When a new product enters the market, there is always a benchmark to hit or, better yet, hoist; a rival to compete with or, preferably, surpass.
Considering the class-leading status of its WF-1000XM5 flagship earbuds, Sony will understandably be focusing its efforts on making the best even better with its highly anticipated WF-1000XM6 successors.
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But for the Japanese audio giant to look purely within its own camp when conjuring up the upgrades for its next-gen buds would be to risk them falling behind an ever-advancing pack of hungry competitors.
After all, the biggest rival for the forthcoming XM6 (and any arriving premium wireless earbuds, for that matter) will be Apple’s new AirPods Pro 3, and they take the Pro model forward in two areas Sony will need to vie with in order to top the leaderboard: noise cancellation and price value.
I’ve experienced both the Pro 2 and Sony XM5’s noise cancellation in a range of environments, and while the Sonys edge it for overall effectiveness, it’s a closely run race. Real close.
An ANC upgrade is already a necessity
If the Pro 3 do make good on their promise of ANC that is twice as effective as the Pro 2’s sound-blocking ability – a big claim that our own Pro 3-wearing Gareth Beavis believes plays out – Sony will need to up the ante in the noise-canceling department again with its XM6 in order to keep its nose ahead.
Arguably, this upgrade is already a necessity, as the new Bose QC Earbuds 2nd Gen are the best noise cancellation earbuds I’ve personally experienced.
ANC competence is now more than ever a selling point of wireless headphones, and the ANC head-to-head between the Pro 3 and XM6 will no doubt be an interesting – and rank-defining – one.
Then you have another bone of contention for the Sony earbuds: their price. Perhaps the biggest surprise of the AirPods Pro 3 launch was the fact that Apple kept their price at $249. Sure, that launch RRP has remained static since the original Pros arrived in 2019 – but it’s 2025, and price hikes between tech product generations feel pretty much a given right now.
That static pricing doesn’t just mean the Pro 3 will appeal to those who cannot afford the premium asked by competitors like Bose, Bowers & Wilkins and Sony, but also means that they are, with more features and a higher performance than before, better value than ever.
The Sony XM5 launched at $299 – $19 more than the previous XM4, which themselves launched at $50 more than their XM3 predecessors. So history suggests it is unlikely that the XM6 will stay below the $300 mark, let alone match the AirPods Pro 3’s $249 price.
That will present a sizeable gap (somewhere between $50 and $80?) that could see Apple leapfrog Sony on the value front. Such an outcome would see Sony relying on superior audio and ANC performance (and Android loyalty!) to justify any such price gap, because it would have to come some way to compete with the Pro 3’s feature offering…
Really, this is where the Sonys will most likely struggle on paper, comparatively speaking. Apple has consistently packed innovative, useful everyday features into each generation of its flagship Pros, and the Pro 3 really stand out on this front with new real-time speech translation, a heart-rate sensor with iOS tracking integration, and proper (IP57-rated) waterproofness.
Add to this the Pro 2 features that have been carried over, including spatial audio and hearing aid functionality, and you have a sophisticated feature set no other brand is likely to get close to. That has been the case for some time, though, and I don’t believe such ‘extras’ are, fortunately for Sony and every other earbuds manufacturer, dealmakers right now.
The opportunity is there…
The XM6 certainly have the opportunity to trump the Pro 3 and sit at the top of the leaderboard. Sony has laid the groundwork for its WF-1000XM models to succeed for years, and the Pro 3 are within touching distance in many respects. The Pro 3’s battery life only just matches the XM5’s (eight hours in the buds, 24 hours in total), for example, giving Sony a chance to better that specification through even the smallest improvement over the XM5.
And if the XM6 include the very good new ‘Cinema’ spatial audio mode found in their over-ear XM6 siblings, they could well finally rival the AirPods Pros for in-ear ‘immersive audio’ implementation. But they will need to nail all-important ANC performance and competitive pricing too.
If Apple leads in both of those key areas, it could spell trouble for Sony’s WF-1000XM reign.
