Review: Sony Inzone H6 Air

Most gaming headsets are starting to look pretty similar. Take some meshy ear cups, a dash of active noise canceling, topped with a 2.4-GHz wireless connection for low latency, and as long as you have a novel feature or nice colors, you’ll have something usable, if uninspired.

But the Sony Inzone H6 Air has me reconsidering some core assumptions I’d built over the last few years. This open-back gaming headset boasts crystal-clear sound in an unbelievably light package, largely by eschewing wireless connectivity entirely. It feels like the headsets I used to game on—before USB hubs and RGB lighting became the norm—but with modern tuning and a chunky 40-mm driver that helps them sound better than almost every wireless gaming headset on the market.

Holy Cow

Photograph: Brad Bourque

After spending so much time isolated from the world while I game, I had forgotten that active noise canceling wasn’t the only option. While I’m sure it is great for esports athletes in crowded stadiums, I live a much quieter life, and I’m not sure what convinced me I needed to fully silence the occasional barking dog to make sure I could hear my goblin repeatedly say, “I can’t cast that yet!” in World of Warcraft. I shouldn’t be surprised, given Sony’s track record with headsets, that these would sound great, but I was floored by how clear and detailed every sound came through. The wide-open soundstage blends cleanly with outside noise, making crowded or richly detailed environments feel clear and vivid.

While something like the Razer BlackShark V3 Pro might be more tactical if you’re a ranked Rainbow Six Siege grinder, I think the average gamer will appreciate the balance on the Sony pair. I’ve been playing a lot of Marathon lately, and the spatial implementation here feels more natural, in a way that’s distinctly immersive. The creaking of abandoned New Cascadian infrastructure and the irregular stomping of UESC robots is almost shockingly real, giving the already rich sound design room to breathe and sweeping me off to Tau Ceti. Even still, at least once, I was the first person on my squad to hear another team of runners sneaking onto the Hauler while looting, so I don’t feel like I’m missing anything important.

Photograph: Brad Bourque

They’re also absolutely wonderful for listening to music. The sound is richly detailed, and the open-back design feels a lot more reminiscent of higher-end audiophile headphones I’ve used. They excel at anything groovy and bass-forward, bringing my favorite Steely Dan tracks to life, even when layered under the busy noises of crafting in WoW's Silvermoon. They have a light, effortless profile right out of the box that’s perfect for those days where you’re responding to emails, listening to music, and AFK farming in Old School RuneScape, all at the same time. That’s a combination of activities that I generally leave to my speakers, the Kanto Tuk, but I’m finding myself reaching for the H6 Air instead when I want to focus up.

Fit and Finish

The advantages of a wired headset are immediately obvious. There’s no dwindling battery life to worry about, no extra wireless dongles to lose, and you don’t need to install any new apps or make a new account to get rolling. As long as you don’t mind having to say, “I’ll be right back,” to your friends before you make a fridge run, you can sidestep a lot of the pain points that most gaming headsets are built to mitigate.

As you might expect, the H6 Air also beats out any wireless headset when it comes to weight: just 199 grams total. My current favorite wireless gaming headset for most folks, the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 3, is 260 grams, and the difference is immediately noticeable. Apart from the lack of a battery and the associated wireless technology, there are some compromises that get the H6 Air down to this weight. The ear cups themselves are a light plastic that doesn’t feel particularly sturdy, and the removable boom mic is clear, but my friends didn’t have quite the same response to it as they did with other high-end gaming headsets.

Photograph: Brad Bourque

The headband has two pieces: a main metal support band to maintain side pressure, and a padded band underneath across the top of your head. It’s similar to the suspension headband found on most SteelSeries headsets, with a design language that looks sharper and more like Sony. The aesthetics are just as much a departure from other gaming headsets as the features are, in a way that’s likely to fly under the radar in a lot of situations. These would be great for catching a quick Marathon raid between meetings, though I wouldn't know anything about that.

If you can get over the fact that you’re tied to your desk, these are excellent headphones for gaming and mixed use, and I’d even take them on a trip if there wasn’t much flying involved. After a few weeks of regular use, I’m realizing how rarely I need to get up from my chair and stay on comms. They’re unlike every other headset I’ve tested recently, in a way that will be seriously attractive to a subset of the gaming population, and may have already earned at least one convert.