Sony ULT Wear review: full-size wireless headphones for avid bassheads

When it comes to Sony headphones, the first thing that comes to mind is the current flagship full-size Sony WH-1000XM5, or its predecessor Sony WH-1000XM4 (which, by the way, sounds better). But of course, the company also has more affordable, mass-market models, such as Sony ULT Wear, which are about half the price of the flagships. They have a bunch of features like the flagship model and are positioned as a model for the biggest bass lovers. There’s even a separate button for switching bass amplification modes. Today we will tell you in detail what they can do and how they sound.

Sony ULT Wear specifications

Package contents

Sony ULT Wear comes in a rather large black box with a picture of the headphones and a huge ULT Power Sound inscription. Inside you can find the headphones themselves, a hard case for transportation, Type-C cables for charging and 3.5 mm cables for wired connection, as well as documentation. Among them you can find a certificate for a trial period of 360° spatial audio.

The case is made of a nice dark gray fabric on the outside, with a place for headphones inside with a paper visual instruction on how to put them in correctly. And two small pockets for cables.

Design and usability

Externally and structurally, Sony ULT Wear resemble the top models of the Sony WH-1000XM line. They are made of a pleasant matte plastic that does not collect fingerprints. Despite their rather large size, the headphones turned out to be quite light, only 255 g, so they are quite comfortable to use for a long time. In addition to the classic black version, there are also white and green ones.

The cups are large and the headphones look rather bulky on the head. The design is minimalistic, with almost no decorative elements. It looks stylish. There are semicircular meshes in the upper part of each of the cups. It looks like there are microphones of the active noise canceling system under them. Interestingly, these meshes continue under the brackets that attach the cups to the headband.

The headband design is quite standard for full-size models. It has sliding mechanisms for size adjustment and a metal inner frame for durability. The upper part of the headband has a faux leather upholstery with foam filling on the inside. There are decorative Sony logos on the sides that shimmer in different colors.

The design allows you to turn the cups towards you when the headphones are around your neck. Sony ULT Wear also folds up for transportation in the included case.

The ear cushions are large, very soft, and have a memory foam filler inside. The outside is made of artificial leather. The ear cushions are very comfortable and well sized, and the ears are completely inside. However, artificial leather is not the best choice in hot weather, as the ears sweat a bit.

Almost all functional elements are located on the left earbud. Namely, a large ULT button for activating bass boost modes, an active noise canceling button, a power button with an LED that is also responsible for the connection mode, as well as Type-C and 3.5 mm jacks for charging and wired connection to an audio source. The rest of the controls are made using the touch panel on the lid of the right cup.

Sony ULT Wear are well-made and look quite stylish. Thanks to their light weight, they don’t feel heavy even after a couple of hours of listening to music. But they can be a bit hot in the summer.

Management

The Sony ULT Wear controls can be divided into physical buttons on the left earbud and a touchpad on the right. The power button is also responsible for activating the connection mode. The ULT button is responsible exclusively for the bass boost modes. But the button for activating active noise reduction and transparency mode is more functional.

In the proprietary Sony Sound Connect app (formerly called Sony | Headphones Connect), you can add another mode to the ANC spear when both noise reduction and transparency are not activated. In addition, you can set up a quick launch of recommended tracks from Spotify or a sound background from the Endel service by double and triple pressing.

Playback and volume are controlled using the touch panel on the right earbud. Double-tap to play, pause, and answer a call. Swipe forward and backward to skip to the next or previous track. Swipe up and down to adjust the volume. A long touch launches the voice assistant, supported by Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. Another useful function of the touch panel is to quickly lower the volume and activate the transparency mode by covering the earbud with your hand. The headphones return to the previous settings as soon as the user releases the earbud.

The control scheme is quite logical and easy to use. Perhaps some people would be more used to fully mechanical controls. However, the sensor works perfectly and the touch panel itself is large, so there are no problems with using it.

Connectivity and functionality

Of course, the main type of connection between Sony ULT Wear and the source is Bluetooth. But you can also use the classic 3.5 mm input. Of course, if you have a suitable source: most smartphones no longer have a standard headphone output. Sony ULT Wear is equipped with a Bluetooth 5.2 module, supports SBC, AAC, and LDAC codecs, and has Multipoint support. But in this case, LDAC will not work.

Now back to the Sony Sound Connect app. The main screen displays the Sony ULT Wear charge level, the current Bluetooth codec, DSEE (if active), the priority of connection quality or stability, and the power button. Below that are tiles with quick functions: noise reduction and transparency modes, current equalizer, Adaptive Sound Control, Multipoint, player controls, and access to advanced settings. There are three sections at the bottom. Discover contains various tips on how to use the headphones. Menu contains news about the app itself, a help section, and the ability to back up your settings.

Let’s move on to the advanced settings. There is a lot in the Sound section. Noise reduction and transparency modes. For the transparency mode, you can adjust the intensity and focus on voices. There is a DSEE function, which (theoretically) restores high frequencies lost during compression, well, setting up a 360° spatial sound. The headphones can be connected to the BRAVIA XR TV using the Sony WLA-NS7 adapter. In this case, virtual Dolby Atmos sound will be available.

The Adaptive Sound Control function works with sensors and can be guided by the user’s geolocation. And, according to the position and location, automatically switch the Sony ULT Wear settings. The equalizer settings have 10 ready-made presets and the ability to create your own. It is also possible to automatically create an equalizer by listening to different sound options. At the first stage, 5 very different sound options are offered. After that, there are 5 more options that are closer to each other. Based on this, the equalizer is formed. It works well, but it is far from the level of Noble Audio FoKus Triumph.

The System section contains settings for Multipoint, voice assistant, the ability to turn off the touch panel, setting up actions for the ANC button, automatic pause when headphones are removed, auto shutdown, automatic download of new firmware, and more. The last Services section is responsible for setting up accounts for Spotify and Endel services.

Sound and noise reduction

Sony ULT Wear is a model for fans of the maximum amount and massiveness of low frequencies. First of all, these are electronica, pop music, hip-hop and all related styles. Even on the stock settings, there is a lot of bass. And the ULT mode makes them even more. It seems to be too much even for bassheads, and their sound is hardly natural anymore. Of course, sound is an individual thing. I don’t like this sound and was a little disappointed when I first turned it on, because even without ULT there are a lot of low frequencies, and the middle and high frequencies are lost.

But as it turned out, the headphones use quite high-quality 40 mm dynamic drivers that can do more than the stock sound setting offers. With the help of manipulations with the equalizer, we managed to level the sound quite noticeably. At that, low frequencies remained massive, elastic and deep, but they stopped to overtly climb into the middle. Control and detail of low frequencies are at the average level. But, given the overall mood of the sound, this is quite enough.

After adjusting the equalizer, a sufficient amount of midrange appeared. Yes, you should not expect extremely high detail and accuracy, but they sound nice and quite natural. If at the stock settings it is quite difficult to listen to live instruments, then after adjustments everything becomes very good: texture appears, the character of instruments and vocals is clearly heard. The high frequencies are somewhat smoothed out, but they are already enough to create space and air, so the sound is no longer deaf and clamped, as in the standard settings. The imaginary scene has generally become average both in depth and width. The separation of instruments is not bad.

Sony knows how to make an effective active noise cancellation system. And Sony ULT Wear are no exception, although they are half the price of the flagship Sony WH-1000XM5. For noise reduction, the proprietary V1 processor is used. The low frequencies of ambient noise are almost completely removed, while the middle frequencies remain at a minimum. Only sharp high-frequency noises can be heard. At the same time, there is almost no pressure on the ears.

As mentioned earlier, the transparency mode in Sony ULT Wear has additional intensity settings and voice highlighting features. The overall volume, of course, is slightly lower than the real one. Even at maximum intensity. But it reproduces ambient sounds quite naturally and does not cut the frequency range too much.

The built-in microphones for conversations cut off not too loud ambient sounds and isolate the voice quite well. The timbre is quite natural, the voice does not resemble a robot. Although the frequency range is slightly cut. This is the norm for modern wireless headphones.

Battery life

Sony does not disclose the battery capacity of the Sony ULT Wear, but claims that the headphones can run for 30 hours with active noise cancellation and 50 hours without it. The headphones were used with the active noise canceling system at 80% volume for about 2-2.5 hours a day. In a week, the charge level dropped to 50%. So autonomy is really a strong point of Sony ULT Wear. So even with very active use, you won’t have to charge it more than once a week.

It takes about 3.5 hours to fully charge Sony ULT Wear. But the headphones support fast charging. Sony claims that 3 minutes of fast charging is enough for 90 minutes of music.