The 1000X line has been Sony’s heavyweight in the over-ear category for ten years now, ever since the MDR-1000X showed up in 2016 and started gradually edging Bose out of the noise-cancelling throne. The WH-1000XM6 currently sits at the top of more “best headphones” lists than we can count – our own guides included.
So how do you celebrate a decade of that? Apparently, you build something even nicer and slap a $650 price tag on it.
A Different Lane Than the XM6
Sony’s been pretty clear that the 1000X THE COLLEXION is not the XM7. It’s something else entirely, a parallel flagship aimed at the buyer who wants the 1000X experience, but with all the dressed up in materials you’d usually see in luxury fashion accessories.
The headband uses hand-polished metal accents with a matte sandblasted texture, finished individually by actual humans. The vegan leather covering the earpads and headband reportedly took Sony two years to develop, which shows just how serious they’re their approach to the details is here.
The Sound Pitch
Inside each cup is a bespoke driver Sony built specifically for this model, with a soft edge and a high-rigidity dome made from a unidirectional carbon composite. In plain English, the diaphragm is stiffer where it needs to be and more flexible where it doesn’t, which Sony claims translates to better instrument separation and a wider soundstage than the XM6.
The COLLEXION is also the first Sony headphone to get DSEE Ultimate, the brand’s top-tier audio upscaling tech that uses Edge-AI to fill in detail lost to Bluetooth and streaming compression in real time. Sony also brought in Grammy-winning mastering engineers to handle the tuning.
About That ANC
ANC is where things get a bit interesting. The COLLEXION uses the exact same noise-cancelling guts as the WH-1000XM6, including the QN3 processor, 12 microphones, and the Adaptive NC Optimizer. So on paper, the ANC performance should be a wash.
In practice though, the slimmer profile and different earcup geometry mean the passive isolation should be just a touch less aggressive. If raw ANC dominance is your only metric (which we understand), the XM6 still holds the belt here. Most people probably won’t notice, but it is a detail worth knowing before you spend the extra $200.
Spec Sheet
Brand: Sony
Model: 1000X THE COLLEXION
Driver: Bespoke, unidirectional carbon composite dome
Audio Tech: DSEE Ultimate, 360 Reality Audio Upmix (Music/Cinema/Game), LDAC
Noise Cancelling: QN3 Processor, 12 microphones, Adaptive NC Optimizer
Battery Life: 24 hours (ANC on) / 32 hours (ANC off)
Materials: Hand-polished metal, vegan leather
Colors: Platinum, Black
Sustainability: ~25% recycled plastic, plastic-free packaging
Pricing & Availability
The 1000X THE COLLEXION is available now for $649.99 through Sony, Best Buy, and Amazon. Sony’s also dropping a new Sandstone colorway for the WH-1000XM6 at $459.99 if you’d rather pocket the difference.
Recap
Sony 1000X THE COLLEXION
To celebrate ten years of the 1000X series, Sony built a $650 luxury sibling to the WH-1000XM6 with a bespoke carbon-composite driver, hand-polished metal hardware, and a two-year-old vegan leather recipe.
