Sony’s XM6 earbuds are noise-canceling winners

Apple, Bose, and Sony are in a running battle for the best noise-canceling earbuds, and the Sony WF-1000XM6 put Sony back in first place — if you can get a good fit with the included foam tips.

With each iteration of the XM series, Sony has aimed for — and delivered — incredible noise-canceling performance with a pleasing and balanced sound profile, and features that work equally well with iOS and Android. The XM6 push even further by adding additional noise-canceling mics (for a total of 8), a new chip, newly designed drivers, and a new shape that’s supposed to better fit a wider selection of ears. That’s a lot of promises, and the Sony WF-1000XM6 earbuds fulfill them all — almost.

One of the things I’ve liked most about both the in-ear and over-ear Sony XM series is the sound performance. Out of the box, the XM6 sound balanced and clean. They use a new driver with a softer edge material that allows for deeper bass, combined with a high-rigidity dome for clear high frequencies. I was impressed by the bass response, even in the lowest notes of “bury a friend” by Billie Eilish, which sound resonant and punchy. Vocals, such as Jarvis Cocker’s on “Common People,” cut through thick textures, and cymbals and hi-hats have a nice sparkle to them. There’s also more drive in the midrange than with the Apple AirPods Pro 3 or Bose Ultra Earbuds gen 2 — both of which are balanced a bit more toward the high end, especially the Bose.

The top noise-canceling earbuds — the Bose Ultra Earbuds gen 2, Apple AirPods Pro 3, and these Sony WF-1000XM6 — are all great at blocking low-end frequencies like the engine noise in an airplane cabin. They’re all good at tamping down midrange sounds, including voices, but the XM6 are better at tuning out other people’s conversations better than any other earbuds I’ve heard.

Sony improved the bone conduction sensor in the XM6, and in conjunction with AI beamforming mics, the earbuds do a great job blocking out environmental sounds while on calls. I tested both sides of a call with the XM6, and found that traffic can cause some swishy noises. And when there was a lot of extra traffic and wind, my voice would sound a bit compressed, but not to an extent that was distracting or caused me to be unintelligible.

Sound quality and noise-canceling performance rely on a solid fit, and that’s where the XM6 start to have some problems. I usually wear medium-sized ear tips, but I had difficulty getting a secure, long-lasting fit in my right ear with the included foam tips. I had similar fit issues when I tested the Sony WF-1000XM5 earbuds, but was eventually able to get those to sit properly for long listening periods.

The Sound Connect app includes a “Test wearing condition” setting that plays a test tone and uses internal microphones to determine if there’s an airtight fit. According to the app, I was only able to get a good seal in my right ear by using the large tip and jamming the earbud into my ear. After a short time I could feel the ear tip start to loosen. I had a couple friends try to fit the XM6 as well, and both had varying levels of issues.

There is a solution. If none of the foam ear tips work for you after testing the fit with the app, an option to order silicone ear tips will show up and Sony will send them out, free of charge. The silicone tips solved my fit problem. Both earbuds felt more secure than with the foam tips, and the fit was more comfortable, although it does sound like the silicone ear tips let in a tiny bit more mid-range noise, voices in particular. It’s a pretty minor difference and the noise cancellation is still incredibly impressive — still on par with the Bose Ultra gen 2 — but it’s worth noting the best-in-class noise cancellation relies on the foam tips.

The low-end frequency response is also slightly different with the silicone tips, with a tad less bass. It’s such a minor difference, though, and isn’t objectionable at all, just slightly different. The tom-toms at the beginning of Radiohead’s “There, There” from Hail to the Thief don’t quite ring the same, and the low bass notes aren’t as full. But if I had the ability to ABX test the two different tips (which would be impossible because I’d feel the difference), I don’t think I’d be able to point to one as better. The XM6 sound fantastic regardless of tips. Our ears are highly adaptable to changes in sound balance, and within seconds using either set of tips I was enjoying everything I listened to.

Still, the fact that I needed an additional set of tips to get a suitable fit — and that the foam tips didn’t work for multiple people that tried them — isn’t great. Sony should have included the silicone tips in the box. While three people certainly don’t make a large enough sample size for a definitive conclusion, be aware you might need to wait for those extra silicone tips to arrive or plan on buying yourself some Comply foam tips.

I’m also not a huge fan of the XM6’s new shape. The earbuds are longer and narrower than the WF-1000XM5, and the body sticks out further from the ear. They are certainly not inconspicuous, though size does make touch controls easy to use. Only once did I accidentally cause music to play or pause — something that happened on numerous occasions with the Bose as I adjusted them in my ears during testing — and that was when I was motioning to my colleague about the size of them in my ear.

For those that like to tweak settings, there are a lot of opportunities in the Sound Connect app. There’s a 10-band EQ and five EQ presets (although I think the default sound profile is excellent and doesn’t need to be altered for my taste), a 20-point slider to adjust ambient passthrough (or an auto setting), and touch control customization. There’s also an option to set scenes, which causes the earbuds to adjust to predetermined settings based on your activity or location. And if you have a compatible device (including most modern Android phones), the XM6 support LDAC high-res audio streaming and Auracast.

A new listening mode — currently available on the in-ear and over-ear XM6 series, as well as the LinkBuds Fit and LinkBuds Open — turns whatever you’re listening to into background music. It changes the volume and EQ and adds reverb to make the music in the earbuds sound like background music in a cafe, living room, or “my room” (all actual options in the settings). I could see it keeping the music from being too distracting, but for me turning the volume down is enough to give a similar effect.

The XM6 have up to eight hours of battery life (24 hours including the case, which has wireless charging), which is comparable to the AirPods Pro 3, and a couple more hours in the buds than the Bose Ultra Earbuds gen 2 (although those also get up to 24 hours with their charging case).

The Sony WF-1000XM6 have solid performance, following the pedigree of earlier XM series earbuds. They sound fantastic, handle ambient noise during calls well and, with the foam ear tips, deliver the best noise canceling I’ve yet heard from earbuds. They sound better than the Bose buds, even though they stick out a bit more. If you’re deep in the Apple ecosystem, nothing competes with the integration of the AirPods, but the XM6 are my favorite-sounding earbuds of the three, with broader compatibility than the AirPods and a nice array of features including Auracast support.

Foam or silicone tips, the XM6 are excellent earbuds. It’s nice that Sony will send along extra silicone tips if the foam ones don’t work for you; I just wish they were included from the get-go.