Sony makes some great headphones at a higher price point, but it also has plenty of options available at other price points. Our pick for the best wireless headphones is the company’s WH-1000XM5, which would normally cost $400. If you can’t afford it, the mid-range ULT Wear headphones are a good option, especially when they’re on sale. They’re down to $148, which is $52 off their regular price of $200. This is the lowest price we’ve ever seen for this model.
These are the first headphones to use ULT Power Sound, a new addition to Sony’s Extra Bass lineup. So it’s safe to say you can expect a lot of excitement at a lower price with the ULT Wear.
In fact, we believe Sony has done a better job of implementing its bass boost technology here than with previous models. We gave the ULT Wear headphones a score of 78 in our review, highlighting the comfortable design, generally strong audio quality, and improvements to active noise cancellation.
However, the ULT Boost feature can prove to be a bit much. We felt the ULT 2 setting, which delivers deeper bass and more powerful all-round audio, didn’t sound as good and sounded a bit overdone on the low end. In some other cases, such as when playing metal and synth-heavy electronica, the sound can get muffled.
As you might expect, the ULT Wear doesn’t have all the features of Sony’s higher-end headphones. But it does have a number of cool functions. Placing a hand on the right ear cup activates Quick Attention mode, which turns down the volume. Sony’s Adaptive Sound Control tool can automatically adjust settings based on your activity or location. Other features include 360 ​​Reality Audio with head tracking and 30 hours of battery life.
If you’re a Prime member, you can save $50 on the recently released Colorsoft Kindle, also known as the first Kindle with color. This is the first discount we’ve seen since this model debuted.
We experienced a “yellow band” problem with our review unit, but later received an updated reader for which Amazon made “appropriate adjustments” to resolve the issue. The software and display adjustments the company implemented worked — and we actually liked the overall effect better. Check out our review for the full story.