Sony ULT Wear Headphones Review: Evolution of Extra Bass

Speaker 1: Excuse me, have listened. New Sony XM Sixes. Speaker 2: No, these are the new Sony Alt Wear headphones and these are the new forest gray color. I dunno how you like 'em, but I'm going to tell you all about it in our video. Speaker 2: Hey there folks. Over the years, Sony's taken some criticism for the naming scheme of its audio products and particularly its headphones. For instance, its current flagship noise canceling headphones are called the WH 1000 XM five or Mark V as industry insiders prefer [00:00:30] to call them. I've gotten pretty used to saying these model numbers and have developed a begrudging of affection for them, but Sony has recognized that the average consumer probably has an easier time remembering a name like the AirPods and is trying to give its audio products more marketing friendly names. Remember the link buds from a couple of years ago? Well now Sony is rolling out its new Alt Power sound series, which includes new alt tower and field Bluetooth speakers and these new $200 alt wear headphones. Let's jump right into the review. Speaker 2: [00:01:00] As you might have guessed, ALT is short for Ultimate. These headphones also have a standard Sony model number. They're the WH Alt 900 N, which makes them the successor to the WH XB nine 10, which were in Sony's extra baseline. They were a pretty popular set of cans, particularly for folks who liked base forward headphones and couldn't afford the flagship W 1000 X mark fives. It also helped that they were frequently discounted to $150. The alt wear looks similar to the XB [00:01:30] nine tens, but Sony has changed the shape of the headband, making it slimmer and more tubular, so it aesthetically looks slightly more like the XM fives while they weigh right about the same as the XM fives at 250 grams. They lack the more premium on look and feel of the XM fives, but they are a step up from the CH seven 20 N, the $150 entry level model and Sony's noise canceling headphones line that I do like, especially when it goes on sale for a hundred dollars. I should also note that the alt wear does come with a nice hard [00:02:00] carrying case while the seven 20 N does not. Speaker 2: The headphones also have some other key upgrades. There are new 40 millimeter drivers that Sony says Deliver even deeper base. The ear pads have a wider opening to accommodate larger ears and are slightly more comfortable overall. You also get new beam forming microphones with wind noise reduction as well as Sony's new V one chip that improves noise canceling performance and ear detection sensors that pause your audio when you take the headphones off your head and resume playback [00:02:30] when you put them back on. Battery life is ulcer rated higher, it's now up to 30 hours with noise canceling on and up to 50 hours with it off. A quick charge feature gets you 1.5 hours of playback with a three minute charge or five hours with a 10 minute charge. As far as audio codecs go right off the bat, you get S-B-C-A-A-C and LAC and then lc three and LE Audio are coming with a future firmware update. Speaker 2: Additionally, there's head tracking that's designed to work with Sony's [00:03:00] 360 audio, spatial audio feature and multi-point Bluetooth so you can pair it with two devices simultaneously. And finally, Sony's popular quick attention feature returns. You just stick your hand over the right ear cup to lower the volume of your music and the headphones automatically switch from noise canceling to ambient mode so you can hear what's going on around you and have a conversation. In short, you're getting a lot of what's in the flagship XM fives for a lot less money and I'd argue that the alt wear is basically a cross between the XB nine tens and the XM [00:03:30] fives. That said, when I was using the alt wear, I did notice a significant upgrade in both noise canceling and voice calling performance from the XB nine 10 Ns. Truth be told, as more of an audio purist, I'm not such a fan of base heavy headphones, prefer more balanced headphones with top-notch clarity and accuracy. But I see the appeal of these headphones and they do deliver on their promise of delivering dynamic sound pressure and deep base. Some people felt that the XM fives, which have 30 millimeter drivers, didn't deliver enough [00:04:00] base energy compared to the XM fours. And I'd say that if you were a fan of the XM fours, these might be more in your groove. Alright, I got the headphones here. I've got my phone. I'm listening to some tracks. We're outside here. It's pretty noisy, so I'm going to hit the noise canceling and have a listen. Speaker 2: All right, so these do sound really good with some tracks and it does help to have that extra base, especially when you're outside here and there's a lot of noise going on. The extra [00:04:30] base does help. I'm now going to hit the alt button for the base boost and we'll see how that sounds. Some track that's really the base is a little bit too loose, mortaring on muddy, so I'm going to turn that off and it does sound better to me without the alt button engaged, but of course everyone's audio tastes are different. So you may do [00:05:00] the exact opposite thing for me, but I would say the base, especially in these noisier environments, does help to have that extra base. It's a little bit loose with certain tracks though, especially when you engage that old button. I'll finish by saying that the voice calling performance was generally good. Although caller said they heard some background noise when I was talking, they could hear my voice clearly. So the noise reduction is decent but not quite as good as what you get with the XM fives. I go into more depth on all this in my written [00:05:30] review on cnet.com, but here's a sample of a call I made so you can hear for yourself. I'm in the streets of New York here doing a test call with fellow editor Josh Goldman. Speaker 3: Josh, I have a lot of noise going going on around me, a lot of traffic in the background. I'm going to talk a little bit longer so you can hear what everything sounds like. How do I sound overall? I hear a good bit of that traffic going by. It's not bad. It's sort of breaking up a little bit. Overall, I'd say it's good noise canceling [00:06:00] but not great noise canceling. Speaker 2: In the final analysis, I think these are a welcome edition to Sony's noise canceling headphones line, both the flagship XM fives and the CH seven 20 N feature more balance sound, and I kind of wish these did too, but the alt wear offer not only improved sound quality from their predecessor, but better noise canceling and voice calling performance and they list for $200 or $50 less in this price range. I also like the Sennheiser Centum Plus and JBL Live seven [00:06:30] 70 and C, both of which arguably sound better if you prefer more balanced sound. But the Sonys are a little more comfortable and deliver slightly better performance in other areas. They also have a slightly more robust feature set. Now, it does help to be a base head to love the alt wear, but there are a lot of base heads out there and these should have pretty broad appeal, especially when they inevitably go on sale for $150. Lemme know what you think in the comment section. Give me your 2 cents on the new alt name and also let me know what you think [00:07:00] about the headphones themselves. I'm particularly curious to hear from owners of the XB 900 series. If you found this video informative at all, hit the like button and subscribe to this channel if you haven't already. I'm David Carne for cnet. Thanks for watching.