Review: Sony WF-1000XM6 Wireless Earbuds

Wireless earbuds have now gotten so good, many folks forget how far they've come. From the generation that seemingly grew up with one AirPod in their ear to those of us firmly from the iPod generation, wireless earbuds have become more or less ubiquitous, and decent in quality. Where early, more clunky generations of buds may have struggled, modern earbuds offer nearly all-day battery life, excellent noise canceling, and great software. But even with all these changes, I never actually forgot I was wearing them until I tried Sony's latest pair.

The WF-1000XM6 (“Wirefree 1000X Mark 6”) blend ergonomic design, memory foam eartips, and shockingly transparent microphones to create a pair of noise-canceling earbuds I genuinely spaced having in my ears.

For four hours, I forgot I had them on in transparency mode when using my normal desktop speakers. I attended Zoom meetings, listened to background music, and watched YouTube videos, all on my desktop speakers, without noticing. Everything sounded normal enough that I didn’t catch it until the earbuds told me the battery was getting low. Whoops.

If you’re shopping for premium wireless earbuds (read: You’re willing to pay more than AirPods Pro money), and you want to use them every day for everything, these are probably the best do-it-all solution I’ve ever tested. Only Bose's QuietComfort Ultra come close, and, with apologies to my fellow Patriots, I prefer this Japanese fit and finish to the Boston one.

Sixth Gen Design

Photograph: Parker Hall

Sony has never once flirted with the elephant trunk style that Apple has so faithfully—some would say woefully—stuck to, and that even Bose follows. Instead, the brand has offered more traditionally shaped pill earbuds, which, though larger in previous generations, have slowly shrunk to the very ergonomic size of the WF-1000XM6 model.

The small black buds (they also come in a silvery tan) have two microphones visible on the outer shell, simple Sony logos on the side, and a pair of memory-foam eartips in four sizes.

A word to the wise on fit: Once you figure out which size of ear tips you want (I stuck with the factory-installed Medium, because I have freakishly average ears), you actually have to twist and compress the foam before you put the earbuds in. This is a key component of why these specific earbuds feel so natural to me, and a huge reason why the noise canceling is so good.

Full noise canceling is impossible due to sound physics, but the nerds at Sony and Bose (and even Apple) have gotten pretty damn close. Adding foam is a good way to cut outside noise passively, with ANC software able to work less hard on top of better passive isolation. The more you can actually remove the outside world from a listener’s world physically, like with foam earplugs, the better you can determine what actually gets through. Foam ear tips aren't new; many high-end in-ear headphones have come with them as an option in the past, and the latest AirPods Pro also use a bit of foam in their ear tips for similar reasons.

Pair excellent passive isolation with Sony’s top-tier noise canceling algorithms and processing, and you get a nearly unrivaled experience in the world of portable listening. It feels like I have a light switch on the sounds of the outside world. Neighbor mowing the lawn and bothering you? Not anymore. I can’t hear the clicks and clacks of my mechanical keyboard, and can actually feel physically in my chest—rather than actually hear—the 75 decibels (the average real noise level) of simulated airplane cabin noise I pipe in to test headphones when I have no personal flights planned. This type of isolation makes these headphones an utter delight to use for work or other activities where you really want to focus.

When I do want to hear the world around me, the WF-1000XM6 do a tremendous job of achieving what so many before them have attempted: actual audio transparency. The two microphones on the outside of each bud are large and very good at catching everything going on around you. The audio that these mics pipe in when you want it to feel like the earbuds aren’t even there is better than any I have tested.

As I said in the introduction to this review, I spent hours with them on and forgot they were there. I was even listening to music through my normal desktop speakers—a pair of Genelec 8040Bs, for the nerds—during that time. I tested transparency mode on multiple Zoom calls over speakers, and to chat with my wife in person, and nobody ever complained that I was doing that “shout to speak” thing many headphones tend to cause.

Augmented Listening

Sound Connect via Parker Hall

Sony's Sound Connect App features a ton of customizability, and also comes with a few cool Sony-exclusive things that folks might actually want to explore. There is a cool mode, for instance, that allows you to make it sound as though your music is coming from a pair of background speakers, like in a coffee shop. When this is paired with transparency mode, you, too, can make every moment of your life occur with your own supermarket speakers playing whatever you want. Who said listening to wildly inappropriate ’90s hip-hop while walking your dog past your neighbors couldn't be fun. If you get the right Seinfeld theme song playlist, you can live as Jerry.

I even set a kind, Sony-provided female voice to greet me when I put on the earbuds: “Good morning, today is Tuesday, March 3,” and to tell me the time every hour so I can keep track of it while testing battery life. “*Ding* It’s 8 am.”

Sound Connect via Parker Hall

While you’re listening, controls are simple touch controls on the side of each earbud, and you can adjust what does what in the app to your heart's content. It can seem easy to bump touch controls on headphones this small, and it can be at first, but I got very used to how to grab them (I think top and bottom, like you’re about to throw a paper plane sideways, works best) to adjust them.

I especially liked that these headphones genuinely lasted a full day of work. Gone are the days of four hours of active noise cancellation (ANC) playback on earbuds. I got about eight hours out of these with ANC enabled frequently, which is what's advertised. It shortened a bit when I enabled LDAC—a high-end streaming codec for even better audio quality (but shorter range). The higher-end Bluetooth codec sucked an hour or two of total juice, with the total case-and-headphones time (advertised at 24 hours of charge) shortening to around 20 hours. To be fair, I also used varying amounts of volume and other features during this time (testing being what it is), so most average folks will probably see slightly better than I did while constantly messing with the headphones. Practically, when was the last time you had earbuds in your ears for eight hours in a row, uninterrupted? I review headphones, and it's rare even for me. These blow past annoyance and into the realm of “who cares?"

Fantastic Sound

Photograph: Parker Hall

Sony has tended toward drab and clinical sound profiles in recent years, but the WF-1000XM6 are actually very fun to listen to, especially in the bass. There is a sort of gentle M shape to the frequency response that cleans up guitars, vocals, and rhythm instruments in the midrange but still gives you plenty of punch for kick drums and basses. The high-end is hyped for more shimmer, but without making music feel like it’s so bright it’s hurting your ears.

“Deja Vu” from Buck Meek’s recent The Mirror shows off this tuning well, with the kick drum and bass occupying independent musical space, distorted guitars lifted at the edges of the sound by the slightly exaggerated high-end tuning. It makes the track bounce a bit more with musical energy than on my studio monitors, where the middle is a bit thicker.

On MF Doom’s “Rhymes Like Dimes,” the synth and Fender Rhodes sit right in the middle of the sound and are very hi-fi, but Doom’s voice comes through scratchy and vibey on the mic. Coupled with the excellent noise canceling, I found myself embarrassing myself dancing in the kitchen when my wife walked in. It’s a very vintage sound, but it’s close enough to flat that it doesn’t ruin the artist’s intent. At least, it didn’t when I tested music I have made myself and have on streaming services.

Frankly, it’s the joyous listening experience in a go-anywhere music room that sets these headphones apart from Bose's QC Ultra Earbuds and Apple's AirPods Pro, rather than the fact that I think they may also have slightly better noise canceling. Lots of other earbuds are fun to listen to, lots of other earbuds have decent noise reduction, but none combine it in such a palatable way to my ears.

I found myself looking forward to listening to music on these, which is not a typical experience given that my Genelec 8040B desktop speakers—which you’ll pry from my cold, dead hands—make music sound so good. I used them as an excuse to go outside and listen to new records while doing yard work, or go on a quick run while it wasn't raining.

It’s not a perfect audiophile experience by any means, but these new Sony headphones are smaller, more comfortable, and more fun as an everyday companion than any model I've tried from the brand before. If you’re willing to spend more than AirPods Pro for a pair, you probably won't regret it.