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Sony LinkBuds Open vs Sony LinkBuds WF-L900: A credible update
Sony added to its open earbud options by updating the flagship model. But when we pit the Sony LinkBuds Open vs Sony LinkBuds, which earbuds fit your life better? Let’s break it down.
Editor’s note: this article was published on October 7, 2024, and is the first version of the article. Updates will follow as the market changes.
What’s it like to use the Sony LinkBuds Open compared to the Sony LinkBuds WF-L900?
Both earbuds are remarkably similar in design, with similar donut-plus-bulb casings. The Sony LinkBuds Open have a more prominent fin, however. This fin helps the earbuds stay in your ears better, which is a very good thing; the older LinkBuds are a little on the slippery side, and their solution for this didn’t work as well as the new option.
Under the hood, there’s more of the same story: The Sony LinkBuds Open offers a bit more in the features department, updated Bluetooth, and the ability to use LE audio with compatible hardware. The updated Sony Sound Connect app (formerly Headphones Connect) is a little more intuitive to use, and gives you a familiar experience if you’re coming from older earbuds like the Sony LinkBuds WF-L900.
Beyond the features of the newer earbuds, the actual use of the earbuds is largely similar. Both fit your ear in a similar manner, both allow sound through to your ear canal, and both have a virtually identical user experience. Finally, since both have similar water resistance, you can easily rely on either the Sony LinkBuds Open or Sony LinkBuds WF-L900 to work out with.
If you’re not set on getting open earbuds, the experience is a little odd at first. You should be able to hear everything around you much easier, and this can sometimes lead to you cranking the volume to drown out surrounding noise. Try to avoid doing that.
The control schemes of Sony LinkBuds Open and Sony LinkBuds WF-L900 are the same, which is probably not terribly surprising. The wide area tap allows you to tap near the earbuds, and not the backs of the chassis so you don’t dislodge the earbuds themselves. I wish more earbuds had this, even if they are sealed.
| Input | Left earbud | Right earbud |
|---|---|---|
| Input Double tap | Left earbud Play / pause | Right earbud Play / pause |
| Input Triple tap | Left earbud Track forward | Right earbud Track forward |
| Input Quadruple tap | Left earbud Lower volume | Right earbud Raise volume |
Do the Sony LinkBuds Open or Sony LinkBuds WF-L900 have better features?
Though the Sony LinkBuds Open and Sony LinkBuds WF-L900 are extremely similar, the newer earbuds are much more suited to current phone hardware than the older ones. Not only does the updated Bluetooth radio offer more in terms of connectivity, but the LE audio is something that should help users extend battery life and reduce latency, so that’s a cool plus. Additionally the 360 Reality Audio support is cool, too.
Of course, you have to use the Sound Connect app in order to enable all these features, so the privacy-conscious among you might be a bit squeamish for that. Still, it’s a huge value add, and being able to use both earbuds on multiple devices and other features is worth it alone.
How do the Sony LinkBuds Open and Sony LinkBuds WF-L900 connect?
Though the Sony LinkBuds WF-L900 are only able to use Bluetooth 5.2 over SBC and AAC, the Sony LinkBuds Open can connect to devices with Bluetooth 5.3 over SBC, AAC, and LC3. This may not seem like a big difference — and to most people, it won’t be — but it does mean that LE audio is available to users of the new earbuds and not the old ones. LE audio is one of those features that will gradually become more important as Auracast and other functions it enables are introduced, and after demoing some of these ourselves, we’re confident in saying that the inclusion of LC3 and other LE audio features is a big check in the “plus” column with regards to future-proofing. Even if you’re not sold on it, the lower latency over Android is enough to appeal to some.
Is battery life better on the Sony LinkBuds Open or Sony LinkBuds WF-L900?
Battery life is an easy contrast to draw between the Sony LinkBuds Open and Sony LinkBuds WF-L900, as the former withstood our standardized test for 9 hours and 30 minutes, while the latter gave up the ghost at 5 hours and 41 minutes. The upside here is that the new earbuds can last an entire workday, whereas the older ones were limited to sub 5-hour listening sessions. Not exactly a huge deal either way, but if you’ve been using the Sony LinkBuds WF-L900 for a couple years by already: it may be time to upgrade if you find that your batteries are starting to degrade.
Do the Sony LinkBuds Open sound better than the Sony LinkBuds WF-L900?
Because the original Sony LinkBuds WF-L900 are so old, we don’t have any MDAQS measurements performed, but we can talk about what we feel are differences in audio quality because I personally have experience with both models.
Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Scores (MDAQS)
The chart below shows how the sound of the PRODUCTS was assessed by the Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Score (MDAQS) algorithm from HEAD acoustics.
From this, we can see that open earbuds have some challenges to overcome in the audio quality department, and in fact, so far no open earbuds we’ve seen have broken into the 4-point territory, so some healthy fistfuls of salt are going to need to be applied here. In my experience, both the Sony LinkBuds Open and Sony LinkBuds WF-L900 aren’t terribly different when it comes sound quality, mostly because the lack of isolation means you’re constantly fighting your surroundings to hear your music. In a sense, this is likely the least important comparison metric.
By my personal experience, the newer Sony LinkBuds Open does sound better than the originals, but that can change depending on fit. But both sound similar in many ways, which should become obvious when I post the measurements below.
- Timbre (MOS-T) represents how faithfully the headphones reproduce the frequency spectrum and temporal resolution (timing information).
- Distortion (MOS-D) represents non-linearities and added noise: higher scores mean cleaner reproduction.
- Immersiveness (MOS-I) represents perceived source width and positioning: how well virtual sound sources are defined in three-dimensional space.
Objective Measurements
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On paper, Sony LinkBuds Open does a better job maintaining highs and lows than Sony LinkBuds WF-L900, but as we noted before, fit is everything. Some features present in the older earbuds’ sound are present in the newer buds, so the sound hasn’t changed violently. However, it is notable that the Sony LinkBuds Open has more high bass across several measurements, which should help make your music a little easier to hear in noisy situations — but not by much.
Audiophiles are not the intended audience for this product, and it should not surprise anyone that these do not come close to hitting an attested preference curve. While the numbers look dire, I should point out that the LinkBuds are much more like a tiny Bluetooth speaker that sits in your ear that nobody else can hear than they are earbuds. With that in mind, I don’t think many people are going to get too bent out of shape over the perceived “deficiencies” here.
Do the Sony LinkBuds Open or Sony LinkBuds WF-L900 have a better microphone?
While we have our own ideas about which product does better than the other, we prefer to let our work show for itself so you can make your own conclusions. Below are a set of standardized recordings with which you can use to compare and contrast the microphone performance. Just remember that these are earbud microphones, so their primary intended purpose is phone calls.
Sony LinkBuds Open microphone demo (Ideal conditions):
Sony LinkBuds WF-L900 microphone demo (Ideal conditions):
Sony LinkBuds Open microphone demo (Office conditions):
Sony LinkBuds WF-L900 microphone demo (Office conditions):
Which microphone sounds best to you?
Sony LinkBuds Open vs Sony LinkBuds WF-L900: Price and availability
Though you can currently still buy both the Sony LinkBuds Open and Sony LinkBuds WF-L900, it’s unlikely the latter will be available for much longer, as this model has been superseded by the former. In that light, it seems a little silly to recommend picking up the former earbuds, especially when the newer ones perform quite a bit better with battery life and features. However, that doesn’t mean a store won’t want to shed stock fast, so if you can find the Sony LinkBuds WF-L900 online, try to see if there’s any deals to be had this holiday season.
The Sony LinkBuds Open should be available in most brick and mortar stores for $199.99, and just about anywhere online that sells headphones and earbuds to the masses. You’ll probably not find them in music stores for obvious reasons (most musicians would likely use IEMs instead), but it’s still worth poking around Sweetwater or similar vendors. You may see the price drop, but as this product just launched, it won’t drop in price far.
Should you get the Sony LinkBuds Open or Sony LinkBuds WF-L900?
At this point, it’s less if you want to buy the Sony LinkBuds Open or Sony LinkBuds WF-L900, or whether or not you’ll want to upgrade. Because at this point, the Sony LinkBuds WF-L900 are over two years old, and unlikely to make the case over the newer earbuds unless you’re looking at them as an impulse buy.
Choose the Sony LinkBuds Open if:
- You really want open earbuds
- You have trouble with sealed or unsealed earbuds
- You exercise a lot, and need to hear your surroundings.
Stay with the Sony LinkBuds WF-L900 if:
- $200 would cause you financial distress
- Your earbuds haven’t lost much charge capacity
If you already own Sony LinkBuds WF-L900, there’s no overwhelming need to upgrade. However, don’t bother getting the older version if you’re looking for open earbuds, as the newer LinkBuds will remain relevant for longer.
Open design
Auto Switch multi-point connection
Novel tap control method
Unique design
VS Product Z or alternative options
If you’re looking for a credible alternative to the Sony LinkBuds Open, you might want to look at the Nothing Ear (Open) ($149 at Amazon). Though it doesn’t sit within the ear, it’s one of our favorite picks for open earbuds because of its sound quality.
Open earbuds tend to struggle a bit in the sound quality department, but the Nothing Ear (Open) seem to manage this feat fairly well for the category. If sound quality is more important to you than features and not having an ear hook design, you may want to check out these earbuds instead.
Frequently asked questions
Yes, you can use the Sony LinkBuds Open individually.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes, though the former more than the latter.
Very much the opposite, both allow in a lot of outside sound.