There tends to be a two year cycle with Sony’s true wireless earbuds. With the WF-1000XM5 released in August 2023, that would put the WF-1000XM6’s arrival somewhere in the August or September 2025. If true, Sony’s flagship model isn’t too far away.

There hasn’t been much in the way of leaks but we do know the model number for the WF-1000XM6, which is YY2985. That leak was seized upon by The Walkman Blog and Sony has since removed any details about the YY2985 name.

Since there’s not much to glean about the WF-1000XM6, we thought we’d focus on what we want to see in the new model with this post.

There’s much we liked about the WF-1000XM5. They won our Best True Wireless award and our Best Headphone award, so we did think they were great. But there’s always room for improvement and here are the ways we think the WF-1000XM6 could be better.

Not too big a bump in price

In the UK the Sony WH-1000XM6 didn’t jump in price quite as much as we expected (only a £20 increase). Considering the number of improvements the new over-ears bring, it’s more than worth the £20 increase in our minds.

We won’t be surprised if the WF-1000XM6 follow the same route of a small increase over the WF-1000XM6. A £20 increase would put them at £279, which is the same as the JBL Tour Pro 3, more than the Technics AZ100 and less than the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds.

A price in amongst these models would make for a competitive starting price.

Better call quality

Let’s face it, the majority of true wireless earphones aren’t very good at handling calls aside from a few, such as the Technics AZ100 and JBL Tour Pro 3. We’ve found the Sony WF-1000XM5 to be average at best.

What’s strange is that the noise-cancelling call performance is very good, as long as you’re not speaking. As soon as you do, the earbuds let the sounds in (wind, cars, people etc), so your voice competes with everything around you.

The WF-1000XM5 use a combination of wind mesh structure, bone conduction, and an AI noise-cancelling algorithm. Maybe the WF-1000XM6 doesn’t need a completely new approach, but perhaps there are gains to be made from at least one, if not all of the above being tweaked.

Better noise-cancellation

The WF-1000XM5 are one of the best noise-cancelling earbuds. But times have changed and the bar has been set higher since their release.

You could take your pick of true wireless earphones that have equalled or surpassed the performance of the WF-1000XM5. The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds are the class-leaders, with the Technics AZ100 a close second and the JBL Tour Pro 3 shouldn’t be discounted from the argument over the best noise-cancelling earbuds.

It’s always the last few yards that are hardest, but Sony not only needs to match the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, but they need to move past them as well. The WH-1000XM6 over-ears could only match the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones. Sony needs to clear the Bose earbuds by a clear margin if it wants to be considered the king.

More colours please

You can bet your bottom dollar that any headphone that goes on sale will come in at least a black or white colourway. It is predictable as it is boring.

Sony has been the main culprit for this with its flagship models, and our petition is for a little more personality.

It’s more than likely that they’ll launch with black and white options, but the Midnight Blue version has proven popular with the over-ears, so maybe Sony could look into additional colours. It’s worked for the LinkBuds series, why wouldn’t it work for the flagship model?