Sony is further upscaling its flagship headphone strategy with the introduction of its 1000X “The Collexion,” a new premium wireless noise-canceling headphone positioned above the company’s already high-end WH-1000XM6 released last year.
The new headphone, which Sony said was developed to commemorate the 10th anniversary of its 1000X headphone and earbud series, is designed to complement rather than replace the WH-1000XM6, which remains in the lineup as Sony’s top active noise-canceling-focused model. The Collexion will retail for $649.99 when it ships on May 19 in Platinum, Silver, and Black finishes.
“We wanted to realize not only great noise canceling [and] great sound quality, but also premium look and feel with this model,” explained Shimo Hiroaki, Sony North America’s product marketing lead for personal entertainment. “With the normal 1000X series, we are targeting people who pursue the best functional value – long battery life, great for travel, and the best noise canceling. But for Collexion, we want to prioritize more emotional value and target people who prioritize premium look and feel or luxury design.”
The strategy appears aimed, at least in part, at expanding Sony’s reach into the growing ultra-premium headphone category currently occupied by products such as Apple AirPods Max and Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones, while also attempting to appeal more directly to style-conscious luxury buyers and audiophile listeners.
“People prioritize more premium design than what we had for M6,” Hiroaki observed. “For example, AirPods Max is very expensive and…is very well accepted by customers in terms of design. Therefore, we want to target more people who prioritize luxury design. And this model has [our] greatest sound quality. Therefore, we can approach audiophile-type people with these headphones.”
Luxury Fit & Feel
While the Collexion shares Sony’s QN3 noise-canceling processor, 12-microphone array, adaptive ANC optimization, AI beamforming microphones, and overall active noise-canceling architecture with the WH-1000XM6, Sony said the new model emphasizes upgraded materials, comfort, and sound quality improvements over outright ANC supremacy.
“M6 is still the best noise canceling, even after Collexion,” Hiroaki boasted. “But Collexion noise-canceling performance is very close to M6, still [at the] highest level in this industry.”
The most visible Collexion changes center on industrial design. Collexion replaces most visible exterior plastic with metal and vegan leather materials, including the earcups, headband structure, buttons, USB-C port trim, and audio-jack surround.
“We apply vegan leather not only for the ear pad, but also even outside of the ear cup,” described Hiroaki. “We also apply metal parts for the hinge, and the headband structure, and even buttons and the hole for USB-C and the audio jack are made of metal, so there is no plastic on the surface.”
Sony also redesigned the headphone structure for improved comfort, widening and thickening the headband while simultaneously reducing earcup thickness by roughly 5 mm compared to the WH-1000XM6. Sony enlarged the internal ear volume through structural redesign and human-ear analysis to maintain long-term wear comfort despite the slimmer profile, added removable and replaceable earpads that can be detached without tools, and included clearer left/right earcup markings.
However, unlike the WH-1000XM6, the Collexion headphone is not foldable, instead including swivel earcups, so the headphones lie flat inside the carrying case.
Audio Enhancements
Collexion also introduces several audio enhancements over the XM6, including a new unidirectional carbon-fiber driver, upgraded circuitry with thicker copper foil layers, and Sony’s new V3 integrated processor for digital audio processing.
Sony’s V3 chip enables the company’s new DSEE Ultimate processing, which uses AI for both frequency-range and bit-depth upscaling of compressed music files. The Collexion also becomes Sony’s first headphone to expand its spatial upmixing modes beyond cinema audio into dedicated music and gaming modes.
“Collexion is our first headphone to implement this Ultimate grade because this function requires very high calculation power,” Hiroaki elucidated. “Thanks to this processor, we finally introduced this Ultimate [technology] to the headphone category.”
Battery life drops modestly from the XM6’s 30 hours to 24 hours with ANC enabled, which Sony attributed to the Collexion’s slimmer, luxury-oriented design priorities and smaller battery packaging.
The headphones also support Bluetooth 6.0, Sony’s LDAC high-resolution codec, LC3 LE Audio, Auracast, multipoint connectivity, and a redesigned carrying case with a magnetic closure and integrated carry handle.
Alongside the Collexion introduction, Sony also announced a new Sandstone color option for the WH-1000XM6 headphones, joining existing Platinum Silver, Sand Pink, Midnight Blue, and Black finishes.
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