It is important to choose between earbuds or over-ear headphones and while making the decision, keep in mind your hairstyle, earrings/piercings, whether you’ll be wearing this to the gym, and the climate in which you’ll be wearing the headphones. Over-ear headphones fit more ear shapes easily and you can easily use the device for a longer period of time.

Keeping these factors in mind, let’s dive into Sony ULT Wear. Just to get the verdict out of the way: For anybody who loves bass, this is the headphone to own.

Sony ULT Wear looks simple but elegant

It is a good move by Sony to come up with an easy naming scheme and it’s happening across its audio lineup. You can think of ‘ULT’ as in ‘ultimate’ or ‘ultimate bass’. Well, these are some of the most bass-focused headphones you can buy.

Simple but practical design

There is a good level of active noise cancellation, good microphones, a good deal of comfort and a solid design. The design will come across as familiar if you have already used Sony WH-1000XM. The simple, understated design works well and when you consider the hardshell case that it comes in, you will be a step closer to purchasing this headphone. It has a slightly bulky look but since the headphone is geared towards the youth, the design goes well with a casual wardrobe. Further, it allows deep ear cups with flush cushioning. Wearing this over-ear headphones for a few hours will result in zero discomfort. But consider trying out the device in a shop if you have fluffy hair.

It’s an all-plastic design to keep costs in check but there is a little bit of metal on the extendable headband. Structurally, it’s solid. Also, the ear cups rotate quite far and you can fold it to make it slip into a bag or the case it comes in. Weighing around 250g, it’s perfect for use over several hours.

There is a 3.5mm port for audio cable, USB Type-C port, indicator LED, power/pairing button, noise cancellation/transparency mode button and the ULT button, which increases the bass. You press it once to take the bass-y sounding headphone to something out of the world and a second press of the button will take the bass to a level one doesn’t usually get to experience on most headphones.
On the outside of the other ear cup, there is a touchpad, which you swipe up and down for volume or swipe horizontally to move between tracks. The headphone also has autoplay and auto pause, which is a nice touch.

Calls, music and all that noise

Using these headphones while on a phone call, the sound comes through loud and clear but you may feel like you are talking a bit louder than usual. When you are outside, you may have to talk fairly loudly to hear yourself but it takes care of background noises very well. But I miss having a listed ingress protection rating, which brings us to exercising with these headphones. Running, if you must, is fine but being over-ear headphones, pushups are not ideal but you can get away with it. What you may not be able to do wearing these are something like burpees.

The device is light on the ears and has a solid build

The sound of the headphone is what matters. It supports SPC, AAC, LDAC and LC3 codec. These are expected from a pair of Sony headphones. The sound you will get has a substantial amount of bass. If you don’t like a lot of bass, use the equaliser to tone it down but for others, it will sound brilliant.

Consider Sam Morton’s trip-hop album Daffodils & Dirt, which makes for an intoxicating listening experience on this headphone. Or Peggy Gou’s new song Back to One with mellow techno — it offers an education in clubbing. The album I enjoyed listening to most on this pair of headphones is Charli XCX’s Brat, packed with dance bangers while capturing the singer’s insecurities and musical obsessions. Her high tolerance for bass is done justice to on this Sony offering.

For a lot of people, the headphone will win hearts with its bass. Personally, I like a more natural profile but most people want a bass-y sound. A single tap of the ULT button is enough in most cases but a second tap makes Charli’s Brat go to another dimension while keeping the volume at 50 per cent. It’s hard to explain, so it’s best you try the product out in a shop before buying it. To get more details out of a track, you need to work on the equaliser setting.

Sony has added a good touch to the ULT button — pressing it can make sounds like a subwoofer drum hit meets shattering glass.
Let’s talk about sound transparency or ambient mode, it’s very good while listening to music during a commute on the tube. I could hear everything around me to the point you get on a flagship device. The headphone also does a good job with active noise cancellation but Bose QuietComfort Ultra or AirPods Max wins. Yet, it does a solid job.

Should you buy it?

On the app, you can work with almost any of the parameters. The adaptive sound control element detects your actions (sitting, walking, running) and automatically switches how ambient sound is filtered in. There is some room to play around with the equaliser and there is a bunch of presets. DSEE support can add some resolution to low-quality audio files and it works well. Winning Sony brownie points is the ability to connect to two devices simultaneously.

Sony ULT Wear comes with an excellent companion app

The device delivers excellent battery life — with noise cancellation on, 30 hours of music playback can be enjoyed and it increases to 50 hours with noise cancellation off. A full charge takes approximately 3.5 hours but there’s a handy quick charge feature that offers 90 minutes of playback from just three minutes of charging or five hours from 10 minutes of charging. What we like about Sony ULT Wear is that it sounds great out of the box and the sound can be further improved with the use of the EQ settings in the app. Perhaps what you might like about the headphones is its punchy bass delivery. To embrace the bass put on Dr Dre or Run-DMC on your streaming service and let Sony ULT Wear do its magic.

At a glance

Device: Sony ULT Wear

Price: Rs 16,990

High notes

Tremendous bass boost

Plenty of controls on the app

Excellent design

High level of comfort even after hours of usage

Muffled notes

Doesn’t have a listed ingress protection rating

Geared towards those who love bass