Sony WH-1000XM6 vs Apple AirPods Max: gloves off, earcups on

Phone Arena

a day ago

Sony released a new version of its beloved WH-1000 series this year — we are up to model XM6 now. Well-known for a light and comfy build, excellent noise cancelation, and good sound, each new iteration has a lot of expectations to meet.
And, it also comes in a market that already has a lot of excellent wireless headphones out there. Apple's AirPods Max, in particular, are exceedingly popular since they sync with Apple devices so easily and deliver high-quality sound and noise cancelation in their own right.
So, you may be at a crossroads. Are the new Sony WH-1000XM6 better than the 5-year old AirPods Max? Yes, Apple did update the AirPods Max last year, but that was just to give them a USB C connector, the headphones are still essentially the same model.
Well, let's talk about them!
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Sony WH-1000XM6 vs AirPods Max in a nutshell:
Light plastic build vs stainless steel and aluminum
30 mm vs 40 mm dynamic driver
Elaborate EQ options vs "you get what you get"
Touch and swipe controls vs tactile buttons
Sony 360 Audio vs Apple Spatial Audio
Sony DSEE Extreme audio vs AAC
Dual device connectivity vs iCloud connectivity
Three color options vs Five color options
Cool carry case vs AirPods wrapper
No IP rating
The Sony WH-1000XM6, being a newer device, has the newest Bluetooth 5.3 and Bluetooth LE benefits. It supports LC3, which is a codec for voice calls meant to replace the old and garbly SBC. It was introduced in 2019, with Bluetooth 5.2, but the AirPods Max — originally released in 2020 — only support Bluetooth 5.0 and good old SBC.
These have two different design philosophies behind them. Sony wants its headphones to be light and travel-friendly. It builds them all-plastic and foldable, and the result is a pretty light 254 g headset.
Apple goes all-out premium, with a flexible stainless steel headband and aluminum ear cans, breathable mesh cups and silicone mesh over the headband. Despite the attempts to increase comfort, they do weigh 386 g, which drew a lot of criticism when they were released. We can say that it's manageable, you do get used to the weight, and we've already seen plenty of people wearing those out and about at airports, so we guess a little extra weight is not the end of the world.
But then, we have the carry case situation to consider. The foldable Sonys get into a cool case that's still not super-small but can be considered on the compact side as far as storing over-ear headphones goes. The AirPods Max don't fold and come with a simple "wrap" — Apple calls it a "smart case" because when its magnets click in, they send a signal to the AirPods Max to turn off. But we can't call that a case, can we?
If you want real protection for your AirPods Max, you can buy one of many 3rd party carry cases made for them — but they are definitely on the bulky side.
The Sony WH-1000XM6 has physical buttons for on/off as well as ANC toggle. Media playback is controlled via the touchpad over the right earcup, which is OK but not great. The AirPods Max have a digital crown, which adjusts volume when you rotate it and playback when you press it in. Another button toggles ANC and transparency. There is no off switch — you either place them in their "case" to turn them off, or leave them idle so they will go into standby.
The color options are more varied with the AirPods — Blue, Purple, Midnight, Starlight, Orange. And you can further mix-and-match if you buy differently colored mesh cups from Apple. The Sonys come in Black, Blue, and Silver. Also, it's worth noting that the matte plastic on the WH-1000XM6 collects and displays finger grease proudly, so if that annoys you, get the Silver color at least.
The Sony WH-1000XM6 sound pretty good and "big" out of the box. Yes, they've been criticized for having a lot of bass by default. Yet I find their resonance to be tight and musical — they can boom your eardrums out, but it doesn't sound like it's masking any of the other instruments. The good news is that they have a 10-band EQ that allows you to dial the sound to taste. There's a very particular sizzle in the high end that I can't seem to erase, but it's not a huge bother unless I am sitting and actively comparing / looking to get the best out of the headphones.
The AirPods Max come with their own Adaptive EQ — internal microphones and sensors analyze your ear shape and the internal acoustics and actively change the EQ. So, even if you don't put them perfectly over your ears, the EQ auto-adjusts to boost the frequencies needed to achieve "their" sound. And what is "their" sound? Somewhat balanced with a few pinches of "keeping them safe" and "consumer-sounding". The bass is a bit boosted, the mids are detailed but some of the higher mids that can sound nasally or grating have been sculpted, the highs are sizzly and clear. They sound good, but it's still a bit sad that we get absolutely no EQ to adjust them. (yes, there are Headphone Acommodations and a few Apple Music presets within iOS settings, but these are far from an actual, user-definable EQ).
If all this EQ speak is a bit alien to you and you don't even know where to begin — Sony has a pretty cool new feature in its Sound Connect app. Your Sound lets you do all the tuning without knowing what you are doing — the app just presents you 5 presets to pick from. They don't have names, they don't have graphs, just pick the preset that sounds the best to you. After that, you are give 5 variations of that preset profile to further fine-tune it. Then, at the very end, the app shows you the actual graph, and you can manually adjust it further if you feel the need to.
In general, the more balanced sound of the AirPods Max wins out. By a bit. It achieves batter instrument separation and a slightly wider soundstage. That said, if you tore the AirPods out of my grasp and left me with the WH-1000XM6, I wouldn't be in despair. The Sonys sound great, especially if you spend the time to adjust to taste.
Sony has 360 Reality Audio, which is its own take on Spatial Audio. It sounds great, but you need to listen to 360 Reality tracks on Amazon Music or Tidal. They also support the Spatial Audio head-tracking that Android has been incorporating after Apple popularized it.
Apple's Spatial Audio also works with Spatial Audio tracks over on Apple Music or shows from Apple TV. However, it also has a spatialize feature that can turn any audio source — even YouTube videos — to more "3D-sounding". Spatialize is hit-and-miss — it can work pretty good for certain types of content, or it can make a track that has been perfectly mastered for stereo to sound worse. But it's still there as an option to play with, especially if you don't like the headphone sound of "two speakers pressed directly against your ears".
The Sony WH-1000XM6 already provide very solid isolation through their soft earcups alone. Once the ANC kicks in, the outside world is pretty much drowned out — definitely among the best ANC headphones out there. The transparency mode is pretty adequate — not ideal, you can definitely hear the outside world with a bit of a mid hump to it, but it definitely sounds clear enough to help you stay oriented and get a few words in with someone who strikes up a conversation.
The AirPods Max have excellent ANC in their own right and where they truly shine is their transparency mode. Apple's is probably the best on the market — the outside world comes through so clearly, you may forget you have the AirPods Max on your head (just kidding — those things are heavy and will remind you they are there every time you turn your head).
Sony supports LDAC and AAC, so you can get high-quality audio from both Android and Apple devices. It also has the DSEE Extreme technology built-in to upscale lower bitrate audio. You can connect to devices quickly with Android Fast Pair and Microsoft Swift Pair support. The WH-1000XM6 have multi-point with dual device connectivity.
If you are in the Apple ecosystem, the AirPods Max win here. They have iCloud connectivity, meaning that you only need to pair them with one of your iDevices or Mac. Once they are synced to your iCloud, you can switch to absolutely any Apple device you own effortlessly. You can pair them to an Android or Microsoft device by doing the good old Bluetooth pairing method, but no dual-device or anything. Also, they only support AAC, which may or may not be worse than LDAC, depending on source device.
Sony promises 30 hours of battery life with ANC on. Turning it off should give you about 10 hours extra. However, other variables also come into play — DSEE Extreme may reduce battery life by about 10%, so keep that in mind.
Apple's AirPods Max give you up to 20 hours with ANC on. Apple doesn't list an ANC off mode, and it really doesn't feel like turning it off has a huge impact. That's probably because of the Adaptive EQ being constantly on and doing its work behind the scenes no matter what you toggle on or off. Sony WH-1000XM6 vs AirPods Max conclusion
So, clear winner or clear loser? I have to say, purely for sound, I would still reach for the AirPods Max 8 times out of 10. They have a very pleasant and meaty sound with wide soundstaging and great instrument separation. And them not having an EQ means that I will not spend the next 30 minutes trying to decide whether I want to dial the 10 kHz band 1 decibel up or 1 decibel down. It's still not cool that such premium headphones don't have an EQ, I'm not making excuses for them, but on the other hand, if I am happy with the default sound — why not simply enjoy it?
Also, if you have multiple Apple devices, the AirPods Max are so convenient to use with everything.
That said, the Sony headphones still have the potential to sound great and exactly how you like them if you spend a bit of time in the app. They are lighter and would be my pick for frequent travel — not only does their battery last longer, but their case is just better for storage and transportation.
These have about $100 difference in MSRP, and I do think that the AirPods Max are "$100-worth better", but if you don't have an Apple device to pair them with — then no, not worth it.