i got over-ear headphones!
For my birthday in June this year, my parents fulfilled one wish I had: they gifted me a new pair of headphones of my choice. I have a pair of AirPods Pro 2 that I had been using extensively and exclusively since 2023 up until then and still use now where over-ear is inappropriate, but I wanted headphones with bigger drivers, better soundstage, and active noise cancellation. The AirPods Max (2) were out of the question for many reasons, most of all their price. Even though my parents were the ones paying, I’m not a pig and didn’t want to hurt their wallets as much with consumable hardware with a predictable expiration date and expensive repairability. Thus my goal was to get the best thing available for the least amount of money. So still flagship ANC headphones, I guess, just cheaper.
I was limited by my one requirement of good defaults as I didn’t want to fiddle with the headphones too much. So my choice was between the Sony XM6 and the Bose QC Ultra 2; both costing around the same where I live. I went with the Bose at first because of the raving reviews about their comfort, balanced sound quality out of the box, and user experience. I learned very quickly that my right ear was sensitive to these headphones’ big and leech-like ear pads. Moreover, their low clamping force that was touted as a feature didn’t lessen the discomfort. It just made wearing them on the subway uncomfortable because they would literally jump off my ears every time the subway doors closed which required me to reseat them and made a sound like the audio clipped. Generally, any slight movement would change their placement on my head so I was constantly readjusting them.
I decided that I had to try out a competitor to see whether it’s me who was incompatible with over-ear headphones or just that one model with me. I ordered the Sony XM6 and immediately noticed a difference. It’s allegedly less comfortable, but I found the default ear pads better than Bose’s for short term wearing. Wearing them for longer than an hour created discomfort on both ears where the driver was hitting my helix. After some searching online, I found a third-party brand that offered thicker pads and ordered those right away. They made a huge difference, keeping proper distance between the drivers and my ears while not creating that sucking feeling that the Bose gave me. I didn’t notice any effects on the ANC. The headband could be better, but I have lush hair on my head which softens its impact on my skull. I think my maximum wearing time was 5 or 6 hours, I don’t quite remember—about the same period I can comfortably wear my AirPods without a break. Even though it’s extremely rare that I wear headphones for longer than a double album’s length, I didn’t want call sessions cut short because of discomfort. I bought these headphones for ANC after all, so my plan was to wear them without anything playing while studying.
Aside from comfort, I really liked the Sony’s feature set. I had to apply a custom EQ to make the pair sound less muddy, but that turned out to be easier than expected, thanks to reviews like Resolve. I tried a couple of EQs, but his sounded the most balanced for my music taste. Once that was done, I got to enjoy all of Sony’s features like covering the right ear’s touch sensitive area to temporarily enable transparency mode, speaking to trigger it and adaptive ANC mode. Everything else felt like a gimmick so I didn’t touch it. Speak-to-chat, the temporary transparency modes, and the audibly better ANC were the reason I eventually stuck with the XM6. The Bose’s ANC sounded about as good as my AirPods (adding a subtle white noise on top; not fully quiet) so it didn’t feel like a worthy upgrade given that better ANC was my number one reason to look for a (partial) replacement of my AirPods. As for mic quality, I didn’t keep the Bose pair long enough to test that, but Sony is supposed to be better according to Redditors.
There are two things I wish were better—at least comparable to Bose as I don’t expect third-party vendors to match Apple’s headphones with their own devices—is the multi-device experience and the XM6’s (de)activation. Bose’s headphones would connect to two devices simultaneously as is standard with any Bluetooth 5.x device and switch between those more smoothly. Sony’s headphones switch to the other device that isn’t playing music simply because it made an unlocking sound, pausing my music as if the unlocking sound were what one buys headphones for.
If I take off my headphones, they don’t disconnect automatically. To be fair they do, just not as quickly as I’d like. The Bose go to sleep three minutes after putting them on a flat surface with the ear pads facing it. Sony’s headphones don’t have that feature and thus take the same ten minutes to disconnect as Bose (without placing them correctly on a flat surface). Most annoyingly to miss out on, I never had to turn the Bose headphones on or off because they would recognize my putting them on by themselves as smoothly as my AirPods which the Sony pair doesn’t do.
I’ve adapted well to living with the second shortcoming, though. The first one is always a pain in the ass, so I always keep my phone on silent. What I’ve also gotten used to is the significantly richer sound I get out of these headphones (over Bluetooth and with lossy files) that is considerably and noticeably better than my AirPods. Now I only use those when it’s hot, I’m at the gym, or leave the house without a backpack. All in all, I’m very happy with my choice.