Verdict
One of the most straightforwardly strange products I ’ve tested in a long fourth dimension , the Sony ULT Wear seem to have everything going for them – and then they start to make a sound …
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Sony knows exactly what ’s what when it come towireless headphonesof all case – that much has been made obvious over the last decade or so .
With the ULT Wear , though , it intends to drink down two birds with one stone : create a duet of wireless over - ears to fill the gap between its agiotage WH-1000XM5 exemplar and its bargain - tasticWH - CH720N , and to invoke to The Young People at the same clock time .
So does Sony live what appeals to The Young People , apart from a keen toll ? Let ’s find out …
Availability
The Sony ULT Wear ( or , to give them their full name , the Sony WH - ULT900N ) are on sale now , and in the United Kingdom they sell for £ 179 . The request Mary Leontyne Price is $ 199 in America and € 179 in Europe , while in Australia they go for AU$439 .
This fills a bit of a gap in the Sony radio over - pinna earpiece range , for certain , but it does n’t mean the ULT Wear are without competition . Sennheiser’sAccentum Plus , for example , are very standardized money , and Final Audio’sUX3000come in at a little less .
Design
There ’s no disceptation with the line Sony has done where the pattern of the ULT Wear is refer . Within the strictly defined limits of over - ear headphones , this is a discreetly dear - looking pair with more than a hint of the ( well more expensive)Sony WH-1000XM5about them .
Available in sinister or timber grey ( which is undisputedly greenish ) as well as the white of my followup sampling , the Sony are as well - made and expertly eat up as everyone expects from the ship’s company . The earcups themselves are a little deeper than the norm , but unless you ’ve an passing narrow-minded head you wo n’t bet too much like a Cyberman – and you ’ll be easy inside them in any result , thanks to nicely footslog pleather - covered memory - foam contact points .
There ’s a good amount of adjustment to the headband , great deal of articulation where the headband forgather the earcups , and the Sony turn up cleverly enough to allow them to travel in a fairly small , discreet case .
In fact , the only way in which the ULT Wear are less than understated is where the ship’s company logotype and one of the few physical dominance clitoris are concerned . At each end of the headband , the Sony logo is realised in racy lenticular printing , and the same technique is used for the ( comparatively ) big ULT button on the unexpended earcup . I ’ll get to the baleful effects of that button before long enough …
Features
The ULT Wear use Bluetooth 5.2 for wireless connectivity , and as well as the peat bog - standard SBC and AAC codec there ’s also compatibility with the Sony - developedLDAC . So if you ’ve an appropriate generator actor , 32 - bit/96kHz ( up to 990kbps ) can be wirelessly streamed .
Once it ’s on control panel , it ’s delivered to your ears by a pair of 40 mm full - range dynamic drivers . Sony ’s claiming a frequency response of 5Hz – 20kHz , which is about par for the wireless over - ear course . The same V1 CPU that ’s fit to the premium WH-1000XM5 does the job here , and as well as deal with the actual audio substance it ’s also in rush of the dynamic noise - cancellation circuitry too .
electron beam - forming mics in each earcup feed data to the C.P.U. in order for it to adapt top your ambient conditions on the fly sheet – ANC can also be switch off , or to Ambient to allow a little external sound in . There ’s a clitoris in the unexpended earcup to allow you to toggle between ANC and Ambient – if you want to turn it off altogether , you ’ll need to delve into the Sony Headphones control app .
The app itself is just as thorough and just as useful here as everywhere else . As well as fiddling with ANC , it give up you some EQ accommodation , can place where you are and adjust speech sound accordingly ( that ’s Adaptive Sound Control ) , and will use pictures of your ear to optimise spatial sound performance if any of your preferred streaming services have content mixed inSony 360 Reality sound . It ’s also where you could connect to an appropriate Sony Bravia XR television to experience some individualised head - tracking . It ’s one of the most helpful and worthwhile control apps around .
The mics also help with voice - assistance and call - quality , of course , and they ’re very effective indeed in both instance . Further control is useable from the capacitive jot - surface of the right earcup ( shimmer / pause , volume up / down , skip forwards / backwards and so on ) , while the left earcup has a great power on / off button that also initiates Bluetooth pairing . There ’s also a 3.5 mm socket here ( Sony provides a 1.2 m cable television service for heavily - cable listening ) and a USB - coulomb slot for burden the battery .
Battery life history itself is a very satisfactory 50 minute with ANC switched off , and a not - precisely - fearful 30 hours if it ’s switched on . You ’re looking at around 200 moment to bear down from prostrate to full .
Sound Quality
I may as well get right to it , if for no other reason than you ’ve already seen the champion - evaluation at the top of this review . The forgetful story is : the ULT Wear are substandard , in sonic term , in virtually every regard . For a society with the resource , the report and the track record of Sony to offer them for sales agreement is , I reckon , astonishing .
I ’ve always enjoyed Trompe Le Monde by Pixies , and I ’ve always thought it sounded just a little bit tenuous and edgy in a typically early-90s indie sort of way . But in the hand of the ULT Wear it ’s transubstantiate into a soup of ill - controlled and ill - set broken - oftenness natural process , with any sense of momentum abandoned in party favour of bass , bass , and more bass .
The broken - frequency presence here is such that the midrange is all but drench , while the top of the frequency range fights an endlessly fall behind conflict too . Any sense of insight , refinement or articulacy go away while the Sony shove avoirdupois , lumbering bass voice in your face with something approach delight .
Switch to music that ’s really basso - centric in the first position – Kimbara by Barry Ca n’t drown , for instance – and the downcast - end overburden is enough to evoke a scare approach . The ULT get into thump as senselessly as a party get wind from two doors away , skew the regular recurrence entirely and utterly sacrificing detail in party favour of bass part onslaught .
And , remarkably , this is before you investigate the properties of that ULT push . It has two modes , each more ominously named than the other : Attack Bass and Deep Bass . First of all , the idea that the ULT Wear have not , until now , been farm freshwater bass that ’s both deep and assail is mirthful . And secondly of all , if you recollect you ’d been listening to poorly - defined , exaggerate , and monotonal bass before now , well , you ai n’t find out nothing yet .
Because the ULT Wear are so single - minded in their purpose , it ’s difficult to wait beyond their nonsensical bass part response to find any meaningful positives in the way they perform – but I ’m go to give it a go .
Their dynamic noise - cancelling is somewhat decorous , as it is on all of Sony ’s ANC - equip headphones – those international sound that are n’t already drowned by the sheer bass presence of the headphones are manage with imposingly . And if you heed to a recording containing no low - frequency information whatsoever – Walking Song by Meredith Monk , say – the ULT Wear are give away as quite insightful , quite articulate and actually quite well unionized . So if you intend to listen to euphony with no bass element , go right in advance .
at long last , though , it ’s like throwing a substitution . Even if you listen to podcasts , there will be moments when a speaker ’s voice descends from the midrange to the upper bass frequency – and the Sony seize those moment like the tax office seize your money . And then all semblance of realism disappears . Again .
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Should you buy it?
You want bass ? You got it .
If there ’s a more lopsided - sounding pair of headphones out there , I have n’t hear them .
Final Thoughts
I am abysmally throw by the Sony ULT Wear . After all , this is the production of a society that is usually judicious and thoughtful – but for ULT Wear it seems to have give itself over to a focus chemical group that has convinced it that what Young People want is a face tattoo and a loudness button .
I ’m prepared to concede I ’m not what you might call young – but in my experience it takes a fair bit more than too much bass to interest group Young People , because where headphones are concern they ’re in general like all the rest of us .
Trusted Score
How we test
We try every set of headphones we review thoroughly over an extended period of time . We use industry standard tests to liken features in good order . We ’ll always say you what we find . We never , ever , take money to critique a ware .
Find out more about how we test in ourethics policy
FAQs
You cna get 30 hours with ANC activated , or 50 hours with it twist off .
