Sony has spatial audio on board, so you can also use these to great effect with movies while traveling. I thoroughly enjoyed watching a few episodes of Andor season 2 with them—the excellent low end is particularly noticeable on explosions and during other heavy-action effects.
Usable Anywhere
Photograph: Parker Hall
App-based controls let you dial in said spatial effect, and you can also adjust noise canceling, transparency, and equalization settings inside the app—relatively standard fare for any modern headphones.
One unique Sony feature I love is that you can still cup your hand over the right earcup to temporarily pause your media and pipe in outside sound, which is awesome on airplanes when you don’t want to take your headphones off to give a drink order, or to hear an announcement in the airport.
Sony really has made these some of the easiest to use headphones on the market. Pairing is nearly instant, you have multi-point Bluetooth for connecting to your phone and laptop or tablet at the same time, and 30 hours of battery life is more than enough for any journey, especially with quick charging that can give you 3 hours of power in 3 minutes.
The most annoying thing in my testing? It took me a couple tries to get used to folding the headphones the proper way to put them back in the case. You learn the method—place the left earcup pad-side down in the case, then fold it over—pretty quickly, but it’s not as intuitive as you’d think from such a streamlined pair of headphones.
Otherwise? These sound better than the latest Bose model, offer better noise canceling, and are generally better to use. Compared to the equivalently priced AirPods Max, all those things are also true, except that you might be enough of an iOS stan that the AirPods integrate better into your ecosystem. In any case, I’d strongly recommend you check out a pair of Sony’s new flagship headphones before you make a purchasing decision. They’re one of the finest wireless pairs of headphones ever made.
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