back from Belgium. The app helped me perform wearing checks to make sure I had the correct ear tip size for the buds, giving the most comfortable fit possible.
There’s a new ventilation structure to reduce occlusion, which is the sound you hear in your earbuds when chewing food or taking footsteps, making for a more comfortable wearing experience.
Strong battery life
The new earbuds come with a fast charge that gives a whole hour of battery life from just five minutes of charging.
As I mentioned earlier, the battery life of the buds is eight hours and 24 hours with the charging case, which is the same as the previous model. It may seem like there’s been no improvement here, but with all the extra battery needed to power the QN3e chip to process the eight noise cancellation microphones, having the same battery life rating is pretty cool.
The art of mastering
Sony worked with award-winning mastering engineers, including five time grammy award winner Michael Romanowski. This process is what gives the earbuds the sound stage to make the artists you listen to sound the most like themselves.
But the sound quality upgrades don’t stop there, because there are also streaming enhancements. The earbuds support Hi-Res streaming, but if you’re an iPhone user, you can’t reap these benefits when streaming over Bluetooth, as the highest codec Apple devices stream in is AAC (unless you’re using ALAC, which is Apple’s own lossless streaming codec).
However, Sony has introduced DSEE to enhance compressed AAC and SBC files to sound closer to Hi-Res. This essentially rebuilds the compressed file, which is another pretty cool addition from Sony, and something I appreciate as an iPhone user.
Don't forget to check out my full Sony WF-1000XM6 review.
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