Sony ULT WEAR review: How much bass is too much?

For those who love music with rich bass, the Sony ULT WEAR headphones promise an immersive audio experience that few can match. However, bass is not their only strength. These headphones also offer active noise cancellation, support for high-quality audio codecs, and more. Their feature list is surprisingly long for a pair of mid-range headphones. But are they worth your hard-earned money? To find out, read my review of the Sony ULT WEAR and decide for yourself:

Sony ULT WEAR: Who is it good for?

The Sony ULT WEAR is a great pick for:

• People who commute and need active noise cancellation
• Those who enjoy listening to music with a lot of bass
• Users who are not intimidated by tweaking their settings in detail to get the audio experience they want

Pros and cons

These are the things I like most about the Sony ULT WEAR:

• Comfortable to wear
• Good sound quality
• Competent active noise cancellation
• Tons of features

As for downsides:

• The bass can be overpowering
• Call quality deserves some improvement
• No IP rating for protection against dust or water

Verdict

The Sony ULT WEAR headphones are a suitable choice for bass lovers and commuters who value comfort and effective noise cancellation. While their sound quality is generally good, achieving the best audio experience often requires tweaking settings to suit personal preferences. These headphones offer a versatile listening experience with adjustable ULT bass modes, competent active noise cancellation, and an array of features accessible through the Sound Connect app. However, they’re not without flaws – an overly dominant bass can overshadow other sound frequencies, and the microphone sometimes struggles to consistently filter out external noise during calls. Despite these shortcomings, the Sony ULT WEAR is an appealing option for casual users seeking a bass-focused audio experience.

Unboxing the Sony ULT WEAR

The Sony ULT WEAR headphones come in a black cardboard box. On the front, you see a picture of the headphones and their ULT brand name. On the sides and back of the box, Sony has printed some information about the features it wants to promote about this product and the items you find inside the box.

Sony ULT WEAR come in a large black cardboard box

When you open the box, you find the carrying case protecting the headphones. Alongside this case, there are several leaflets, including a setup guide and warranty details.

You also get a useful carrying case

Open the carrying case, and you finally see the headphones, nicely packaged.

Opening the carrying case reveals the Sony ULT WEAR

Alongside the Sony ULT WEAR headphones, you have a USB-C to USB-A charging cable and a TRS connection cable.

You also get a USB-C to USB-A charging cable and a TRS connection cable

The unboxing experience offered by the Sony ULT WEAR is enjoyable. Users will appreciate having a carrying case that allows them to protect their headphones while traveling and also hold the necessary cables.

Design and hardware specifications

The Sony ULT WEAR headphones have a circumaural, over-ear design, with a matte finish. They’re available in black, forest gray, and off-white, with the Sony logo printed at the base of the headband, on each side.

The color options for Sony ULT WEAR

The headphones are made mostly from recycled plastic, with the earpads and the headband featuring comfortable faux leather cushions. The earcups hold the 40mm dynamic drivers that deliver audio on a frequency range of 5Hz to 20kHz. The earpads are very soft to the touch, and they don’t look as durable as I would have liked. I’m curious how quickly they tear over time.

The earpads are soft to the touch

On the left earcup, you have several buttons, and the most visible is ULT, which controls the bass-related features of the Sony ULT WEAR. You also have the Power button and the button for controlling active noise cancellation.

The ULT button does all the bass magic

On the right earcup, there are no buttons. Instead, it has a touch panel you can tap or swipe to perform several actions, like playing and pausing audio or skipping to the next track.

The headphones are relatively large, and weigh 255 grams or 9 oz. The Sony ULT WEAR offers Bluetooth 5.2 connectivity, can be paired with two devices simultaneously, and is compatible with Google’s Fast Pair feature. Their range is approximately 10 meters or about 32 feet. Sony ULT WEAR can also be connected to a computer or another device using the 1.2m long cable found inside its packaging. This helps you enjoy low-latency, high-quality audio. The headphones support the following audio formats: SBC, AAC, LDAC, and LC3.

Sony ULT WEAR weighs 255 grams or 9 oz

The build quality is good, with the headphones having solid hinges and yokes. You can easily swivel and fold them for transportation and place them in the carrying case.

You can fold them with ease

Unfortunately, the Sony ULT WEAR headphones do not feature any IP rating for protection against dust and water, and I recommend using them with care to lower the chances of unnecessary wear and tear.

Last but not least, Sony advertises a battery life of up to 30 hours with noise cancellation turned on and up to 50 hours with it turned off.

The technical specs of the Sony ULT WEAR present them as a capable mid-range option, with features that appeal to younger audiences who listen to music with a lot of bass. If you want even more technical information about this product and its features, I recommend visiting its official webpage: Sony ULT WEAR.

Using the Sony ULT WEAR

The Sony ULT WEAR headphones are comfortable to wear even when you’re using them for several hours in a row. They sit well on your head and don’t fall off when walking. However, it’s not a good idea to wear them while running or doing sports. When doing that, they start falling off and capture a lot of sweat. Since they don’t have an IP rating for protection against water or dust, you may even end up deteriorating them.

Wearing the Sony ULT WEAR is a comfortable experience

The capacitive controls on the right cup aren’t difficult to operate, but the results you get aren’t always what you want. For example, I’ve learned that it takes several downward or upward swipes to lower or increase the volume. And the most problematic issue was that it’s easy to accidentally press the buttons on the left cup when you adjust the headphones or take them off.

The touch controls are on the right cup

On the upside, the touch surface on the right cup can be turned on or off with ease, and the noise cancellation button on the left cup can be personalized to do several things, depending on how many times you press it. For example, pressing it once can switch between Noise Cancelling and Ambient Sound, while pressing it twice can play a Spotify recommendation for you. This kind of personalization can only be done through the Sound Connect app, which I’ll present in the next section of this review.

While I like that you can connect the Sony ULT WEAR to two devices simultaneously, there’s a downside to this feature, because it can’t use the LDAC codec. Therefore, an increase in flexibility comes at the cost of sound quality, a trade-off some users won’t appreciate. If you want high quality sound through the LDAC audio codec, you should connect these headphones to just one device.

LDAC cannot be used with multipoint connections

On the upside, the Sony ULT WEAR features Digital Sound Enhancement Engine (DSEE), a technology used to improve the quality of compressed audio files, like MP3s, by restoring lost details and making the music sound clearer and more natural.

The audio quality you get varies depending on how you set them up and whether you enable the ULT 1 and ULT 2 bass enhancement modes. With them off, Sony ULT WEAR delivers a rich, bass-forward sound that appeals to people listening to genres like pop, hip-hop, rap, and electronic music. While generally clear, voices can occasionally sound recessed due to the bass emphasis. Instruments in the midrange, like guitars and pianos, may come through with a warm tone but lack the forwardness audiophiles tend to appreciate. The treble is clean but somewhat understated. Leaving these minor quibbles aside, I was generally satisfied with the quality of my audio experience and considered it good enough for a pair of mid-range headphones.

Listening to music on the Sony ULT WEAR can be an enjoyable experience

With ULT 1 turned on, the Sony ULT WEAR emphasizes deep bass, boosting low frequencies. While I’m not a fan of listening to music with a boosted bass, this mode can be a good choice for people who enjoy electronic dance music. Switching to ULT 2 shifts focus to attack bass, intensifying mid-bass frequencies. While hip-hop fans may appreciate it, my ears “screamed” that this is too much bass. With ULT 2, vocals and high-pitched instruments felt less prominent, and the bass became overbearing. After only a few minutes of listening to one of my favorite Rammstein tracks (Deutschland), I felt the need to take the headphones off and disable ULT for a while.

ULT 2 delivers too much bass

Call quality on the Sony ULT WEAR is okay. I appreciate the active noise cancellation when taking calls while walking around the city. It does an effective job of removing outside interference and allows you to hear loud and clear the people you talk to. However, when I was speaking, the built-in mics picked up a lot of the outside noise, and the people I was talking to couldn’t hear me as well as they did when I spoke directly on my smartphone.

Call quality is good but not perfect

Battery life is around the 30 hour mark with active noise cancellation (ANC) turned on, and charging is done from 1% to 100% in about 3.5 hours, which is quite slow. Sony says a 10 minute charge lasts up to five hours of audio listening. However, it doesn’t specify whether this is with ANC turned on or off. Personally, I would have preferred faster charging speeds.

Last but not least, you should know that even though you have a USB-C port on the Sony ULT WEAR, you can’t use it to listen to music. It’s only used for charging the headphones.

Overall, the Sony ULT WEAR headphones offer a comfortable fit for extended use and a versatile audio experience, with bass-forward tuning that can be adjusted using their ULT 1 or ULT 2 modes. With the user experience now outlined, let’s explore the software features that enhance their functionality.

Software bundled with Sony ULT WEAR

When they were first released, the Sony ULT WEAR headphones were managed through Sony’s Headphones Connect app. I found this app a little dated in terms of user interface and the experience people had with it. Luckily, during my testing period, the company rebranded Headphones Connect to Sound Connect and designed a new user interface that looks better and is easier to understand and use. The app is divided into three tabs: My Device, Discover, and Menu.

The Sound Connect app

The My Device tab is where you configure how the Sony ULT WEAR works and customize features like the Ambient Sound Control, its equalizer, or 360 Reality Audio. When you start using these headphones, I highly recommend you go through all the available settings, experiment with them, and personalize things as you want. If you want a good mix between a bass boost and audio fidelity, I highly recommend you set the equalizer and go through the wizard to Find Your Equalizer.

Fiddling with the sound settings

The Discover section is another place to access. There, you’ll find personalized tips that can help you understand how the headphones work and how to use all their features for a safe and fun listening experience. The Menu section is a bit more boring, sharing mostly notifications and information about the app, its version, and release notes for firmware updates. Speaking of which, I highly recommend checking for updates before starting to use the Sony ULT WEAR. Newer firmware versions fix bugs, improve audio quality and connection stability, and also introduce support for codecs like LC3. However, during my testing, I noticed that firmware updates can take a long time to download and install on your headphones. It’s a good idea to arm yourself with patience and allow the procedure enough time to complete.

Sony’s tips are useful

The Sound Connect is mandatory to install on your smartphone or tablet, if you want to fully utilize the Sony ULT WEAR. Luckily, the new app offers a better user experience than its predecessor. The only downside is that firmware updates are performed slowly.

What’s your opinion about Sony ULT WEAR?

Now, you know a lot more about the Sony ULT WEAR headphones beyond their basic specifications and the way their manufacturer promotes them. Before closing this review, I’d like to know what you like about these headphones: Do you appreciate their design? Do you like their active noise cancellation feature or their ULT bass enhancements? Do you enjoy listening to music with a lot of bass? And if you do, which tracks are your favorites? Comment using the options below and let me know.