Although blocking out a plane’s engine noise on a long flight is probably the best use-case scenario, there are good reasons to leave your pricey, $400+ ANC headphones at home when traveling. A better alternative might be Sony’s new WH-CH720N which bring excellent ANC to an incredibly lightweight pair of over-ear wireless cans that are much cheaper—although they’re still not cheap.
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In the ever-escalating arms race of active noise cancellation in wireless headphones, we still think the $400 Sony WH-1000XM5 best the competition in blocking noise while still sounding fantastic. They also have a folding design that’s easy to travel with, but accidentally forgetting a pricey pair of headphones on the plane after a long flight will certainly put a damper on your vacation mood. Sony’s new WH-CH720N aren’t a redesign of its WH-1000XM5 that somehow manage to knock $250 off the price tag, but instead, sound like a ‘lite’ alternative that won’t disappoint if you don’t ask too much of them.
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The WH-CH720N’s biggest selling feature is that they use the same V1 processor that you’ll find in Sony’s WH-1000XM5 wireless headphones, and the company’s WF-1000XM4 noise-cancelling earbuds. So, at least in theory, their noise-canceling capabilities should be as good as Sony’s flagship ANC earbuds. They won’t, however, be able to compete with the ANC performance of the $400 WH-1000XM5, which benefit from an additional noise-canceling processor inside them, and eight microphones in total. The new WH-CH720N rely on four microphones to pick up unwanted ambient noises, similar to the WH-1000XM5’s predecessor, the WH-1000XM4.
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