Sony WF-C510 review: budget buds for smaller ears

Sony knows how to make good earbuds, as evidenced by its flagship WF-1000XM5 that is top of the class in just about every respect. It can also deliver value for less money to stand out as an alternative in terms of both comfort and performance. The $60 WF-C510 attempt to do just that, relying on Sony’s audio pedigree and the customizability in the Sound Connect app in a smaller package than ever.

The WF-C510 is the successor to the WF-C500, a pair of earbuds that followed the company’s Road to Zero initiative to achieve a zero environmental footprint. To get there, Sony had to cut plenty out. Now that there’s a sequel, did it manage to take a little more off the top without sacrificing functionality and performance? Let’s see.

With the case that’s about a third smaller (still without wireless charging, unfortunately) and earbuds that have shaved off some girth, the WF-C510 look more refined out of the box. Sony doesn’t quantify exact figures on how much smaller they are, but the difference was obvious when I put them side by side.

Sony says it used “extensive ear shape data” to ensure comfort for most people through a rounded design and matte finish. I would say they succeeded in improving on the WF-C500 in that regard for a couple reasons. First, the newer WF-C510 have elongated necks due to the reduced size of the earbud module. This makes them easier to not only place in your ear and rest on the concha, but also to maintain a tighter seal. Second, the weight distribution just feels different. The WF-C500 feel like they take up more space, with most of the weight falling onto the part that sticks out most. That hasn’t been the case for me wearing the C510s.

I’m confident those with smaller ears will appreciate how Sony slimmed things down here. It’s part of a broader trend for its earbuds, most of which used to look bulky, but are becoming more svelte and contoured these days.

The specs

Getting the sizing right is all the more important for earbuds that don’t have any active noise cancellation (ANC). A stable and effective passive seal can do a good job ensuring you don’t have to blast your tunes to hear them, though the lack of noise cancellation can be tough when you find yourself dealing with all sorts of loud background noise.

Sony still includes Ambient Sound Control via the Sony Connect app on iOS or Android. It’s a mode with a sliding scale from 1 to 20 to allow the onboard mics to filter in ambient sounds around you. A “voice passthrough” toggle works to amplify outside voices while “suppressing noise” to make them more audible. The catch is it’s only as effective as the amount of ambience you let in. If you’re struggling to hear what someone’s saying, you either have to crank it to 20 or just pause playback altogether.

The mode acts much like ambient modes do on any other pair of earbuds. What Sony doesn’t mention is that playback volume is a factor in how well the mode can possibly work. If you’re listening at a louder volume while walking outside and you go to talk to someone, the audio often drowns out the material effect of the voice passthrough. Where it’s most valuable is in hearing what someone’s saying after you’ve already paused your tunes.

Despite that, Sony tries to be generous with the rest of the feature set in the app. Pairing the earbuds is easy enough, as Google Fast Pair works for Android devices. Heck, it even threw in Swift Pair for quick pairing with Windows PCs. No such luck with Apple’s devices (naturally), though these earbuds are definitely AirPods competitors once you use them with an iPhone or iPad.

Multipoint allows them to stay paired with two devices at the same time. Switching between them feels pretty straightforward, like getting a phone call from your work phone while listening to music from your personal one, as an example. I didn’t run into any issues.

The Sound Connect app gives you the same five-band equalizer you get to use with Sony’s more expensive earbuds, and I suggest doing so. You may like how the WF-C510 sound out of the box, but I would recommend tinkering with the EQ to breathe some life into them. You have the option to also go through the app’s “Find Your Equalizer” test to personalize output, except I did better by tweaking things myself. These are budget earbuds, after all, but they don’t always sound like that, which is a testament to Sony’s ability to deliver improved sonic performance in a smaller design.

Crowd-pleasing audio

You’ll likely need to give the bass a boost off the bat, but the mids aren’t muddy and the highs don’t feel flat, either. We’re talking about crowd-pleasing audio here, and I can see the results satisfying most everyone, apart from bass lovers who want a deeper sound. While the AirPods 4 now have ANC variants, the WF-C510 simply sound better in a passive-versus-passive situation, even if you’re better off tweaking Sony’s buds first.

Sony includes its DSEE proprietary technology to enhance the quality of compressed codecs like MP3 and AAC —  which is as good as it gets when there are no hi-res codecs on board. It works on its own once you toggle it on in the app, impacting the mids more than any other part of the spectrum. Regardless of whether you understand what it’s doing or not, you can hear the “boost” it provides to whatever music you’re listening to.

Sony offers 360 Reality Audio for a semblance of spatial audio (without head tracking), only you can’t really do much with it. You have to go through Peertracks, Artist Connection, nugs.net, or 360 Reality Live to set it up.

The only other integration I can speak to is Spotify Tap, should you choose to enable it. If you’re a Premium subscriber, you can set it up through Sonic Connect so that double-pressing the left or right earbud’s button starts a recommended Spotify playlist. I’m not particularly fond of the feature myself, but can confirm that it works fine with the WF-C510.

Button control grouping can be limiting

Speaking of buttons, the physical ones here are reliable no matter which function package you pick. You’ll need them since there are no wear sensors to automatically play/pause music when removing either earbud. Moreover, for some baffling reason, Sony forces you to choose among a slate of controls rather than pick and choose what you’d like to have. For example, under the Ambient Sound group, a single press on either earbud turns Ambient Sound on or off, whereas it plays/pauses under the Playback Control group.

If you’re sticking to the latter, a double-press skips a track, a triple-press repeats one, and a long press activates your phone’s voice assistant. Repeatedly tap on the right to raise volume and on the left to lower it. A potential downside with the controls is inadvertently skipping or repeating a track if you’re not precise in pressing either side four times. Another problem is that Sony’s rigid control-grouping approach imposes difficult choices you shouldn’t have to make. If you like Spotify Tap and Ambient Sound, you shouldn’t have to shuffle through control schemes to simply make them accessible directly from the earbuds.

Phone calls operate at what I would typically expect from earbuds in this range. The good passive isolation made it easier for me to hear callers, but I could do little to offset what they might hear around me unless I moved to a quieter space. These aren’t ideal for longer conversations while venturing outside.

With battery life, there are other caveats to consider. Sony says the WF-C510 can go up to 11 hours, except that’s only if you turn off Ambient Sound, DSEE, and Find Your Equalizer. Any combination of those knocks the number down closer to six or seven hours basedon how loud you go. That’s still very acceptable for cheaper earbuds, and while the case only provides one additional charge, you know where you stand on battery through the app. There is no “Find My” functionality here, like you see with other earbuds, including the AirPods, so if you lose these, you have no way to track them.

Apple users might look at the Beats Solo Buds as a better alternative, much like Android users could look at the Samsung Galaxy Buds FE as an option. Having listened to all three, Sony makes a good bang-for-the-buck case, with the WF-C510 by undercutting both on price. The tougher competition comes from the budget earbuds that include ANC, like the Earfun Air Pro 4 and Soundcore Space A40, both of which cost more, but expand features and customization further.

Still, for $60, these earbuds are hard to pass up for any bargain hunter. You should pass if you want rumbling bass, but if your expectations are more modest, you’re likely to come away liking what you hear for both your ears and your wallet.

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