WH-1000XM6 Release...

[benny001]

On May 15th at 12pm EDT Sony released the WH-1000XM6 headphones.

 

I was actually thinking about buying a pair of Sony headphones, but my question is: Are the XM6s worth it over the XM5s? I would love to hear everyone's thoughts. 

Also feel free to use this thread to discuss the XM6s in general.

[OddOod]

TBH I love my WHXM4s and I think they *look* better than the 5s which have some silly airpods max copycat DNA in their design language. 

[eLLe7]

They compared it to the xm5. 

[saintlouisbagels]

3 hours ago, benny001 said:

I was actually thinking about buying a pair of Sony headphones, but my question is: Are the XM6s worth it over the XM5s? I would love to hear everyone's thoughts. 

Also feel free to use this thread to discuss the XM6s in general.

You're asking us our opinions on a device that has been on the market for less than 24hrs?

Very likely no one except YouTubers have any thoughts or experiences about them to make a fair comparison to the XM5s.

 

With that said, I'm pretty sure the general is opinion is that the XM5 is the black sheep of the family, and the XM6 appears to be a return to form.

[cmndr]

I have the XM5. I paid around $200ish for them, refurbished. 
I like them. I don't know if there's a good justification for an upgrade at this time. Especially one with an early adopter tax. 

If I felt inspired, I might buy the XM6 on sales and gift my XM5. 

 

 

12 minutes ago, saintlouisbagels said:

With that said, I'm pretty sure the general is opinion is that the XM5 is the black sheep of the family, and the XM6 appears to be a return to form.

Why is that? I felt they were a generally better experience than the XM4s. I've had both. Better comfort. They actually turn off when you remove them, they charge faster and the battery lasts longer. Sound quality is a bit better. ANC is a bit better. Mics are solid. They charge so fast and last so long I don't really think about charging. 

[Cocococo]

I wouldn't consider buying them for a few months, nobody competent has posted any reviews that I would listen to. Given that they are Sony headphones I would expect overblown and muddy bass with a very weak midrange, minimal soundstage and poor imaging. The shortcircuit review ticks every red flag I have when looking at buying anything, sponsored video: yes. any mention of the price: no.  questionable testing: yes, the frequency response graph is absolutely atrocious, compensated graphs are a nightmare when comparing with other measurements.

Compensated graphs are a very good way to try and hide bad tuning, since LTT compensates to their own target, it can't even be crudely reverse-engineered, the only purpose this serves imo is to mislead consumers into believing these headphones are tuned much better than they actually are, especially when they're still using SPL Pink noise, which is not at all suitable for higher frequencies, no mention in the review is a massive red flag.

 

The noise cancelling tests are also questionable, labs might have a good enough isolation chamber, but given how questionable the testing has been (especially in a sponsored video) I have a hard time believing these claims about the improved noise cancelling, the XM5's did have very poor isolation/ passive noise cancelling, so while this claim is slightly more believable, 15db is such a comically huge amount of noise reduction that I'm wondering if something went wrong in the XM5's test, and nobody caught it 

I don't know if SPL Pink noise is really suitable for these kinds of tests, nothing in the real world sounds anything like SPL Pink noise. I can't claim to know anything better, but using some very high quality recordings of some atrocious traffic/ city noises, construction noises, traffic, car horns etc, crowd noises and maybe even blowing on them with a fast fan to simulate wind. Idk if they are as scientific as "SPL Pink noise" sounds, but it is a much fairer test to the kinds of conditions the headphones are going to face. 

 

Lastly, Sony are absolutely awful for build quality, the XM4's in particular are super prone to snapping at the hinges, I have also heard that it happens with the Ultwear have the same issue, the rest of the things I listed are concerns that audio enthusiasts probably should have, but Sony's habit of making their devices cheaply and just ignoring issues with reliability (and safety for the exploding XM4 earbuds) is ridiculous and more than enough to justify not buying them.