At long last, Sony has announced sequels to two of its best-value wireless headphones: the five-star WH-CH520 and the Award-winning WH-CH720N.
The new budget WH-CH530 follow on from the entry-level WH-CH520 Bluetooth on-ears, while the affordable WH-CH730N are the sequel to the multiple-Award-winning WH-CH720N noise-cancelling over-ears.
Both sets come with a number of upgrades and tweaks to the firm's five-star formula, though only one has had an aesthetic refresh.
The WH-CH730N has had an external redesign, ditching the rough-and-ready aesthetic of its predecessors in place of a smoother, more premium design that doesn't look entirely similar to the more expensive Sonos Ace.
Better still, the new noise-cancelling cans fold away; something their rather rigid predecessors couldn't do, much to our reviewers' annoyance.
The WH-CH530's design hasn't deviated much from the WH-CH520's, opting for similarly small rounded earcups, an on-ear fit and a reasonably compact form factor.
Internally, the actual hardware that the two new sets pack hasn't changed much, with both pairs housing the same drive units as before. That means both the WH-CH720N and WH-CH530 come with 30mm dynamic drivers.
Despite the lack of hardware changes, Sony claims both sets offer a major sonic boost over their predecessors, thanks to work it has done improving their digital signal processing and algorithms. Sony's established DSEE signal processing is also on board for cleaning up lower-quality files.
The WH-CH730N boast a titanic 75 hours of battery life with noise cancelling switched off, a figure that quite frankly puts the 50-hour lifespan of the WH-CH720N firmly in the shade.
The WH-CH530 aren't doing badly either, serving up 55 hours of battery life. That's a five-hour improvement over the 50 hours offered by their predecessors. A three-minute quick charge of the WH-CH730N will grant around an hour of playback, while the same charging time will grant 90 minutes of listening on the cheaper WH-CH530.
Both new pairs tease clearer voice calls thanks to AI noise reduction algorithms that spotlight human speech and dampen the clamour of the outside world. The noise-cancelling WH-CH730N also tout improved noise cancelling thanks to Sony's 'Dual Noise Sensor' technology and an array of beamforming microphones.
The WH-CH530 are available now in a choice of Black, Cobalt, White, Pink, Coral, and Mint, priced at £50 – which is the same price as their predecessors' original price tag. The WH-CH730N are also available now in a range of Black, White, Pink, Blue, and Oat colourways, priced at £110. That's a small advance on the original £99 asking price of the current WH-CH720N.
Price rises aside, we can't wait to try out both of Sony's latest over-ears. The WH-CH520 and CH720N have been holding steady on our list of the best wireless headphones ever since they debuted, and we're expecting their respective sequels to elevate their performance to even greater heights.
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