Sony WH1000XM6 vs EVERYTHING

Okay, so we recently put out a video on the new Sony WH-1000XM6 noise cancelling headphones. And the gist of that was that it's not a very good sounding headphone. It's kind of a mud cannon. But the real benefit to this headphone is that it has a 10-band EQ in it. And you can get it to sound quite a bit better than its stock default tonality. And I wanted to do a follow-up video doing a more deep dive, in-depth comparison between what I could EQ this headphone to and its competition. And I do also have an updated EQ profile for you guys to check out if you have this headphone or if you're considering it. Feel free to skip to that section if you'd like, but I hope you guys get the concept of what I'm trying to do here.

 So with that out of the way, let's get going with the video. So in general, when it comes to products like these, It's really difficult to actually evaluate these, both from a measurement standpoint, which we will get into, but also from a what even is this product standpoint. Because what you get here is flexible, right? There's the default sound signature that you get, and then there's whatever you can do with it with their app. And then somebody might say, well, why don't you just use a different app that has more fine-grained EQ? But that doesn't come with the product. So if you want to draw the line at No EQ, not even with the app that they provide. Yeah, this is just a bad sounding headphone. Like I said, it's an absolute mud cannon.

 It's not very good. To be honest, I don't really care about the default sound signatures of these devices. They're almost always bad. But yeah, what you can do with this with its 10 band EQ, it can be dramatically, dramatically improved. And so we're going to dive into that here in this video. I'm going to show you guys the measurements of all of that stuff. Before I do that, I want to also note some misconceptions that people may have about wireless versus wired generally. So I think people have this idea in their heads that if you're going wireless, it's the fact that it's wireless that is making the sound bad. Let me just stop that idea in its tracks right now. The fact that it is wireless gives it all the potential in the world to sound good.

 The reason why it sounds bad in most cases is because the frequency response that the manufacturer has shot for or ended up with is really bad. That could be in wired mode, but that could also be in wireless mode. If you were to take any of these noise-cancelling products and just run them passively, if that were possible, there is a very good chance that the vast majority of them would sound absolutely horrible. And it's the fact that it is an active product that makes them sound even remotely palatable. And in many cases, they just miss the mark like this one here. So, in other words, there is no sound quality limitation here to do with the fact that it is wireless, anything to do with codecs or you know the fact that there's it's lossy or whatever.

 It's just that the manufacturers have not figured out what good is when it comes to sound quality in headphones. So let's talk about how this headphone actually sounds in practice when I originally did my measurements. It actually sounded quite a bit worse than what it measured on the graph, it was all just mud subjectively. So in order to get my EQ profile dialed in, I had to do some some deeper diving. So when I did the initial measurements, I put it into ANC mode and then started doing the measurements. What I found was that most of the time I was able to get a seal, but sometimes I had some results where the bass looked like there was a lot less bass going on. And so I checked for a leakage effect.

 It's always good to check for leakage effects. I recommend it. It turns out that it is leak sensitive. You know, the seal gets broken and this can often cause the base to drop out. But that wasn't the only problem. For whatever reason, the app that Sony uses does not accurately reflect when ANC is being toggled on when the wear sensor is not engaged. So sometimes it would engage it, but sometimes it wouldn't. So if you're wondering how I was actually able to engage the wear sensor, I had to have the app open at all times, wear the headphone, wait until the ANC engages, then put it on the measurement fixture, look at the app, wait until it switches over to active noise cancelling or noise cancelling on or whatever the thing says, then do the measurement and hope that I got the seal right, pray to the almighty ANC gods that the wear sensor would be engaged, do a ritual sacrifice.

 If I didn't, I'd have to redo the process. And I had to do this over and over again 20 times. And then I had to do the same thing for my EQ profiles. Fun. So basically the difference between ANC on and ANC off in practice when you are wearing the headphone is that ANC on has a much more wide band elevation for the low mids, the upper bass, the mid bass but less of the sub bass. Now, in that previous video, we also showed the on head the human results using in-ear microphones which I think had a bass profile that was a little bit closer to what this shows here but you can see here that You know, there's a pretty big difference in terms of the overall shape of the bass profile for this headphone.

 Now, you might be asking yourself, well, why does this matter? The mean headphone measurement man just said that this headphone is bad and has bad quality bass. Why are we diving into this again? Well, it matters because this is going to change what you do with EQ. This gives us a much better and more accurate baseline to build that EQ profile off of, rather than using results that have these confounding variables going on in them or aren't triggering the wear sensor appropriately. So if you want to build your own EQ profiles using the app, I strongly suggest using this measurement here, in large part also because this headphone is an acoustic impedance sensitive device, right? So for acoustic impedance sensitive devices, want to be using, want to be focusing on the B&K 5128 measurement data, particularly because it has the more human-like acoustic impedance to it, and it has an ear canal. So with all of that in mind, here is the EQ profile that I am using with this right now, and it's the one that I recommend trying if you have this headphone or you're considering it. And if you're looking at this profile, you might be thinking to yourself, 'I thought you said that this has too much bass or that the bass is bloated or whatever.' Why are you boosting the bass? And it's true. This looks a bit weird when you consider the way that the headphone generally measures. So what we're doing here is we are effectively raising everything else to accommodate that 10 kilohertz peak, making that come across less fatiguing and less piercing.

 It's still a bit incoherent and it sounds a bit harsh to me still. Like this is not a fixable problem. But you can make it so that it's less of a problem by boosting all the frequencies around it rather than just cutting the bass and trying to do some of the fine-grained stuff in the more traditional manner. Now, with this EQ profile, you can see that it measures quite a bit better generally. It's way more balanced across the board. What does this actually sound like? Well, it sounds quite a bit more clear. It gives you that tight and punchy bass, which is what you want. Not this sort of, again, mud fiesta like it is by default. The mids sound a lot more clear.

 That's the big thing that I noticed when switching between this and the default sound profile. You can actually hear the mid-range coming through with clarity. And I like this, what I've done here, quite a bit better than how I had it before in that previous video that we did, where I tried to do it the more traditional method. Compare them for yourself if you like, but this is the one that I suggest. Now, I still feel that the treble is a bit incoherent and it really doesn't elevate this product for me that much more. So it's still not quite the best or as good as I think some of the competing products are. So let me let me compare this to a bunch of different headphones now. Let me just.

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 Okay, so comparing it to the older Sony headphones, the WH-1000XM5 and XM4, the new one is, in my opinion, just better. There are fewer fine-grained things to fix with this, but there are still problems. So the best part about this headphone's default sound signature is that for its mid-range and ear gain, there's not a lot of really weird stuff that you got to deal with. The weird stuff, the problem area happens, you know, much higher up in frequency. So that I think is handled better on the XM6 than the predecessors. Now, with that said, I do find the XM4 to be more comfortable. The XM5 also had a similar problem with the headband where it wasn't very comfortable up top, but at least this one is foldable and collapsible.

 So I just think this is a better one overall. The thing is, those ones are likely to be discounted now. You can probably find them for a lot less expensive, so it's not exactly a fair comparison. Still, I feel what you can potentially do here as far as the sound quality is concerned is better than what you could do with either of those other headphones. And I tried. It's a struggle. All right, next up is the Bose QC Ultra. The XM6 has slightly better noise cancellation and high frequency attenuation, and I find that to be a genuine benefit. But with that said, the Bose QC Ultra is more comfortable and its noise cancelling is also excellent. For sound quality, what you can do with the XM6 gets it to be at least on par when you do the EQ stuff.

 Without it, no contest, the QC Ultra sounds better. The QC Ultra doesn't have nearly the kind of flexibility that you have with this one. But you also don't need to adjust all that much with it. The XM6 has problems in the mid and upper treble, like at eight and 10 kilohertz. The QC Ultra has problems at around two kilohertz. And so it really depends on what you are more bothered by. But personally, it's really the comfort that makes the QC Ultra the one that is still ahead of the new Sony here for me. Next up is the Apple AirPods Max. Now the AirPods Max is one that is extremely difficult to understand. In general, the AirPods Max feels sturdier with better build quality.

 The XM6 feels lighter and is, for me at least, more comfortable because it doesn't clamp as hard or in the wrong spots. The XM6 also has a better and more consistent noise canceling, at least anecdotally. The default sound signature on the AirPods Max is vastly superior to the XM6's, but the AirPods Max doesn't really have much for customization at all; it's just that's just what you get, and with the XM6, you have all kinds of customization. So the best-case scenario for the XM6 I feel does sound better than the AirPods Max. So it kind of just depends on how much you care about sound quality and whether or not you're going to do this if you're going to get into the app.

 The big issue with the AirPods Max is that the transition between the upper mids and lower treble, depending on where you define this, is kind of weird. And it's actually handled, in my opinion, better on the XM6. It's just that the XM6 has these problems higher up in frequency. And I guess there's a sense in which the majority of these ANC products, you know, treble is where they go to die. They're trying to sell this stuff to a mass market, and because of that, caring about anything in particular in the treble, it's good luck. Okay, let's move on here. The Momentum 4. So the Momentum 4 also has some customizability, but not nearly as much as the XM6 has. The default sound profile, though, is quite a bit better for the Momentum 4.

 Instead of having bloated, muddy mid and upper bass, the Momentum 4 has too much sub bass. So I recommend toning down some of that sub bass because it can kind of make things sound a bit slow and boomy. But at the very least, it doesn't obscure the mids and the treble. So the Momentum 4 for sound quality, I still put it ahead of the XM6. The Momentum 4 doesn't have quite the same problems in the treble that I find with the XM6. But the Sony, the XM6 has way better noise cancelling going for it. For comfort, You know, for me, I find them pretty close, but the Momentum 4 has a notably wider headband. The cups on the Momentum 4 though are smaller.

 I have big ears and I find that they do kind of crush the pinna on my head as well. So if you're more sensitive to smaller ear cups, the Momentum 4 might be less comfortable. But if you're more sensitive to, you know, not enough padding up top on that, on the top of your head. The Momentum 4 is considerably better there. All right, now compared to the Focal Bathys, so the original here, the big benefit, in my opinion, to the Focal Bathys is that this actually has ear cups. I mentioned this in the previous video, but this has ear cups that are big enough for, you know, to actually go around the ear properly. For many of these other ones, they always tend to kind of, you know, crush into the pinna, which is not a great feeling.

 And also it can mess with the sound. So I find the Bathys to be more comfortable. Generally, it has better padding up top. Better ear cups, and also it doesn't have quite the same intense clamp that I find on the XM6. The XM6 has a way better noise canceling capabilities. It's a totally different kind of thing. The Bathys also doesn't have that much customizability or flexibility in the app. I think you have a four or five band EQ that it comes with in the app. It does also have its dynamic preset mode, which is meant to be a little bit more Harman-like, and it is compared to the default sound profile. The key thing with the Bathys is that it doesn't have the same problems in the treble that the XM6 has.

 This one sounds quite a bit more articulate, detailed, coherent for basically all the rest of its ear gain, despite having a couple of flares and colorations here and there. And there's also a bit of variable behavior going on in the ear gain band at around 1.5 kilohertz where it's going to be quite variable depending on the head that it's on for some people you might actually get a resonance there where that is less of a problem here but still a problem on the XM6 compared to the Focal Bathys MG, there is no contest, the Bathys MG absolutely mops the floor with the XM6 as far as sound quality is concerned; the noise cancelling is still quite a bit better on the XM6 and also it's not as heavy.

 And same with, you know, the Focal Bathys here. It's a little bit heavier and this can cause some problems when actually walking around outside where the ANC is not as consistent because it's kind of moving around a little bit on the head. The XM6 doesn't have this problem. So that is a big consideration as well. If you're the kind of person using these headphones, walking around outside a lot, I recommend the XM6 over many of these headphones. All right, now the B &W. This is the PX8, and like we said in the previous video that we put out, this is just not a good sounding headphone. When you reduce the unhinged levels of bass and mid-bass and upper bass that it has, again, same problem that the XM6 has, it reveals how wonky the rest of its tuning is.

 And that is an area where having the flexibility that the XM6 has with its app is a meaningful benefit here, so best case scenario versus best case scenario using EQ on both with with the app XM6 no questions asked. I love the way these look and they feel great; they're really well made, but the clamp on that is also kind of intense all right moving on to Sonos Ace. Sonos Ace, I actually found it reasonably comfortable, um, and I liked the form factor; it didn't quite have the right amount of pivot on the hinges. The sound quality on the Sonos Ace was bad, like It has this really weird resonance in the lower treble that's just so constantly present and is very difficult to listen to. The rest of its response wasn't horrible.

 But speaking of issues in the treble, that was one of the worst offenders that I've heard for any of these noise-canceling headphones. It might not be like that on all heads, but on mine, it certainly was. The potential saving grace for that headphone is that it did have Atmos capability, where a lot of these other ones, they just have this spatial audio snapshotting thing, which is a different thing. The Sony here does their 360 reality audio. As I mentioned, it's not really that compelling of an experience to me. Once again, for noise canceling, the XM6 is better. Then, to go into the more ultra high-end realm again, the Bang & Olufsen H100. I wanted to just include this to let you guys know that like a higher price tag is not an indicator of sound quality whatsoever.

 The Bang & Olufsen H100 has treble that is just not. not what headphones should sound like at all. And so despite the fact that the XM6 has issues in the treble, it's so much better for sound quality. Again, once you dial it in. And lastly, I'm going to compare this to the Beyerdynamic Avento 300. There's no contest. The Avento 300 is straight to the landfill. The XM6 is so much better in every way. Even the default sound profile sounds better than the Avento 300. Okay, now I also wanted to compare this to some passive headphones because I think for a lot of people, they want to know how does something like this stack up in best case scenario after having done all the EQ and stuff like that.

 So I still think products like the FiiO FT1s sound better than this. So that is a $150 passive closed-back headphone that has been tuned reasonably well, okay? And that's the key thing that you need to focus on. It's not the fact that it is a wired passive headphone and this is a wireless one that makes that one sound better. It's the fact that that one is tuned well and this one is not, okay? When you go through the EQ, you can get it closer, you can make it much better, but it is still behind some of those passive headphones that are around $150. So the AKG K371, the FiiO FT1, they both have a more coherent and more balanced treble presentation. Than this, despite them also not being perfect in that regard, okay.

 So, if you're wondering how this compares to some of the better headphones in the open back space like the HD 600 or the HD 550, don't even ask that question, it's it's not even worth comparing-like it's a totally different kind of thing. They're much better and I would say the same is true for many in-ear headphones, there are so many great in-ear headphones that you can get that are going to sound better than this, and that's without doing any of the EQ stuff, especially if you have a budget of whatever this is like $400. There's so much that you can get around that price or significantly. Less in the in-ear headphone world that sounds meaningfully better than this.

 Now, I just want to also acknowledge, some people have suggested using these or something like this as a noise canceling headphone and then wearing in-ear headphones underneath them. So you don't actually play music through these headphones. You just use them for the ANC and you play music through your in-ear headphones. That would be a cool idea. to get really good sound quality and get noise cancelling as well. I think it is dumb. You shouldn't have to do that. These should just be tuned well enough. But yeah, I have no problem with that. So, in conclusion, should you buy the Sony WH-1000XM6, my recommendation is still going to be for the Bose QC Ultra instead, mainly again because of comfort reasons.

 But I do think that this is one of the more compelling options in the noise-cancelling headphone space, with the consideration that it requires using their app and the 10-band EQ functionality that it has. And also the recognition that you're just not going to be able to get great treble out of this. You can make it sound better, but it still sounds a little bit incoherent and harsh at the same time. So this is something that I notice mostly on percussive hits, but I also notice it on the sibilant tones. It just doesn't sound quite right. Okay, that's it for this video. I hope that this has given you guys enough information to make a decision on the XM6. If you guys would like additional information, particularly to do with all the various different measurements and the EQ profile, if you want to deep dive on that, that will all be linked below in a forum post where other folks are going to be chiming in as well with their impressions. But yeah, that does it for this video. Thanks for taking the time to watch it, and I'll see you guys in the next one. Bye for now.