Both the Sony 1000XM6 and Sony ULT Wear are great ANC Headphones to consider. The Sony 1000XM6’s hands down have the best Active Noise Cancelation making them the best ANC Headphones to travel with, and the Sony ULT Wear are a solid pair of Mid Tier ANC Headphones which honestly I feel that you cant go wrong with. However, the Sony WH-1000XM6’s are a lot more premium than the ULT Wear. So today we are going to compare these two headphones and lets see which one is right for you.
Regarding pricing, this is going to be a deciding factor for some people and I dont blame you. The Sony WH-1000XM6’s have a retail price of $450… which is up there, where as the ULT wear have a retail price of $200, not bad at all. Now I do expect both of these headphones to go on sale on a regular basis, so if you want to pick either of these two 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.
So first theres the case, thankfully the Sony 1000XM6’s have a collapsible design again so these headphones have a small case again similar to the ULT wear’s case. And overall, I like both of these cases. Therye both hardshell so they’re going to keep your headphones safe even if they’re in a cramped back pack, and they’re both decently small and thin. However, the XM6’s case has this new magnetic latch, making it super user to open an close this case and this case is super secure. However, if you’re one of those people that likes to just hang their headphones from their backpack, personally I recommend that you use a case with a zipper cause the magnetic latch just makes it super easy for someone to steal your headphones. But nonetheless, both of these cases are great and personally I do prefer the XM6’s case cause of the magnetic latch.
But with the case out of the way lets talk about the headphones themselves. Now the ear cups on both of these headphones pivot and swivel a lot, which is great for comfort. However the headband on the XM6’s glides in and out, but personally I do prefer the ULT Wear’s headband here cause it clicks. And I prefer when my headbands click cause I know that 7 clicks out, they my fit. Where as with gliding headbands, I always have to guess and readjust. But if we move up to the headband, you’ll notice that the XM6’s headband is little wider than the XM5’s headband, which is great. Where as the ULT wears have a more standard headband, and I again I prefer the ULT wear’s headband cause it has a little more padding than the headband on the XM6’s. And then theres the leatherette on these headphones. Now both of these leatherettes feel good but they are different. Now the leatherette on the ULT wear feels a little more traditional again cause it has a slight grain to it. Where as with the XM6’s this leatherette feels a little more like silicon but with less friction. Overall both of these headphones are very well built and they feel very premium… however Sony’s headphones do have a bit of reputation on them for being a little more fragile, specifically at the hinges. And it looks like sony is tackling this issue head on with the Sony 1000XM6’s cause these headphones now have a bit of metal on their hinges. Now ive never had any issue with my Sony headphones breaking on me… but regardless it looks like sony is trying to fix that.
Now when it comes to fit, both of these headphones fit well but they do fit a little differently. Now when it comes to clamping force, both of these headphones have a neutral amount of clamping, but more importantly both of these headphones are big head approved and even if you like to wear hats, they both will have you covered. Both of these headphones are also relatively light weight weighing in at 254 grams. So with both of these headphones you’re not going to notice them all that much when you’re walking around with them on, and they are both very easy to forget that you’re wearing them when you’re sitting at your desk or while you’re on an airplane. But the earpads on these headphones are very different. Now the earpads on the Sony XM6’s are going to be able to fit people with average sized ears just fine, however the ULT wear’s ear pads are a lot more spacious by comparison. Now they aren’t as spacious as the ear cups found on the Bose QC Headphones… but these are going to do a better job of accommodating larger ears or ears that stick out, a lot better than the earpads on the XM6’s. Now the XM6’s fit my average sized ears fine… but I still prefer and appreciate the more spacious earpads on the ULT Wear. However, since the earpads on the ULT Wear have more padding in them than the Earpads on the XM6’s… the ULT wear can heat up a little faster than the XM6’s.
But overall, both of these headphones fit well, but personally I do prefer the Sony ULT wear cause they have more spacious earpads and their headband has more padding. But looks wise, I think the Sony 1000XM6’s look much sleeker and more low profile than the ULT wear. And build quality wise, both of these headphones feel good… but the Sony XM6’s might be a little more durable than the ULT Wear thanks to their metal reenforced hinges.
But now lets talk about tech specs. When it comes to battery life both of these headphones have an advertised battery life of 30 hours with their ANC turned on. But with their ANC turned off, the XM6’s can go for as long as 40 hours where as the ULT wear can go for as long as 50 hours. Nonetheless both of these headphones have above average battery lives.
And to charge these headphones, they both charge via a USB C port as they should. But with the XM6’s you can also use these headphones while they are charging, which is actually a big deal if you plan on using these headphones as a gaming headset. Now you cant use the USB C port on either of these two headphones as a wired connection, but they both do have an audio jack and they both come included with an audio cable, and you can use both of these headphones passively which again is great for flying or for content creation.
But when it comes to Bluetooth connectivity, both of these headphones can be connected to any two bluetooth devices regardless of eco system, which is good if you’re a power user cause you can hot swap from one device to another, latency is not an issue for either of these two headphones so you can use them to watch videos with on your phone… and both of these headphones have support for SBC, AAC and LDAC which is Sony’s own in house high res audio codec. Just keep in mind that if you do want to use LDAC you do have to be an android user cause iPhones top out at AAC… and if you do use LDAC than that is going to take its toll on the battery life. Cause with the XM6’s their battery life is going to go from 30 hours to 26 hours.
But now lets talk about actually lisnteing to music with these headphones. Now since these are both sony headphones, they sound very similar but they do have their nuanced differences. Now both of these headphones have equally as good instrument seperation and openness… and when the ULT Wear are playing with their ULT feature turned off, they sound very similar to the XM6’s… but the XM6’s bring out the vocals just a little bit more. But whats really different on these headphones is the bass. With the Sony 1000XM6’s, the bass on these headphones is very subdued, you do get a little bit of kick out of them especially at the higher end of the bass… but these headphones dont kick as much or resonate as much as lets say the Sony 1000XM4’s. So with the Sony 1000XM6’s, these headphones sound good, but they’re missing a little bit of fun.
Where as with the ULT Wear, these headphones are more fun to listen to cause these headphones have more kick in their bass. Specifically, if you use the ULT Wear while in ULT 1, these headphones are going to sound just as they would while in their normal mode, but you’re going to feel a decent amount of kick in the bass when it comes in. But more importantly, the balance and instrument separation is still there. Now the ULT Wear also have an ULT 2 mode… but personally I dont like this mode cause that’s when these headphones start to sound a little too warm and shallow and the bass gets a little too over powering and the bass changes from a kick to a resonance.
Now you can always go in and adjust the EQ and the bass on the Sony 1000XM6’s… but personally I dont like using a custom EQ on the XM6’s cause I feel that they lose from of their instrument seperation. So overall the Sony 1000XM6’s sound good cause they have really good instrument separation, they sound very open, and vocals are very prominent on these headphones… but since the bass on these headphones is very subdued, these headphones aren’t as much fun to listen to as the Sony ULT wear. With the ULT Wear, if you have them set to ULT 1, they are going to sound as open and as balanced as the Sony 1000XM6’s… but the bass on these headphones is going to deliver more kick which is just going to lead to a more fun experience.
But when it comes to the media controls on these headphones, both of these headphones have full on touchpads and these touchpads are easy enough to use. You tap to play or pause, swipe front or back to skip through your music and you can swipe up or down to raise or lower your volume. And pro tip, if you swipe up and hold, you can continuously raise the volume.
Also both of these headphones have built in wear sensors, so they’ll both automatically play or pause your music when you take them off or put them on. However I have noticed that the XM6’s wear sensors are faster to react, but I dont think that’s a big deal. Nonetheless if you want you can turn these wear sensors off.
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 since they dont have atmospheric pressure sensors, they aren’t going to be able to adjust their active noise cancelation at cruising altitude. But more importantly, the ULT Wear are able to block out way more noise than the Beats Studio Pro, which aren’t all that pro to begin with. 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’s are able to block out way more noise than the ULT Wear, this is to be expected. The ULT wear block out an adequate amount of noise for a pair of Mid Teir ANC headphones and they’re going to be great to use while on a bus ride commute or while you’re studying in your schools cafeteria, but with the Sony 1000XM6’s these are able to block out more noise. They have less of a high pitch hum to them when blocking out constant low frequency sounds like road noise or a jet engine… and they also do a much more effective job of blocking out people’s voices, even higher pitched ones.
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 then theres the ambient mode on these headphones, now the ambient mode on both of these headphones is good and you can adjust how much noise they let in. But with the XM6’s this ambient mode sounds a little more natural and you can also set them to automatically adjust themselves. But personally I just use these headphones with their Ambient mode set to max. But more importantly… even though the Ambient Mode on the XM6’s sounds better than the Ambient mode on the ULT wear, the XM6’s dont block out sudden loud sounds like this. And this is your head phone warning.
XM6 Active Ambient Mode
So like you may have just seen, with the XM6’s these just let in everything. And I feel that sony really needs to fix this through a firmware update, cause the ULT wears have a proper active ambient mode, like this.
ULT Wear Active Ambient Mode
So like you may have just seen, when the ULT wear detected that loud sound they turned off their ambient mode and when that siren stoped they went back to normal. And I feel that this is very important especially if you’re walking around in the city. And I feel that if the Mid tier ULT Wear can get this right, the Premium Sony 1000XM6’s should be able to get this right as well.
But something that is exclusive to the Sony 1000XM6’s is speak to chat which works like this.
Speak 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.
Personally, I still prefer to use quick attention which can be found on both of these headphones cause its a lot more intentional. When you fully cover the touch pad on these headphones they’re going to lower the volume of your music and pump in all of the ambient sound around you like this.
Quick Attention
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 ULT Wear quiet
But finally heres the microphone test, and unfortunately both of these microphones need works cause the mic on the Sony 1000XM5’s is actually pretty good.
Mic XM6 Quiet
Now the mic on both of these headphones sound good enough to take phone calls with while in a quiet room.
Mic XM6 rode noise
But the problem is, both of these microphones 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 ULT Wear 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 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, if you’re trying to choose between the Sony 1000XM6 and the Sony ULT wear, both of these headphones are great, but with the Sony 1000XM6’s you are going to be getting the best active noise cancelation out there and thanks to their atmospheric pressure sensors, the Sony 1000XM6’s are the best ANC headphones to fly with cause they’re going to be able to block out the most amount of noise while at crusing altitude. I also think the Sony 1000XM6’s look very good and I like their new case with their new magnetic latch.
But with the Sony ULT Wear, first off these headphones are significantly more affordable than the Sony 1000XM6’s… now no, these dont block out as much noise as the XM6’s… but I prefer how these sound cause they sound more fun cause they have more kick in their bass. And The sony ULT wear are also more comfortable than then XM6’s cause of their more spacious ear cups. But something that I do feel that sony needs to fix on both of these headphones are their microphones for phone calls.