I can’t bear to wear the Sony WH-1000XM6

The Sony WH-1000XM6 checks nearly every box on paper for what I want out of wireless headphones. They have excellent sound quality and noise canceling capabilities, decent durability, potentially eliminating the fragile hinge from the XM5, a proper folding design, and intuitive touch controls. After weeks of testing these headphones in our lab and on cross-country flights, I wanted to love them—but there’s one dealbreaker that keeps sending me back to my tried-and-true Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones.

Comfort concerns

The pads don’t leave much room between the plastic chassis of the headphones and your skin.

We’ve measured hundreds of headphones on our Bruel & Kjaer 5128 head simulator, and the Sony WH-1000XM6’s technical performance is genuinely impressive. But measurements can’t capture what it feels like to wear headphones for a five-hour flight, and that’s where these stumble.

The earcups are surprisingly shallow and small for a flagship model at this price point. There’s not enough depth for my ears, which I would consider average-sized. They press up against the inside walls of the earcups and get hot. Within an hour of wearing them, I notice the limited padding along the headband creating pressure points on the crown of my head. It doesn’t help that the ear pads themselves have rather thin padding that grips skin well, which is great for isolation, but less great for comfort during extended wear.

Now, I might have been able to tolerate all that if it weren’t for one literal thorn in my side: the ANC microphone protrudes about 2mm from the mesh plane inside each earcup. If I don’t get a perfect seal immediately, that little bump will press directly against my tragus or inner ear cartilage. One of my colleagues experienced the same rubbing sensation during his testing. For a headset designed for all-day wear, it is unfortunately a dealbreaker.

That shadow isn’t a wrinkle; it’s the ANC mic protruding about 2mm.

For $400, comfort shouldn’t be a compromise. I’m paying flagship money, and that should include a flagship-wearing experience. Sony clearly prioritized other improvements in this generation, but they missed the fundamentals that make headphones disappear on your head.

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2, by comparison, features deeper earcups with significantly more plush padding throughout. During back-to-back testing on a recent trip to CES, the difference became stark: I could wear the Bose for an entire cross-country flight without needing any adjustments, while the Sony required frequent repositioning and breaks.

The Sony WH-1000XM6 may not have USB-C listening capabilities, but it outperforms the Bose QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen) in terms of customizability and low-energy Bluetooth audio.

The Sony WH-1000XM6 excels at nearly everything else—noise cancelation, sound quality, battery life. But if you’re investing in premium headphones as your daily driver for travel and long listening sessions, comfort can’t be an afterthought. For my use case, the Bose QC Ultra 2 wins despite Sony’s technical improvements elsewhere.

Your mileage may vary depending on your head size and ear shape, but if you’ve struggled with comfort on previous 1000X models, the WH-1000XM6 is unlikely to change your mind.