Sony ULT Wear Review

I’m a Bass Addict and I’m Not Sorry

Audio purists are going to hate this review. Better to say so now. Because I’m about to spend several thousand words praising a headphone with a giant dedicated BASS BUTTON on its left ear cup — a real, clicky, satisfying-to-press button whose only job is to make the low end go feral. And I’m going to tell you it’s great. Because it is.

My name’s — actually, you don’t need my name. What you need to know is that I grew up listening to music through subwoofers wired into modified Maruti Swifts parked outside dhabas on GT Road. My hostel room ran a 12-inch powered sub that rattled the walls and earned me a written warning from the warden. I used to EQ my phone’s Bluetooth output to +6dB at 60Hz until a friend told me I was “destroying the music.” I told him the music wasn’t loud enough to destroy.

I like bass. I like feeling bass. And the Sony ULT Wear at Rs 14,990 is the most fun I’ve had with a headphone in years, precisely because Sony built it for people like me and didn’t apologise for it once.

So What Is the ULT Wear?

It’s Sony’s mid-range over-ear, sitting below the WH-1000XM6 (Rs 29,990) and above the WH-CH720N (around Rs 8,000). Same shape — over-ear, closed-back, foldable, wireless. ANC, Bluetooth with LDAC, Multipoint, 30-hour battery. The usual kit.

What sets it apart is the ULT POWER SOUND button. One press: ULT1, which adds deep, controlled bass extension. Press again: ULT2, which shoves the sub-bass to genuinely ridiculous levels. Third press: back to standard, no enhancement.

That button is the whole identity of the thing. Everything else is a competent-to-good Sony mid-ranger. The button is what makes it special. So we’ll start there.

ULT1 vs ULT2 vs Standard: What Actually Changes

Standard mode: without enhancement, the ULT Wear sounds warm and gently bass-leaning. Nothing wild. The 40mm dynamic driver puts out a full, pleasant signature tilted a little towards the low end but not aggressively. Call it Sony’s default warm tuning. Easy to listen to, unlikely to offend anyone.

ULT1: first press. The bass reaches lower — sub-bass that was present but polite in standard turns audible and physical. Kick drums gain weight. Bass guitars growl more. Electronic drops go from “that’s nice” to “oh, there it is.” Mids and treble are largely untouched. ULT1 adds bass without robbing the rest of the spectrum, which is honestly clever engineering. It’s the mode I’m in 80% of the time.

ULT2: second press. Here’s where it gets silly. The sub-bass turns properly tactile — you don’t just hear it, you feel the cups buzz against your head. Bass notes in something like Nucleya’s “Bass Rani” become almost a physical event. The whole low end swells to a degree that’d make any mixing engineer’s eye twitch.

And I love it.

Does ULT2 trash accuracy? Completely. The mids retreat. Male vocals lose presence. Treble detail vanishes under the bass. Acoustic music sounds wrong. Classical sounds absurd. But throw on hip-hop, EDM, Bollywood bass tracks, anything where the low end is the point, and ULT2 delivers something no other headphone under Rs 30,000 gets close to.

The beauty of the button is choice. Saturday-morning classical playlist? Standard. Afternoon work with lo-fi hip-hop? ULT1. Friday-evening pre-gaming with friends? ULT2, no debate, crank it, feel the buzz.

Sound Beyond the Bass Button

Even ignoring the ULT modes, this is a well-tuned headphone. The 40mm driver handles the full range competently.

Mids in standard mode are clear and warm. Vocals have good presence. Arijit Singh’s emotive delivery lands with the right texture and detail. Not XM6-grade refinement — the XM6 has a precision and airiness in the mids the ULT Wear can’t match — but good for Rs 14,990.

Treble’s there but rolled off right at the top, so hi-hats and cymbals miss the last bit of sparkle and reach. Air and ambience sit slightly muted next to brighter headphones. For most genres and most ears, that’s inaudible or beside the point. For treble-sensitive listeners who live for the shimmer of brushed cymbals and the breath in close-miked vocals — you’ll hear the ceiling.

LDAC off my OnePlus 13 made a clear difference over SBC. The stage widened a little, treble detail picked up, bass texture firmed. If you’ve got an LDAC-capable Android phone, the ULT Wear sounds noticeably better over LDAC than SBC. On iPhone (AAC only) it still sounds good, just a touch less spacious and detailed.

Soundstage for a closed-back is adequate. Music lives mostly between the cups rather than around your head. Not as wide as the XM6 or the Bose QC Ultra, but on par with most cans in this bracket.

ANC: Does the Job, Won’t Floor You

Sony pitches the ULT Wear’s ANC as “mid-range” against the WH-1000XM6’s “industry-leading,” and that’s a fair read. It’s effective for everyday use but doesn’t reach the noise-erasing trick of the XM6.

Low-frequency noise (AC hum, fan drone, bus engine): well handled. Reduced to near-silence with music going. This is ANC’s bread and butter and the ULT Wear does it competently.

Mid-frequency noise (office chatter, cafe ambience): cut but not killed. You’ll still catch people talking, just quieter. Music at moderate levels masks what the ANC misses.

High-frequency noise (keyboard clicks, ringing phones): barely touched. ANC has always been weakest up here across every brand, and the ULT Wear is no exception.

For metro commuting, bus rides and a moderately noisy apartment, the ANC is plenty. I used these on the Bangalore Metro and in various cafes for two weeks and never wished for more. ANC plus music plus the passive isolation of the closed-back cups adds up to an environment quiet enough for comfortable listening.

Where the XM6 pulls clear is in extreme noise — plane cabins, very loud traffic, construction-adjacent offices. If you need silence-grade cancellation, spend the extra Rs 15,000 on the XM6. If you need “comfortable background quiet,” the ULT Wear handles it at half the price.

Speak-to-Chat is here — the same voice detection as the XM6. Start talking and ANC drops, ambient comes in. Worked reliably about 80% of the time in my testing. Quick Attention — cup your hand over the right cup to briefly let all the outside sound in — is handy for quick exchanges without taking the headphone off.

Design: Sporty and Unapologetic

The ULT Wear looks nothing like the sleek, minimalist XM6. It’s sportier, more angular, with loud branding and the big ULT button planted on the left cup as a statement. If the XM6 is a business suit, the ULT Wear is a well-cut track jacket. Both look good; they’re just saying different things.

Three colourways: Black, Forest Grey (a dark olive-ish green) and Off White. I tested Black, which is safe and boring. Forest Grey is the one I’d actually buy — character without being flashy.

The cushions use protein leather (synthetic) over decent memory foam. The seal’s good for ANC and bass. Over long wear they breathe reasonably for synthetic leather, but they’ll warm up in the heat. That’s a shared flaw with every closed-back using synthetic pads, not a Sony special.

Headband padding is adequate. Not as plush as the XM6’s, but no hot spots or pressure points across 3-4 hour sessions. My head’s average and the band sat at its fourth position of about seven, so larger heads should be fine.

Foldable build. The cups swivel flat and the band folds, so the whole thing packs down small enough for a bag. Sony bundles a fabric pouch rather than a hard case (the XM6 gets the hard case). The pouch fends off scratches but offers zero structural protection. Toss these in a backpack with books and a water bottle and the headband could take a strain. A semi-rigid case would’ve been the right shout here.

At 255 grams it’s basically identical to the XM6’s 250g. No felt difference in use.

Battery Life: Exceptional for the Money

30 hours with ANC on. 50 with it off. Those are Sony’s claims, and my real-world numbers came remarkably close.

ANC on, ULT1 active, LDAC, around 55-60% volume: 26-27 hours. ANC on, standard mode (no ULT), same volume: 28-29. The ULT modes shave roughly 2 hours off — the bass boost needs more driver excursion and so more power.

ANC off in standard mode: I stopped testing at 45 hours, because I’d been trying to flatten it since Monday and it was now Wednesday evening. Sony’s 50-hour claim might well be right; I just ran out of patience.

The quick charge is wild. 10 minutes plugged in buys 10 hours of playback with ULT off. Ten hours from ten minutes. Best quick-charge ratio I’ve seen on any headphone. Forgot to charge over the weekend? Ten minutes on USB-C Monday morning and you’ve got enough for the whole week’s commuting.

USB-C from empty to full takes about 3.5 hours. Standard for this battery size.

Multipoint Bluetooth

Paired to phone and laptop at once. Audio switches based on which is playing. An incoming call interrupts laptop audio, takes the call, then drops back to the laptop. The handoff takes about 2 seconds — a hair slower than the XM6 but perfectly fine.

Bluetooth 5.2 range ran about 8-10 metres indoors through a wall. Stable the whole test, no random dropouts. Not 5.3 like the XM6, but the real-world gap there is negligible for most people.

Versus the WH-1000XM6: The Obvious Match-Up

Same brand, double the money. How do they stack up?

ANC: the XM6 is clearly better. More effective across every frequency band. If ANC is your main reason to buy, the XM6 earns its premium.

Sound (standard mode): XM6 again. More detail, wider stage, more refined mids and treble. The gap’s audible but not huge — maybe 20% better to my ears.

Bass (ULT modes): ULT Wear, obviously. The XM6 has no bass-enhancement modes. Its bass is warm and present, but the ULT Wear in ULT1 or ULT2 hits a level the XM6 simply can’t reach. If bass impact matters to you more than outright polish, the ULT Wear’s your pick.

Battery: tied. Both do about 30 hours with ANC. The ULT Wear goes further without it (50 vs 40). And its quick charge (10 hrs from 10 min) beats the XM6’s (3 hrs from 3 min). Edge to the ULT Wear.

Build and case: XM6 feels more premium. Better headband padding, classier looks, a hard case versus a fabric pouch. Worth the difference? Debatable.

Comfort: nearly identical. Both good for 4-5 hours. The XM6’s softer cushions have a slight edge on marathon sessions.

My take: if budget’s tight and you don’t need maximum ANC, the ULT Wear at half the price is exceptional value. If ANC quality is the deciding factor and you’ve got Rs 30,000, the XM6 is the obvious call.

Call Quality and Daily Convenience

Taking calls on the ULT Wear is fine. Not great, not awful — fine. The mics pick up your voice clearly in quiet rooms. In moderate noise callers hear you with some background bleed. In heavy noise it’s a struggle. About what you’d expect from a mid-range over-ear.

The touch controls on the right cup do play/pause, volume and track skip — same gestures as the WH-1000XM6, so swipe up for volume, tap to play/pause, swipe forward to skip. They work reliably. The ULT button on the left cup is satisfyingly clicky, one of those buttons you press just because it feels good, even when you don’t need to change the bass mode.

Quick Attention — cup your hand over the right cup to briefly hear the world — works exactly like the XM6’s. Fast, reliable, perfect for ordering coffee or catching an announcement, and it lifts the moment you take your hand away. The most intuitive ambient-awareness feature on any headphone.

One daily-life note: the ULT Wear folds flat into the bundled pouch, which slides into most laptop-bag side pockets. Not as compact as the XM6 in its hard case, but manageable for the daily commute. I carried it in a Wildcraft backpack’s front pocket for three weeks with no trouble. Foldability matters more than people think — a headphone that won’t pack easily is a headphone you leave at home.

Who’s This Actually For

College students who want great sound and proper ANC without spending the rent. Metro commuters on a hip-hop, EDM and Bollywood diet. Gym-goers who want bass to push a heavy set (though with no IP rating, keep sweat away from it). Anyone who tried the WH-1000XM6 in a store, loved it, saw the price, and thought “yeah, no.”

The ULT Wear is the WH-1000XM6 for real life. Not the aspirational “I’ll use this in business class” life. The “I’m catching the Nehru Place metro at 8:30 AM and I need the bass to drown out the chaos” life. The Rs 14,990 life where a headphone has to be good enough at everything and excellent at the one thing you genuinely care about.

I’ve tested headphones from Rs 999 to Rs 60,000 over the past two years. The Sony ULT Wear is the one I’d buy for myself if I could only own a single pair under Rs 15,000. Not because it’s the most refined. Not because it has the best ANC. Because that ULT button makes me grin every single time I press it, and five weeks in, the novelty still hasn’t worn off. There’s something to be said for a product that just makes you

Price in India

The Sony ULT Wear is priced at Rs 14,990 in India. Available on Sony India’s site (store.sony.co.in), Amazon India, Flipkart, Croma and Reliance Digital. It’s been spotted at Rs 12,490 during Amazon’s Great Indian Festival sales.

Full Specifications

Pros

• ULT POWER SOUND impressive bass
• 30-hour ANC battery
• LDAC high-resolution wireless
• Multipoint Bluetooth
• Comfortable extended sessions

Cons

• ANC below WH-1000XM6
• Treble rolled off
• Plastic build
• No spatial audio head tracking

Our Rating: 8.2/10 · Price: ₹14,990