The Sony XM6 headphones are the latest in Sony’s flagship line of headphones, and just like all of its predecessors, it offers an experience that can’t be found anywhere else and improves on the few little niggles that the XM5 had.
From a design point of view the Sony XM6s look very similar to the XM5s at a surface level. They use the same matte plastic and have near identical button and port layouts as well, but there’s quite a bit of differences once you start looking more closely.
Firstly, the earcups are more angled which makes it a lot easier to tell which side is which, the headband is sticker to provide more support across the top of your head and the biggest chance of all is the fact hat the headphones can fold in on each other which not only means that they take up less space, but their case is also smaller, which is a big improvement from the XM5s and there’s a magnetic clasp that easily snaps the case shut as well. You still also get the 3.5mm to 3.5mm cord as well as the USB-A to USB-C cord as well.
When it comes to comfort, I’d say that it’s a fairly similar experience to the XM5s. It’s a lightweight headset that offers a lot of support, but I’d say that if you’re a glasses wearer (like I am), you will experience a tiny bit of pressure after a long while of listening, but not enough to make you take them off or avoid wearing them.
When looking at everything else from the XM5 and XM4, it was hard to see where Sony would improve given the fact that both headsets still hold up incredibly well today, but I was blown away when putting the XM6s on.
I’ve tested a lot of noise-cancelling headphones over the year, with the AirPods Max and Nothing Headphones (1) being my go-to in recent times, but the XM6 simply blow them away. I work in a very noisy office and even before playing any music it’s incredibly how much the noise cancelling drowns out the noise of voices and other ambient sounds, but as soon as you put music on, it’s totally silent to the point that I had to get up and make sure that there were still people around me.
On the opposite end, when you do need to speak to someone, the headphones can detect when you’re speaking, you can press the button (which is quite small) to change to transparency mode or put your whole hand over the right ear cup to quickly turn aware mode on. The transparency mode matches how good the ANC is by letting loads of noise through to the point that it feels like you’re not wearing any headphones and can have an open conversation.
For those that do want to delve deeper into the Sony app, there’s loads of great options for turning on ANC or Transparency mode depending on the environment, so for instance it might turn ANC on, or when you’re walking outside it might turn transparency mode on to let the noise in so you’re aware of your surroundings, which is a nice touch.
When it comes to audio quality, the XM6s really shine as well. It’s such a pleasent way to listen to music or podcasts with its wider soundstage that results in super clear high-ends and a good amount of bass as well that really gives more gravity to the sounds, and a load of clarity when it comes to spatial audio as well. There’s also a load of presets and customisation that you can bring to the soundtage with its 10-band EQ and I found it more noticeable than ever whilst going between the presets in order to land on what suits me.
Battery life is an important component when it comes to noise-cancelling headphones as you often want to use them on long-haul flights without charing them and the XM6 retains its fantastic 30 hours of battery with active noise cancellation on, or 40 hours with it turned off and you can three hours of charge with three minute of charge, which is great for a top-up if you’re desperate for it.