Sony WH-1000XM6 Roundup: Here’s Everything We Know About The Upcoming Flagship Headphones

For years, Sony’s WH-1000XM series has maintained its stature as one of the best wireless noise-cancellation headphones on the market. Thanks to their balanced (and customizable) sound signature, excellent battery life, and comfortable design, the previous iteration in the lineup — Sony WH-1000XM5 (review) — was received well by reviewers, but that was three years ago.

Now, it’s time for the next iteration of the headphones to break cover: the Sony WH-1000XM6. In January 2025, we published a report about how the XM6s received an FCC certification under the model number ‘YY2984.’ Now, we have an entire Spanish Amazon of headphones to go by, and from what it looks like, Sony has a lot in store to offer with its upcoming headphones.

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Sony WH-1000XM6 Price And Release Date

• The Sony WH-1000XM6 can go official in the coming days, between May 14 and 16. They’re expected to be priced around $449.99 in the United States.
• Following their global launch, the headphones should debut in India in a couple of months. The Sony WH-1000XM6 should cost around Rs. 35,000 in India.

Sony WH-1000XM6 Design

As seen in the Spanish Amazon listing, the WH-1000XM6 will offer an adjustable headband and padded ear cushions. Like the current model, users will also be able to fold the successor. Lastly, the headphones will be available in Black, Platinum Silver, and Midnight Blue colors. Moreover, the device will retain the design language used for the WH-1000XM5, possibly with subtle improvements.

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Sony WH-1000XM6 Features

The headphones deliver in a range of 4 Hz to 40,000 Hz using some sort of carbon-fiber speakers (or drivers) and support codecs like LC3, AAC, and SBC. The listing also mentions how the headphones support wireless Hi-Res Audio via LDAC. Further, they also offer DSEE Extreme to decompress audio files.

The Amazon listing reveals that the XM6s will use Sony’s new QN3 noise-canceling processor, which is, pay attention, seven times faster than the QN1 chipset used on the XM5s. The processor works in tandem with 12 microphones (up from eight on the XM5s) to provide adaptive noise cancellation.

Note: An improved version of noise cancellation, adaptive noise cancellation, adjusts the intensity of noise cancellation frequencies based on different environmental and individual preferences, based on the data it collects from the microphones.

Besides adaptive noise cancellation, the headphones will also offer an ambient sound mode (similar to the Transparency Mode found on Apple’s AirPods) and a conversation mode that detects when the user is engaged in a dialogue with someone and automatically alters the noise cancellation and lets the surrounding sound in.

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While there are a total of 12 microphones on the device, the XM6s will deploy six to pick up users’ voices during phone calls. They’ll also offer wind noise reduction. To manage voice calls and playback, the headphones will provide touch-based controls (along with wear detection).

Regarding battery life, the Sony WH-1000XM6 should last up to 30 hours between charges (similar to the XM5s). They’ll also support fast charging, wherein a three-minute charge will provide up to one hour of listening time. Connectivity options on the device include Bluetooth v5.3, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a USB-C port for charging.

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