Sony WH-CH720N Wireless Headphones Review

The Sony WH-CH720N Wireless have a somewhat similar design to the WH-CH710 Wireless, with the yoke integrated into the ear cup. They come in three color variants: 'Black', 'Blue', and 'White'.

These over-ears have a comfortable fit that's lightweight and well-padded. The headband feels good against the head, and the ear cups don't clamp too tightly, either. That said, if you have large ears or wear the headphones further back, you may find that the cups touch your ears.

The Sony WH-CH720N Wireless have good controls. They have physical buttons that are easy to use and provide clicky feedback. There's also a bump to help separate the multi-function button from the volume by touch. There's a voice prompt to let you know when you're connected to a device as well as chimes to indicate you've reached the min and max volume. You can even press the power button to hear battery life.

On the left ear cup:

• Power button
  • Single press: Turns on and off the headphones.
  • Press and hold: Enters Bluetooth pairing mode.

On the right ear cup:

• ANC/AMB button
  • Single press: Cycles between ANC on and transparency mode. You can add ANC off or adjust this mode to your preference via the app.
• Volume controls
  • Single press the '+' button: Raises the volume.
  • Single press the '-' button: Lowers the volume.
• Multi-function button
  • Single press: Plays and pauses audio. Also answers and ends calls.
  • Double press: Skips to the next track.
  • Triple press: Skips to the previous track.
  • Press and hold: Launches voice assistant. Also rejects calls.

These headphones aren't very portable. While the ear cups can swivel to lay flat, they can't fold to help conserve space. They also lack a carrying case to protect them from damage on the go.

The Sony WH-CH720N's build quality is decent. They're mostly made of plastic, which feels cheap, and they creak a lot, which is annoying. There's a metal band inside the headband to help reinforce it. Overall, they don't feel as sturdy as the Sony WH-1000XM4 Wireless.

These headphones have decent stability. While they'll fall off your head if you're wearing them during a tough exercise, they'll easily stay on your head if you're listening to audio at your desk or during your walk.

• Sony WH-CH720N headphones
• USB-A to USB-C charging cable
• 1/8" TRS audio cable
• Manuals

Out of the box, these headphones have a bass-heavy sound profile. They deliver extra thump, punch, and boom, which is great for genres like EDM and hip-hop. Vocals and instruments sound present, although a bit veiled, though, and sibilants like cymbals are piercing. Luckily, if you want to adjust their sound, their companion app offers a graphic EQ and presets. You can also see a comparison of all the EQ presets here.

Although we tested the headphones with the ANC on, you can see a comparison with the ANC on, off, and wired here. The largest difference is in the bass to mid-range, as the ANC off has more thump and rumble but also sounds a bit muddier than when the ANC is on. There isn't a difference between ANC on and wired analog, though.

These headphones have mediocre frequency response consistency. They're prone to inconsistencies in bass delivery, and if you have thick hair or wear glasses, these assets can disrupt the headphones' seal on your head and cause a drop in bass. In addition, the headphones are sensitive to placement and position, causing deviations in treble delivery. It's important to take the time to ensure a proper fit each time you use these headphones.

These headphones have satisfactory bass accuracy. If you're a basshead, you'll appreciate the extra thump, rumble, and boom to their sound. However, there's a lot of extra high-bass, which muddies the rest of the mix. In songs like Just Wanna Rock by Lil Uzi Vert, the bassline at the beginning of the track is very present and full-bodied. However, it slightly clutters the vocals.

The mid accuracy is excellent. The response is fairly flat across the range, although there's some overemphasis coming from the bass range into the low-mid, cluttering the mix. The mid-mid is very flat and neutral, so vocals and instruments are present, but a dip in the high-mid weakens their intensity.

The Sony WH-CH720N's treble accuracy is decent. The low-treble is underemphasized, which results in veiled vocals and instruments, while the mid-treble is overemphasized, so sibilants like cymbals are piercing.

The peaks and dips performance is acceptable. There aren't a lot of major peaks and dips, although there are two very noteworthy exceptions: a peak in the mid-treble makes sibilants like S and T sound piercing. It's followed by a severe dip in the high-treble, causing mixes to sound lifeless. However, most people lose sensitivity to the high-treble range as they age, so it may not be very noticeable to some users.

The imaging performance is sub-par. Sony usually has good quality control and ergonomics, but imaging varies between units. Our unit's L/R drivers are well-matched in group delay, which ensures tight bass. Although there's a peak past the 15kHz range, most people won't notice issues with treble transparency as humans lose sensitivity to this range over time. Our unit's L/R drivers are also well-matched in amplitude and frequency response, which helps to balance the stereo image. However, there's high phase response present. We couldn't spot the bump around 2k with subjective listening, though. Peaks in the high-treble range also aren't audible as it can be hard to spot imperfections in this range, and we lose our ability to hear this range as we age.

The passive soundstage performance is bad, but that's normal from closed-back headphones. They struggle to create a natural, spacious, and out-of-head soundstage. It also doesn't feel very wide or immersive.

These headphones support 360 Reality Audio Setup, which is designed to help create a more immersive and speaker-like listening experience. There's also an 'Analyze Ear Shape' feature, allowing the companion app to optimize audio to your unique ear shape. However, you need to be subscribed to features like Tidal to use 360 Reality Audio Setup.

The weighted harmonic distortion performance is good. Although there's a peak in the high-treble at normal listening volumes, it's very difficult to hear it with real-life content. As a result, most frequencies fall within good levels, which results in clean and pure audio reproduction.

These are the settings used to test the Sony WH-CH720N Wireless. Our results are only valid when used in this configuration.

The noise isolation performance is okay. Like their predecessor, the Sony WH-CH710N Wireless, they have a noise cancelling system, but it does a better job across the range of blocking out background noise. However, it still falls short compared to Sony's heavy-hitters like the Sony WH-1000XM5 Wireless. As a result, these over-ears struggle to block out the low rumble of bus engines, which can be annoying during a busy commute. They do a better job of cutting down ambient chatter, though, as well as the high-pitched hum of an AC unit.

Note: There's a peak between 60-220Hz, and our test rig measures the volume of these frequencies as louder than what we hear during subjective listening passes. We are currently investigating this peak and will update this review when we can.

The leakage performance is good. Leakage is mostly present across the range and sounds somewhat full-bodied. That said, the overall amount of leakage is fairly low, so if you're listening to audio in a noisy environment and at high volumes, it's unlikely that others around you will be bothered by it.

The integrated mic has a decent recording quality. Your voice sounds full-bodied, although a little dark and distorted. However, speech is still clear enough to be understood well.

The integrated mic's noise handling performance is just okay. The mic can separate your voice from moderate noise, but speech quality takes a dip, and noise is still present. When it comes to loud sounds like a train passing, your voice can be drowned out, and background noise is still present, loud, and annoying.

The Sony WH-CH720N's battery performance is excellent. They're advertised to last 35 hours with their ANC on, and we measured just over that. If you turn their ANC off, you can achieve up to 50 hours continuously. That said, battery life can vary depending on usage. Luckily, these cans are equipped with a standby mode to help conserve battery life if you forget to turn them off.

The Sony | Headphones Connect app is great. You can check out a video of how it works here. The app is robust and gives you access to features like Adaptive Sound Controls, Ambient Sound Controls (ANC), and virtual soundstage features. There's also a 5-band graphic EQ and presets available if you want to customize their sound. You can adjust your Bluetooth connection quality, enable or disable multi-device pairing, and adjust the power-off timer.

These headphones come with a 1/8" TRS cable. Our results reflect latency when the headphones are on. While it's somewhat high for this connection, if you use the headphones passively, the latency is much lower and is negligible. A USB-A to USB-C cable is also included for recharging the headphones, but you can't use it for audio.

These headphones have great Bluetooth connectivity. They support multi-device pairing, which is handy if you want to connect to your PC and smartphone simultaneously. That said, unlike the Sony WH-1000XM5 Wireless, they don't support LDAC codec for high-res audio support. They also have high latency on PCs via the default SBC codec, causing your audio and visuals to fall out of sync. It's worth mentioning that some apps compensate for latency.

These headphones can connect to Bluetooth-enabled PCs with full audio and mic compatibility. If you want to connect them via analog, they have a 1/8" TRS, which only supports audio.

You can use these over-ears via analog with PlayStation consoles. You can only receive audio, though.

These headphones are compatible with Xbox consoles when you plug their 1/8" TRS cable into your controller's AUX port. However, they only support audio.