Pros
✅ Long Battery Life
✅ Good ANC
✅ Comfortable
✅ LDAC Codec
Cons
❌ Too much bass
❌ Sound leakage
Overview
Sony ULT Wear is a mid-range headphone with good sound quality, active noise cancellation, and long battery life. These features, combined with its moderate price, have made it one of Sony’s most popular options. Due to its deep bass, this headphone is an excellent choice for those who enjoy bass-heavy music. At Technowant, we have included this model in our list of the best headphones for bass, awarding it the title of “Best Powerful Bass Headphone” in our rankings.
We thoroughly tested this headphone for 15 days, and in this article, we have compiled the results of our tests. What follows is a detailed summary of our findings.
Why is Techowant Trustworthy? At Technowant, we scientifically test headphones in our dedicated headphone testing studio to ensure accurate and reliable evaluations. For more details, you can read about our headphones Testing Method.
Design
Sony ULT Wear has a simple and modern design, resembling other Sony headphones. In our opinion, one of its strongest design features is the uniform matte finish, which gives it a premium look. The Silver logo on both sides of the headband enhances this aesthetic. This headphone comes in three colors: Black, Forest Gray, and Off-White.
The body is made of high-quality recycled plastic, which is quite good for its price range. The ear pads are made of synthetic leather and are designed to fit most ear sizes comfortably. However, glasses wearers may experience slightly less isolation.
Weighing only 254 grams, the Sony ULT Wear is lightweight, ensuring a comfortable experience on both the head and neck. Sony has also padded the headband with soft foam to reduce pressure during extended use.
To test its stability, we used it during walking, running, and gym workouts, and it stayed securely in place. This makes it a solid choice for users looking for a stable, high-quality headphone for sports and fitness activities.
Controls
This headphone supports two types of controls: physical buttons on the right ear cup and a touch control pad on the left ear cup. The physical buttons are of excellent quality, providing a satisfying tactile response, and the touch pad effectively registers commands.
For your convenience, we have compiled all the headphone controls in the table below.
Accessories
The Sony ULT Wear comes with a relatively durable carrying case, allowing you to fold the ear cups and store the headphones securely. Since this headphone lacks any IP rating or dust and water resistance, the case helps protect it from dust, moisture, and minor impacts.
Inside the case, you’ll find a 130 cm audio cable with a 3.5mm jack for wired use and a 20 cm USB-C charging cable.
Connections
You can use this headphone in two modes: wired and Bluetooth.
For wired use, simply connect the 3.5mm audio cable to the headphone. It works in both powered-on and powered-off states.
The Bluetooth version of this headphone is 5.2, and it supports multiple codecs, including the LDAC codec, which allows for high-resolution audio streaming.
Additionally, this headphone supports Multipoint connectivity, enabling you to connect it to two devices simultaneously. (However, you cannot use LDAC and Multipoint at the same time!)
Sound Quality
Frequency Response
Sony ULT Wear focuses on bass!
The Sony ULT Wear is designed for users who love deep bass. The first thing you’ll notice when listening to music with this headphone is its powerful bass response.
Pressing the ULT button activates ULT1 mode, which boosts bass by up to 5dB. Pressing the button again enables ULT2 mode, where the bass reaches its maximum level, increasing by more than 12dB compared to when ULT mode is off.
The frequency response graph above was measured with ULT1 mode activated. If you examine the sub-bass range (20Hz to 50Hz), you’ll see that it exceeds the Technowant preference curve by more than 15dB. Additionally, in the bass range (50Hz to 150Hz), there is a 5 to 10dB difference compared to the Technowant curve.
Mids
In many headphones designed for bass-heavy sound, the excessive bass often affects midrange frequencies, potentially reducing the clarity of vocals and acoustic instruments like the guitar. However, the Sony ULT Wear performs relatively well in the midrange.
If you look at the frequency response graph, you’ll notice that from 400Hz to 1000Hz—which forms the core of the midrange—the response aligns perfectly with our preference curve. However, between 1000Hz and 5000Hz, there is a dip of 1 to 5dB, which slightly reduces the clarity of vocals and acoustic instruments.
Highs
In the high-frequency range, this headphone does not perform very well, exhibiting significant fluctuations between 5000Hz and 16,000Hz, as seen in the frequency response graph.
The reason behind these fluctuations is that Sony has boosted the 5000Hz to 8000Hz range to compensate for the loss of midrange clarity caused by the strong bass response. As a result, there is a noticeable peak at 8000Hz.
This adjustment makes sounds within this frequency range—such as hi-hats, sweepers, cymbals, and the “s” and “sh” sounds in vocals—more pronounced, which can be somewhat harsh and fatiguing to the ears.
Sony ULT Wear Listening experience
To test and evaluate the listening experience of this headphone, we listened to a wide range of music genres.
In short, if you enjoy genres like pop dance, EDM, or hip-hop, this headphone will satisfy you, allowing you to fully enjoy its powerful bass.
However, if you are someone who values intricate musical details and prefers genres like classic, pop, acoustic or rock, the default tuning of this headphone won’t be suitable for you.
To achieve a more balanced sound, you’ll need to adjust the equalizer in the companion app—reducing the bass, slightly boosting the midrange frequencies, and lowering the 5000Hz to 8000Hz range in the highs to create a more natural frequency balance.
To understand the opinions of different social groups about this headphone, we provided it to representatives from nine different segments of society and asked them to use it and rate their experience on a scale of 1 to 10.
The chart below presents the results of our survey.
Isolation & ANC
Sony ULT Wear features active noise cancellation (ANC), and its performance is quite impressive for its price range—though not on par with high-end models like the Sony WH-1000XM5. However, it can be a solid choice for those looking for decent ANC for daily activities.
Sony ULT Wear Isolation
If you examine the isolation and ANC chart for this headphone, you’ll notice that isolation performance beyond 500 Hz is relatively good. It can effectively reduce high-frequency sounds like passing cars, wind rustling through trees, and high-pitched honks (such as motorcycle horns) by up to 50 dB. However, proper headphone placement on your ears is crucial to achieving this level of isolation.
Sony ULT Wear ANC
The active noise cancellation on this headphone is decent and can reduce sub-bass and bass frequencies by 10 to 25 dB. For example, if you’re sitting at the back of a city bus and activate ANC, it will significantly lower the sound of the engine.
Sound Leakage
This headphone does not have strong insulation against sound leakage. If you increase the volume in a quiet environment, people around you will likely hear what you’re listening to. This is a major downside for a headphone in this price range.
App
The Sony ULT Wear, like other Sony headphones, supports the powerful Sony Headphones Connect app. In fact, more than 50% of this headphone’s features and functionalities are embedded within this app.
If you purchase this headphone, we strongly recommend installing the app on your phone to fully utilize all of its features. Below, we have listed the most important features and settings that you can access through the app:
✅ General: Battery status, active codec, firmware updates, and tutorials.
✅ Sound: EQ customization, ANC & Ambient Sound control, ULT bass adjustment, and DSEE.
✅ System: Multipoint connection, Sidetone, Auto-Pause, touch control toggle, Alexa integration.
✅ Playback & Controls: Adaptive Sound Control, track navigation, voice passthrough, and button customization.
✅ Connectivity: Bluetooth quality settings and 360 Reality Audio with head tracking.
Battery Life
The Sony ULT Wear delivered outstanding performance in our battery life test.
- With ANC enabled, the headphone lasted nearly 35 hours.
- With ANC turned off, the battery life extended to 47 hours.
- In our fast-charging test, just 10 minutes of charging provided up to 5 hours of playback, which is truly impressive for a headphone.
If you travel frequently and need a headphone with good ANC and long battery life, this model is definitely a solid choice for you.
Microphone
This headphone also delivered excellent performance in our microphone test. When analyzing the recorded audio, we found it to be ideal for a headphone microphone, offering good clarity and transparency. The microphone’s noise-canceling feature performed well compared to other headphones in its category, effectively reducing background noise to a significant extent.
Below, we have provided two recorded voice samples captured using this headphone’s microphone.
In Studio:
In Street:
Final Verdict
The Sony ULT Wear is a mid-range headphone renowned for its powerful bass.
If you:
- Love listening to music with deep, punchy bass
- Prefer a minimalist and stylish design
- Want good active noise cancellation (ANC)
- Hate frequent charging and short battery life
Then, this $200 headphone could be a great choice for you.
Even if you enjoy softer music genres like acoustic, this headphone can still work well for you—but you’ll need to adjust the equalizer settings in the companion app to balance the sound profile to your preference.
FAQs
Yes, you can consider alternatives like Sony WH-1000XM5, SONY WH-XB910N, Anker Soundcore Space Q45, Sony WH-CH710N and Sennheiser Accentum Wireless as replacements for this headphone.
The case provides protection against light pressure and minor impacts, but it cannot withstand heavy shocks or high drops to fully protect the headphones.
Yes, if the ear cushions get torn or damaged, you can easily replace them by purchasing new ones.
If you connect the headphone to your device via the 3.5mm jack while it is turned off, the bass level will be significantly reduced—even lower than when the ULT mode is turned off.
