Sony WH-1000XM6 review: the best wireless noise-cancelling headphones

Flawless victory

Kevin Lee

May 15, 2025

Sony WH-1000XM6 wireless headphones review — (credit: Kevin Lee / The Shortcut)

🏆 Review score: 5 out of 5

🏅 Editor’s Choice Award

Pros

✅ 🪭 Foldable design is back and better than ever
✅ 💼 Smaller and clever case ditches zippers for magnets
✅ 🎶 Excited sound profile is excellent for party music
✅ 🥁 Bass is present without being overbearing
✅ 🎧 Fantastic resolution and separation to enjoy nuanced audio
✅ 🔇 Improved noise-cancellation blocks out more mid- and high-frequency sounds
✅ 🎥 Cinema listening mode converts stereo sound for media and games into surround sound
✅ 🗣️ AI-powered noise-cancelling makes your voice clearer on (video) calls
✅ 🔋 Long-lasting 30-hour battery with 3min fast charging
✅ 🔌 Also usable while charging

Cons

❌ 🤑 $450 makes these the most expensive Sony wireless headphones ever
❌ 🔊 Sonos Ace delivers more immersive spatial audio, but needs more setup
❌ 🎮 Cinema listening mode sounds garbled with gaming devices
❌ 🧵 No audio over USB-C

Sony: Sony WH-1000XM6 - $449

Best Buy: Sony WH-1000XM6 - $449

The Shortcut Review

Not gonna lie, I scoffed when Sony told me its latest generation WH-1000XM6 wireless headphones cost $450. But then Sony showed me how they fold into a smaller shape again, and the new, smaller, magnetically locking case, and I was back in. After listening to them for two weeks, I can tell you these are the best wireless headphones on the market. The clarity, separation, detail, and resolution of the sound quality are on a whole new level compared to even the Sony WH-1000XM5. Sony has also added a new Cinema listening mode that transforms stereo sound into surround sound, letting you enjoy cinema-quality audio with streaming media and playing games with just this pair of headphones and any Bluetooth-connected device.

$450 is an astronomical price for wireless headphones, and it places it closer to the range of $549 AirPods Max and $500 planar magnetic headphones. However, Sony has improved every aspect of its wireless headphones, from the overall comfort, button shapes, mid- and high-frequency noise cancelling, AI beamformed microphone performance, to even improving Bluetooth Multipoint with automatic device switching. Other than the high price, these headphones have virtually no flaws.

Full Review

🪭 Folding design. I’m so pleased Sony brought back the foldable design so you can pack them into a smaller bag. The Sony WH-1000XM5 introduced a refreshing redesign, but its rigid frame and bigger case actually caused me to pack an older pair of XM2s with their much smaller case. The Sony WH-1000XM6 doesn’t fold nearly into as small a package as the WM-1000X-XM4, but they get much smaller than Sony’s last-generation wireless headphones. Sony claims the new folding mechanism on the XM6 is more rigid as well.

💼 Smaller case. The Sony WH-1000XM6 also gets a smaller case now that it folds up into a smaller package. It’s shorter and thinner than the WH-1000XM5’s case, so you’ll be able to pack it into a smaller backpack or purse. The new case is almost as small as the one that came with the WM-1000X-XM4.

🧲 Magnetic attraction. Sony has also made another huge improvement to the headphone case by swapping out the bothersome zipper with a magnetic clasp. This makes it a cinch to quickly open the case and take your headphones out whenever you’re commuting. You can easily flip up the magnetic lock with a single finger, and when you close the case, it snaps back into place with a satisfying thump.

😌 Better comfort. The Sony WH-1000XM6 has gone through several tiny design tweaks to make it more comfortable. For starters, the headband is wider to help distribute the weight of the headphones at the top of your head. The headband also has a boxy shape at the top to accommodate larger head sizes. The earcups can also turn and fold flat against your chest thanks to the return of the folding design.

🛍️ But wait, there’s more! There’s even more improvements of the Sony WH-1000XM6 vs Sony WH-1000XM5. The earcups now feature a truly seamless sculpted design without any lines at all until they transition to the ear cushions. Sony has also seemingly made the soft-touch finish a little more fingerprint-resistant, but not completely. And lastly, Sony has redesigned the power button with a round shape to help better differentiate it from the ANC button.

🔊 Quality audio. The Sony WH-1000XM6 continues to use 30mm drivers like the WH-1000XM5 before it, but these new headphones have a decisively more excited sound profile. Listening to About Damn Time, the highs sound most prominent while I can feel the thud of every drum beat without the bass being too overbearing. Vocals also sound incredibly clear, even with songs like (Don’t Fear) The Reaper that are mixed to blend together like a choir. The separation of the WH-1000XM6 is also fantastic, even with the complicated and almost chaotic electronic mix of Yaosobi’s The Blessing, I can clearly distinguish between the notes made by one synthesizer vs another. Detail is also spectacular, I could hear the minute clicks at the start of Ruelle’s Until We Go Down, which I could barely hear with other headphones and speakers before.

🎧 Better noise cancellation. Sony has leveled up the WH-1000XM6’s noise cancellation with a new QN3 processor and 12 microphones—four more than the eight mics on the XM5. This new QN3 processor is reportedly 7x faster than the XM5’s QN1 processor and can remove more residual noise across more mid- and high-frequencies. In real life, I found the WH-1000XM6 was able to block out ambient conversations better than Sony’s last headphones. These headphones even helped silence a yapping Yorkie, though not completely. If you hate distracting noises, these are the headphones for you.

🎥 Cinema sound. The Sony WH-1000XM6 features a new Cinema listening mode that essentially gives you surround sound while you watch movies and shows. According to Sony, the headphones upmix stereo sound into multi-channel audio with a virtualizer and real-time signal processing. In practice, the spatial-audio effect is surprisingly convincing, and the fact that it does all this conversion internally with just a Bluetooth signal is impressive. Unfortunately, Cinema listening mode only works with Bluetooth, so you’ll only get stereo sound with your headphones connected to a screen on a plane with a 3.5mm jack. The good news is that more and more aircraft are getting upgraded with Bluetooth-connected audio options.

🍿 Personal theater. Watching the introduction of Inception feels more immersive with the Cinema sound mode turned on. It’s easier to make out the different sounds of stone falling from above and gunfire whizzing from left to right. Cinema listening mode even puts dialogue in a pseudo center, so it sounds as if the characters are speaking directly out of the screen while you watch videos with these headphones on. Hearing the same scene in basic stereo sounds flatter and more compact, especially with dialogue layered right on top of it.

🎧 Sonos does it better. While I was thoroughly impressed with the WH-1000XM6’s Cinema sound mode, I can tell you the Sonos Ace delivers an even more convincing home theater sound directly to your ears. Of course, Sonos’ TV Audio Swap requires a whole TV to eARC setup to a Sonos Arc, Arc Ultra, Beam Gen 2, or Ray sound bar. Sony’s Cinema sound mode, conversely, only requires a Bluetooth connection to a phone, tablet, smartphone, or console, so the WH-1000XM6’s requirements are substantially lower.

🎮 Surround sound gaming? Now, rolling it back, you may have noticed I just said Cinema listening mode works with consoles. Yes, you can get surround sound gaming with these headphones, which should make the Sony WH-1000XM6 the best headphones for the upcoming Xbox Handheld and Nintendo Switch 2. However, the audio just sounded terribly garbled and intermittent when I connected the WH-1000XM6 to my Asus ROG Ally X and gaming PC. This might just be Windows poorly handling Bluetooth audio. So we’ll do further testing with the new console handhelds once they release in the coming months.

☕️ Cafe mode. In addition to the new Cinema sound mode, the WH-1000XM6 also adopts the Background listening mode seen on the Sony LinkBuds Open and LinkBuds Fit earbuds. This feature basically makes it sound like music is coming from a pair of far-off speakers behind you to simulate a cafe-like experience. It’s surprisingly convincing and helpful if you just want a bit of background noise instead of music that’s in your face.

🎙️ AI noise-cancelling mics. Aside from sounding good, the Sony WH-1000XM6 is great for (video) calls too. The headphones use six AI beamforming microphones to isolate your voice. Sony claims it trained its AI with over 500 voice samples to extract human speech from external noises. To test this, I walked down a cacophony of honking on Broadway in NYC, and the other person on the line was able to hear me clearly.

🔋 30-hour battery life. Sony claims the WH-1000XM6 has 30 hours of battery life, the same as the previous XM5. I was able to get through a full week of usage with a few hours of listening to podcasts and music from my phone, streaming YouTube on my laptop, and playing games connected to my PC gaming handhelds. The WH-1000XM6 charges quickly, too, with three minutes with a GaN or PD charger (sold separately), giving you back three hours of playback time. Alternatively, you can finally charge these headphones and still use them.

🤝 Multipoint handoff. Like any of Sony's previous wireless headphones, dating back to the WH-1000XM2, the WH-1000XM6 can Bluetooth pair with up to two devices. However, it can automatically switch playback devices as soon as you hit play on either of them. This is spectacular, as previously I had to hit pause or stop on one device before I could start listening to the second one.

🤑 $450! Jesus Christ, these headphones cost a lot. That’s a $50 increase over the previous $400 Sony WH-1000XM5, which also was a $50 increase over the $349 Sony WH-1000XM4. That said, the added utility of Cinema sound, substantial redesign, upgraded chipset, and additional microphones help justify the added cost. The new higher price, however, does put the Sony WH-1000XM6 in closer contention with the $549 Apple AirPods Max, and there’s also a new pair of $499 Audeze LCD-S20 planar headphones to consider as well. If you’re trying to save, I also personally recommend the Sonos Ace as they’re almost always on sale for $349 and pack fantastic sound quality and noise-cancelling.

Should you buy the Sony WH-1000XM6?