Sony announces WH-1000XM6 wireless noise-canceling headphones

Sony has announced the WH-1000XM6, the latest flagship in the company’s popular range of wireless noise-canceling headphones. The XM6 improve in almost every single way over their predecessors but also come in at a higher price.

Starting with the audio quality, Sony claims improvements to the clarity and resolution of the sound. The company has listed the help of multiple professional studio engineers — such as Randy Merrill and Chris Genringer of Sterling Sound, Mike Piacentini of Battery Studios, and Michael Romanowski of Coast Mastering — for tuning the audio on the new headphones. The WH-1000XM6 are said to have “studio-level accuracy”, letting you hear your music “as it was meant to be”, but we have seen those claims before and they rarely hold up for consumer-grade products.

The headphones have a 30mm driver with high rigidity carbon fiber composite material dome and a new voice coil structure. The digital to analog conversion has a new advanced look-ahead noise shaper that allows it to predict and optimize quantization noise while responding quickly to sudden sound changes. In terms of codecs, you get SBC, AAC, LDAC, and LC3 with Sony’s DSEE Extreme upscaling algorithm and 360 Reality Audio feature with a new Upmix for Cinema mode that turns stereo content into spatial sound.

The active noise cancellation has also been improved. The XM6 feature 12 microphones along with a new QN3 HD Noise Canceling Processor, which is said to be 7x faster than the QN1 on the XM5. This allows the new Adaptive NC Optimizer to adapt more quickly and effectively to ambient noise changes. The driver design has also been tuned to improve noise cancelation performance. The Auto Ambient Sound mode is also improved over the previous model.

Sony also claims improvements to the call quality performance thanks to AI-assisted beamforming microphones that isolate your voice better from the background noise.

Finally, the XM6 also have an updated design. The headband is wider to reduce pressure on your head and features an asymmetrical design to make it easier to identify the left and right sides. The hinge now has increased articulation over the XM5, so the earcups can now fold in, something the older 1000X models could also do. The XM6 come in three colors — Black, Platinum Silver, and Midnight Blue — all with matte finishes. The headphones come with a new carry case with a magnetic latch.

The WH-1000XM6 are priced at $450, which is $50 more than the XM5, which were also $50 more than the XM4. However, those older models are down in price now and if the new model isn’t enticing enough to spend that much, you can now pick up the XM5 for $350 and the XM4 for $300.

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