True Bluetooth wireless headphones: Sony WF-1000XM3 and Apple Airpods 2 comparison

Looking at the headphone market this year, the development speed of TWS headphones is unstoppable, and even more and more mobile phone manufacturers have begun to launch TWS headphones. Since the first generation of Apple AirPods was launched, the industry dominance of this headset has been difficult to shake. However, this year, with the strong entry of giants such as Sony, Samsung, and Huawei, the monopoly of the TWS headset industry has gradually weakened, and products that can directly compete with Apple AirPods have begun to emerge.

Sony WF-1000XM3
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In July this year, I visited Sony's headquarters in Shinagawa, Tokyo, and had an in-depth experience with the new generation of Sony noise-canceling beans (WF-1000XM3) true wireless headphones. Let's first briefly review the core technology of this headset: WF-1000XM3 uses Sony's newly developed noise-canceling processor QN1e, which has further improved the noise-canceling algorithm and power consumption compared to the previous QN1; the headset can last up to 8 hours on a single charge (the charging box can provide an additional 3 full charges for the headset). In addition, in noise-canceling mode, WF-1000XM3 can still provide about 6 hours of battery life, which can easily cope with daily commuting needs.

There is no doubt that the launch of Sony WF-1000XM3 will inevitably put a lot of pressure on its competitor Apple AirPods 2. Recently, many friends around me have asked me which of these two headphones to choose, so I think it is necessary to talk to you about their detailed usage experience, their respective advantages and disadvantages, and the suitable consumer groups.

01 Wearing and operating experience

In terms of wearing, Sony WF-1000XM3 adopts an in-ear design, which is comfortable to wear, moderate in size and fits the auricle well, and has no problem with stability. The original factory comes with 4 sizes of silicone earmuffs and 3 sizes of comfortable earmuffs. As long as you choose the right size of earmuffs, the wearing effect is very comfortable. Special note: If you find that there is a problem of sound leakage after wearing it, it means that the earmuff size is not suitable and needs to be replaced.

Unlike Sony WF-1000XM3, Apple AirPods 2 adopts a semi-in-ear design and is lighter in weight. It is good in terms of wearing comfort and stability. However, the disadvantage is that it is not very soundproof, which is one of the main reasons why many people do not like AirPods. In addition, there is another more important point. Sony WF-1000XM3 supports active noise reduction, and the sound insulation effect is dozens of streets ahead of Apple AirPods 2.

In actual testing, both earphones can achieve a comfortable, light and stable wearing effect when used for daily street use and running, which is no problem.

In terms of operation, both headphones support touch buttons, and both left and right headphones support custom button function settings. Sony WF-1000XM3 supports single-clicking either side of the headphone to control play/pause, ambient sound control, and long press to wake up the voice assistant; double-clicking and triple-clicking switch to the next and previous songs respectively.

Apple AirPods 2 supports double-clicking on either side of the earphone to control play/pause, next song and previous song, and wake up the voice assistant. Therefore, in terms of daily listening experience, the operation experience of these two earphones is very good, and the touch response is relatively sensitive; so in terms of the operation experience, both earphones can be given a good review.

It is worth noting that both Sony WF-1000XM3 and Apple AirPods 2 support human ear wearing detection function. The music will automatically pause when you take off the headphones and continue to play when you put on the headphones again. This can be said to be very user-friendly for the user's daily use experience.

02 Sound Quality

Sony WF-1000XM3 uses a 6mm dynamic driver unit and supports Bluetooth 5.0 protocol, but unfortunately does not support LDAC high-definition Bluetooth protocol (the reason is to ensure battery life). Apple AirPods 2 does not have a unit size, the headset supports Bluetooth 5.0 protocol, Bluetooth encoding is 256-Kbps, AAC format (the bit rate is similar to the 320-Kbps MP3 format).

In terms of listening experience, the high, medium and low frequencies of Sony WF-1000XM3 are evenly distributed, especially the full and elastic low frequencies, which perform well in listening to various types of music, and the transient performance is good and not loose at all. In addition, the thick mid-frequency and vocals also perform well for the pop music that everyone often listens to; although the brightness of the high frequency part is still lacking, it is fortunate that the details are not lost, and it does not sound "stuffy". In short, for most Bluetooth headset consumers, I think the sound performance of WF-1000XM3 can fully meet their listening needs, no problem.

I also like the sound of Apple AirPods 2. The three-frequency distribution is relatively balanced and the sound is pleasant to listen to. However, the low frequency is slightly weaker in elasticity and density than Sony WF-1000XM3. In addition, the width of the sound field is slightly narrower, but it is not a big problem. The mid-frequency and vocal part of Apple AirPods 2 sound warmer, which I prefer. Whether listening to pop music or pure vocals, the sound is pleasant to listen to.

In general, the sound quality of Sony WF-1000XM3 and Apple AirPods 2 are both good, and both are balanced and pleasant to listen to; however, after careful listening and comparison, Sony WF-1000XM3's performance in low frequency and sound field is still better than Apple AirPods 2, and the sound lines are clearer, so the overall performance of Sony WF-1000XM3 is better in terms of sound quality.

03 Noise reduction effect

I want to focus on this part. Currently, there are not many TWS headsets that support active noise reduction technology, and the noise reduction effect is almost incomparable to traditional mainstream noise reduction Bluetooth headsets. The emergence of Sony WF-1000XM3 has pushed the active noise reduction technology of true wireless headsets to a new height. I can say responsibly that Sony WF-1000XM3 is the best TWS headset I have ever experienced.

In outdoor environments, Sony WF-1000XM3 can eliminate more than 80% of ambient noise; in subway cars, it can eliminate about 60%-70% of noise; on airplanes, it can eliminate about 50% of noise (the above is personal subjective usage experience).

Take my last flight as an example. When the music volume was adjusted to about 70%, I could hear a faint engine roar. However, in the subway car, the same volume did not cause any low-frequency noise (which would not affect the station announcement reminder). This level of noise reduction should be able to rank first even in the traditional mainstream noise reduction Bluetooth headset camp. So don't worry about the noise reduction effect. The experience is really great.

04 Connection stability and latency

The connection stability test is mainly conducted in business districts and subway cars with high traffic and signal interference. In actual tests, the connection stability of Sony WF-1000XM3 and Apple AirPods 2 is good. For example, when I am on my way to and from get off work in the subway car, both headphones have no disconnection problems and can be used normally for daily commuting without any problems.

The delay test was mainly conducted on the mobile game "Peace Elite". In this part, Apple AirPods 2 performed better. Whether it was close-range shooting or long-range sniping, it could almost achieve zero delay (not completely zero, but extremely low delay). This is also one of the main reasons why I personally like to use Apple AirPods 2 to play games.

Sony WF-1000XM3 also has good control over latency, but compared to Apple AirPods 2, there is still a little delay, and the subjective gaming experience is about 0.2 seconds of delay; of course, most of the true wireless Bluetooth headsets on the market currently have more or less delays in the gaming experience, and I think the 0.2 second delay is within an acceptable range; but at least compared with Apple AirPods 2, this part of the experience is still better with Apple AirPods 2.

05 Battery life

As mentioned earlier, the WF-1000XM3 uses Sony's newly developed noise reduction processor QN1e. The earphones can last up to 8 hours on a single charge, and the charging box can provide an additional 3 full charges for the earphones, for a total of about 32 hours of battery life. Even in noise reduction mode, Sony WF-1000XM3 can still provide about 6 hours of battery life, plus it also supports fast charging (charging for 10 minutes can play music for about 90 minutes), which can easily cope with daily commuting and long-distance travel without charging. In addition, the earphone charging box uses a Type-C interface, which is well received.

The charging box of Apple AirPods 2 uses a Lightning interface and is equipped with a wireless charging function. The earphones can be used for 5 hours at a time, and can provide about 24 hours of use time with the charging box. The earphones also support fast charging, and can be used for about 3 hours after charging for 15 minutes.

Regarding battery life, there is no doubt that from the comparison results above, it can be seen that the battery life performance of Sony WF-1000XM3 is far better than that of Apple AirPods 2.

Finally, let's briefly summarize that Sony WF-1000XM3 and Apple AirPods 2 can be said to be the leaders in the current TWS headsets; in terms of product design, wearing, sound quality, connection stability, battery life, etc., they are both in the first echelon. After this experience comparison, the following conclusions are drawn: