So for the last 2 years specifically, Sony has been revamping all of their products. Their speakers, headphones, and home theater stuff has just been getting way better. And most recently sony released the Sony 1000XM6 ANC headphones which have the best ANC out there, and last year they put out the ULT wear which are a pair of mid tier ANC headphones that you cant go wrong with. And the Sony WH-CH720N are a great pair of Entry Level ANC headphones that you also cant go wrong with. So in this video we’re going to break down Sony’s current 2025 ANC headphones line up.
Regarding pricing, hold on tight cause we have a big range here. Now the Sony 1000XM6’s have a retail price of $450, which is up there, but I feel that they are still justifiable. Then there are the ULT Wear which retail for $200, and theres the Sony WH-CH720N which retail for $150. No I do expect all of these headphones to go on sale on a regular basis. So if you want to pick any of these headphones up they’ll be linked down below or you can always press on the YouTube shopping button. And if you want to further support the channel then you can always pick up some merch. And if you want a more detailed versus video between the Sony 1000XM6 and ULT wear that’ll be linked down below as well.
Now first, lets address the carrying cases that come included with these headphones. Unfortunately the WH-CH720N’s still don’t come included with a case at all, which is a disappointment all around cause other entry level headphones do. But then there are the ULT Wear’s and 1000XM6’s which both come included with decently small hard shell cases and part of the reason why these cases are so small is cause both of these headphones are fully collapsable. So both of these cases are going to be great for traveling cause they’re decently small and thin, and they’re both hard shell so therye going to keep your headphones well protected even if they’re in a cramped back pack. However the XM6’s case does feel a little more premium and it does have a sleek new magnetic latch.
But with the cases out of the way lets talk about the headphones themselves. Regarding fit, all of these headphones fit well but they do fit a little differently. Now when it comes to clamping force all of these headphones have a neutral amount of clamping force, so they’re all big head approved, and even if you like to wear hats, they will all have you covered. All of these ear cups should fit average ears just fine… however the ear cups on both the WH-CH720N and ULT wear are a little more spacious than the ear cups on 1000XM6’s. Now the 1000XM6’s fit me just fun, but I do appreciate the more space found on these other two headphones. However, with the ULT wear, since these ear cups do have more padding in them, I have noticed that these can heat up a little faster than these other two headphones.
But then theres their weight, now both the Sony ULT Wear and Sony 1000XM6 weigh in at 254 grams, which is a little below average for premium ANC headphones, and that’s good. But then there’s the Sony WH-CH720N which weigh in at 192 grams. So with the WH-CH720N, these headphones are super light weight and they’re super easy to forget that you’re wearing them. Now both the ULT wear and 1000XM6 are also easy to forget that you’re wearing them… but with the WH-CH720N, these are just even easier.
And even though the Sony WH-CH720N are super light weight, ive noticed that they’re still super durable and feel premium for a pair of Entry Level ANC headphones. However, I do have to point out that all of these headphones do have a mostly plastic construction, and Sony does have a bit of a reputation of breaking at the hinges. Now ive never had an issue with any of my Sony headphones breaking… but I do want to point out that the Sony 1000XM6’s do have a bit of metal on their hinges… so it looks like sony is addressing this durability issue on their latest headphones. Nonetheless, all of these headphones fit well, they’re all comfortable and they’re all well built relative to their price points.
But now lets talk about tech specs, regarding battery life all of these headphones are similar. Both the ULT Wear and 1000XM6 have an advertised battery life of 30 hours with their ANC turned on and with their ANC turned off they can go for as long as 40 hours. But then there are the WH-CH720N which have an advertised battery life of 35 hours with their ANC turned on and with their ANC turned off they can go for as long as 50 hours.
And to charge these headphones they all charge via a USB C port as they should, but with the Sony 1000XM6’s you can also use these headphones while they’re chargning which is actually a big deal if you plan on using these headphones as a gaming headset. However you cant use the USB C port on any of these headphones as a wired connection.
But all of these headphones do have a 3.5 millimeter audio jack, and they all come included with an audio cable, so you can still use them with a wired connection that way and you can use all of these headphones passively which is great especially for content creation or if you’re going to be traveling with your headphones and you just run out of battery.
And when it comes to Bluetooth connectivity, all of these headphones can be connected to any tow bluetooth devices at the same time regardless of eco system which is good if you’re a power user cause you can easily hot swap from one device to another, latency is not any issue for any of these headphones so you can use them to watch videos with on your phone… but when it comes to audio codecs the Sony WH-CH720N old has support for SBC and AAC, which is fine… but both the ULT Wear and 1000XM6 have support for LDAC which is Sony’s own in house high res audio codec. But if you want to use LDAC you do have to be an android user cause iPhone’s top out at AAC… and if you do use LDAC that is going to take an additional toll on the battery life cause with the 1000XM6’s your battery life is going to go from 30 hours to 26 hours.
But with all of that out of the way lets talk about sound. Now first off with all of these headphones you can always go into their app and adjust their EQ to your liking. So if you like a more bass heavy EQ you can do that or if you like a brighter EQ you can also do that. Now with the Sony WH-CH720N’s these sound good enough to get the job done. First off these have enough physicality in their bass so you’re going to be able to feel your music and theres a good amount of resonances as well. However, the instrument separation on these headphones isn’t the best, so these are mostly just vocals and bass… the instrumentals can get a little lost with these.
Where as with both the ULT Wear and Sony 1000XM6’s these have much better instrument seperation so they both sound a lot more open and they both have much better detail in the instrumentals. But the main difference here is the bass. With the ULT wear, these headphones have a lot more kick and resonance in their bass compared to the Sony 1000XM6’s. Now the Sony 1000XM6’s sound good and they also have a little kick in their bass… but its mostly on the higher end of the bass. Where as with the ULT wear, since these have more bass if you want it… these are more fun to listen to. Now like I mentioned earlier, you can adjust the EQ on the 1000XM6 so you can raise their bass… but I dont like to use a custom EQ on the 1000XM6’s cause I feel like they lose a little bit of their instrument separation.
So overall, the Sony WH-CH720N sound good enough to get the job done and they should be able to please most people. But both the Sony ULT Wear and Sony 1000XM6 have better instrument seperation so they sound more open and they have better detail in the instrumentals. But personally I prefer to listen to music with the ULT wear cause these are more phone to listen to cause these have more kick and more resonance in their bass compared to the Sony 1000XM6.
Now when it comes to your media controls, the WH-CH720N are using physical buttons, and thats fine, therye easy to find and they’re easy to use. But these other two headphones are using touch pads, so you can tap to play or pause, swipe front or back to skip through your music and you can swipe up or down to adjust your volume. And pro tip, if you swipe up and hold you can continuously adjust your volume. Overall these touch pads are also easy to use and they also give you extra features that well talk about in a minute.
But also both the ULT Wear and Sony 1000XM6’s have wear sensors so they’ll both automacitlly play and push your music when you put them on or take them off. where as the WH-CH720N doesn’t have wear sensors. Now you can always turn off these wear sensors like I do, but they are there if you want them.
however, something the XM6’s has over the ULT wear is that they have gesture controls so you can nod to accept or reject phone calls and they have their own built in voice assistant so you can say hey headphones noise cancelation on… but personally I dont use either of these two features.
But now leta talk about the active noise cancelation on these headphones. For the last few years, the Sony 1000XM5’s have been the best headphones to travel with cause they blocked out the most amount of noise… and thanks to their built in atmospheric pressure sensors, both the Sony 1000XM5’s and Sony 1000XM4’s blocked out the most amount of noise while at cruising altitude. At cruising altitude, the Sony 1000XM4’s are able to block out noticeably more noise than both the Bose QC Ultra and Bose QC.
But now, we have the Sony 1000XM6’s and these continue to block out a ton of noise, and they block out noticeably more noise than the Sony 1000XM5’s as well. Now the Sony ULT Wear block out an adequate amount of noise for a pair of mid tier ANC headphones… but obviously these aren’t going to block out as much noise as the Sony 1000XM6’s… and obviously the WH-CH720N are going to block out less noise than the ULT wear. And since they dont have atmospheric pressure sensors like the 1000XM6 they aren’t going to be able to adjust their active noise cancelation at cruising altitude. But so that you can see for yourself we’re going to jump into an ANC Test.
ANC Test
So like you may have just seen, obviously the Sony 1000XM6 are able to block out way more noise than either the ULT Wear And WH-CH720N. Now both the ULT Wear and WH-CH720N block out an adequate amount of noise for their respective price points… and therye going to be useful for your bus ride commute to work, or if you’re in a cafeteria trying to study or if you’re trying to block out your annoying neighbors… but with the Sony 1000XM6 these are going to be much better for traveling cause they block out more noise. Specifically they do a much better job of blocking out higher pitched sound. So when blocking out road noise or a jet engine they are going to have less of a high pitched hum and they are also going to do a better job of blocking out people’s voices.
But when really makes the XM6 special is just like with the XM5’s and XM4’s, these have built in atmospheric pressure sensors and they are constantly calibrating themselves. And while at cruising altitude, both the XM5’s and XM4’s are able to block out way more noise than lets say the Bose QC Ultra, Bose QC Headphones, AirPods Max or Sennheiser Momentum 4’s, so its also safe to assume that the XM6’s are also going to block out a ton of noise while flying, and rest assured that we will be putting out a separate video on that.
But overall, the Sony 1000XM6’s sound very similar to the ULT wear, and I actually prefer to listen to music with the ULT wear cause they have a lot more kick in their bass. But you can not deny that the Sony 1000XM6’s block out way more noise than the Sony ULT Wear, and thanks to their Atmospheric pressure sensors, the Sony 1000XM6’s are poised to be the best ANC Headphones to fly with cause these should block out the most amount of noise.
But finally theres the ambient modes on these headphones. Now you can adjust the ambient mode on all of these headphones to your liking but the ambient mode on the 1000XM6’s sounds the most natural here. However both the XM6’s and ULT Wears have a little more features that aren’t found on the WH-CH720N. Now first theres speak to chat which is exclusive to the Sony 1000XM6 here and it works a little like this.
Speaker to Chat Demo
But personally, I’m not a really big fan of speak to chat because it is very easy to accidentally active it. If you’re talking to yourself very quietly that can activate it, if you’re singing along to your music, that can activate it, if you start laughing that can active it, and on rare occasions loud enough outside noises can activate it. So that’s why I don’t use it.
Peronsally i prefer to use Quick Attention which can be found on both the sony 1000XM6 and ULT Wear. With both of these touch pads when you fully cover them they’ll lower the volume of your music and pump in all of the ambient sound around you like this.
Quick Attention Demo
And then when you let go, the headphones will go back to normal. Now like I said, I prefer quick attention cause its a lot more intentional. And this feature is extremely useful especially when you’re flying with these headphones. But I still feel that sony should change it so that when you have this touchpad covered for 5 seconds or more, they should lock themselves in this state so that you can let go, cause keeping your arm up can get uncomftabel and award after awhile. And again, this is something that they can change through a software update.
Mic WH-Ch720N Quiet
But finally heres the microphone test, and I fell that all of the microphones need work.
Mic ULT Wear Quiet
Now all of these mics are useable if you’re going to be taking phone calls while in a quiet room.
Mic XM6 Quiet
But I thought that with the release of the Sony 1000XM5’s, I thought sony was finally improving their microphones… cause the XM5’s actually have a better mic than the XM6.
Mic XM6 Road Noise
Cause the problem with the XM6, ULT wear or WH-CH720N, these really struggle to block out noise pollution. Cause right now you can hear a decent amount of road noise and theres a decent amount of interference on my voice.
Mix XM5 roads noise
Where as with the Sony 1000XM5’s, these are able to deal with this noise pollution much better. Cause for comparison sake, if we were to switch over to my lapel microphone you’re going to clealery hear all of this road noise, but if we were to switch back over to the Sony 1000XM5’s it is severely reduced.
Mic ULT Wear Road Noise
And then there are the ULT wear and these have even more road noise in the background and more interference going on with my voice than the Sony 1000XM6’s.
Mic WH-CH720N Road Noise
And its the same thing with theSony WH-CH720N, theres a lot of road noise in the back ground and a lot of interference on my voice.
Mic WH-CH720N Chatter
And when it comes to blocking out chatter, its the same thing, there is a lot of noise pollution and a lot of internfrence going on with my voice.
Mic ULT Wear chatter
And I feel that the ULT wear have an equal amount of chatter to the WH-CH720N. And I would expect that these at least have a slightly better mic cause these are newer and more expensive.
Mic XM6 Chatter
And its the same thing with the Sony 1000XM6’s. Theres a lot of noise pollution and a lot of interference, so its very hard to take phone calls with these headphones unless you’re in a quiet room.
Mic XM5 Chatter
But then here are the Sony 1000XM5’s and these are able to better deal with all of this noise pollution, cause again if we were to switch over to my lapel microphone you’re going to clearly hear all of this chatter, but if we were to switch back over to the Sony 1000XM5’s it is reduced. So when the Sony 1000XM5’s came out I though sony was improving their Microphone… but now both the ULT Wear and XM6 have a worse performing mic than the XM5’s… so I really hope that Sony is able to fix this through a firmware update.
But with all of that being said, I still think all of Sony’s headphones are great options to consider. The Sony WH-CH720N are a solid pair of entry level ANC headphones. They sound good enough to get the job done and please most people and they block out an adequate amount of noise. You can adjust their EQ to your liking and they have a decent sounding ambient mode. But what makes these headphones stand out is their fit and comfort. They’re super light weight, they have spacious ear cups but they’re still decently durable. If I didn’t sweat so much… I think these would be an amazing and affordable pair of headphones for the gym.
But then there are the ULT Wear which are going to offer you better noise cancellation. A better sounding ambient mode and they give you quick attention which is great if you’re traveling or if you’re at the gym. Now they aren’t as light weight as the WH-CH720N… but they also offer you spacious ear cups and they are a little more durable as well. But more importantly, these are the most fun sounding headphones here cause they have the most amount of kick and resonance in their bass here… but they also have great instrument seperation.
And finally there are the Sony 1000XM6… simply put these have the best Active noise cancelation, and if you plan on flying a lot with your headphones… you want these cause their atmospheric pressure sensors are going to allow them to block out way more noise while at cursing altitude compared to their current competition. But like ive said multiple times already, sony really needs to fix the mic on these headphones.