Testing Sony’s WH-CH730N: What You Actually Get for $200

Budget noise canceling headphones have gotten much better over the years, and one of the most popular lines of these have been Sony’s WH-CH7XX line of headphones. Replacing the WH-CH720N, the WH-CH730N has some big shoes to fill. But does it? Let’s take a look and find out.

What’s it like to use the Sony WH-CH730N?

The Sony WH-CH730N is a no-nonsense set of ANC headphones that don’t break the bank — nor do they wow anyone. But sometimes that’s just what you want.

Design

The Sony WH-CH730N is a set of active noise canceling headphones (ANC) that have a very understated design. As it is a set of headphones geared towards those not looking for top-end products, it’s understandably without some of the hallmarks of that kind of design. For example, the ear pads and band padding are quite utilitarian, and there aren’t many outward signs of a high price tag. The band skeleton is metal, but the build is mostly matte plastic. On the top of each earcup are prominent microphone wind screens, and very little else. On the back of each ear cup are the controls, which are simply physical buttons — no capacitive touch plates at all.

Listening to the Sony WH-CH730N is as straightforward as it is on any other set of headphones, and you’re not in for really nasty surprises. However, it can sometimes be a little difficult to get a good seal. Because of the light weight, there’s not a lot of clamping force on your ears, so comfort in long listening sessions like a plane ride or commute should go just fine — even after 8 hours. The headphones don’t have any ingress protection rating, however, so be mindful of rain and excessive moisture.

It isn’t all sunshine and roses, however. Inexplicably, the ear pads — possibly the most-repaired item on wireless headphones — are a bit of a pain to remove and replace. Instead of opting for a snap-in model, Sony used the ancient slot-plus-extra pad material method of affixing the pads to the ear cup. There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but in a few years when the pads start to show wear, being able to easily replace them generally helps people avoid procrastinating on that task. Because it’s a little difficult to replace the pads with this kind of mechanism, you’ll likely see a bunch of Sony WH-CH730Ns in a few years with heavy wear.

Features

Using the Sound Connect app from Sony, users of the Sony WH-CH730N can adjust the EQ, manage connections, adjust noise canceling behavior, and more. This app also serves as the gateway for other features such as 360 Reality Audio, listening modes, and firmware updates as well — so you should definitely consider installing it early on so you can figure out just what settings are going to be necessary for you.

Most of the important settings are kept in the main screen, but by tapping “all headphone settings,” you can tinker with more advanced features. Though most people won’t be playing around in these, it’s worth taking a look through just to make sure you’re getting the most out of your headphones.

The included equalizer is a step up from the Sony WH-CH730N’s predecessor, this time offering a 10-band slider adjustment instead of a mere 5-band one. Though this looks like an improvement on paper, you can do a lot with limited tone controls — provided you’re starting from a good tuning to begin with. But the band slider’s downfall is that it’s not very exact, and it’s also harder to make broad adjustments as well.

How does the Sony WH-CH730N connect?

The Sony WH-CH730N connects to your devices over Bluetooth 6.0 via SBC and AAC — but that’s really enough. AAC has come a long way since 2018, and most Android implementations have improved as well. Additionally, the inclusion of Multipoint allows you to connect to two devices at once, and you can switch your audio stream from your phone to your computer quite easily.

But what I like is the inclusion of LE Audio. Though it’s not mentioned on the product page, Sony’s official documentation lists the feature. I believe this simply means it’s coming with a firmware update, but it would be excellent to have headphones that will be very popular support Auracast and low-energy applications.

For wired fans, the Sony WH-CH730N comes with a 3.5mm TRS cable that can plug right into the bottom of the left ear cup. The power requirements are also extremely low, so you don’t need an amp in case you need to listen this way. Thankfully, the cable is a very standard one that could be replaced online for dirt cheap — none of that locking mechanism nonsense common to other brands. No USB-C listening, however.

How long does the Sony WH-CH730N’s battery last?

We haven’t had a spare 50-someodd hours to spare testing the battery of the Sony WH-CH730N just yet, but we find that most manufacturer estimates of battery life fall within 10% in either direction. Once we’ve made our tests, we’ll report back with our figure, so be sure to check back in a few days if you’d like to see our lab results. That said, Sony estimates the battery life of the Sony WH-CH730N with ANC on to be about 50 hours, which is overkill for most commuters.

However, I do want to call attention to one of the best battery features I’ve seen in a while, and that’s the “battery care” function. Buried in the settings in the Sound Connect app, this setting will cap the maximum charge and rate to make sure that you don’t put excess wear on the battery. While that doesn’t seem like a big deal right now, over the years this should keep your battery from needing replacement by preventing a rapid loss of capacity due to overcharging and heat stress. Batteries in headphones might be much larger than those in earbuds, but they’re still pretty tiny. Any loss of charging capacity could result in hours of lost potential per charge. And the more you continue charging your headphones, the faster they deteriorate. If you can prevent this with a feature like “battery care,” then your headphones should last for much longer.

How well does the Sony WH-CH730N cancel noise?

For those of you hoping for a cheaper WH-1000XM6, I’m sorry to disappoint: the Sony WH-CH730N just isn’t that amazing at ANC despite the added microphones and AI enhancements. But then again, neither was the predecessor: the WH-CH720N. Given that this is a more budget option, I’m not surprised — but it’s worth knowing just what you’re in for here.

The Sony WH-CH730N is able to isolate you from about 66% of outside noise by perceived loudness, and cancel 79% of the same. While that’s definitely quite good for a budget set of cans, it does fall far short of the top-tier options on the market. Specifically, it struggles with sounds that live between 300 and 1000Hz — right where the most annoying things like vocal sounds, breaking glass, truck brakes squealing etc. live. Consequently, it wasn’t shocking to me when I was able to hear the Vancouver SkyTrain’s squealing quite loudly through the headphones. That said, the Sony WH-CH730N is very good at reducing the loudness of most noise around you, even if it doesn’t mute it entirely.

Just be aware that if you’re hearing some sounds come through the ANC, it may not be a fit problem making the headphones worse at their job. It could simply be that it’s really hard to cancel certain sounds.

How good is the Sony WH-CH730N’s Transparency mode?

The Sony WH-CH730N’s transparency mode is pretty basic, but it does allow you to hear the world around you quite well. The only main difficulty here is something almost all headphones struggle with, and that’s sound localization. That said, the Sony WH-CH730N does a better job than most here, as the headphones process the recorded sound outside quite well.

How does the Sony WH-CH730N sound?

The Sony WH-CH730N sounds decent for a set of inexpensive ANC headphones, but won’t make you forget more high-end headphones anytime soon.

Reviewer’s notes

Editor’s note: this review uses a hover-enabled glossary to describe sound quality based on a consensus vocabulary. You can read about it here.

Can you use the Sony WH-CH730N for phone calls?

One of the upgrades over the WH-CH720N was the addition of more microphones to help the Sony WH-CH730N reject noise better. And when it comes to recording your speech: it seems like Sony’s done it here. Below are samples collected in our lab that can be compared to any other product in our review database on an apples-to-apples basis.

Sony WH-CH730N microphone demo (Ideal conditions):

Should you buy the Sony WH-CH730N?

If you were hoping for a new Sony WH-CH720N with Bluetooth 6.0, this isn’t it — but it is close. If you’re looking for affordable ANC headphones, the Sony WH-CH730N is definitely worth a look. However, because there are so many more entries into this category, you might find that something else suits your needs a little more closely, even though the Sony WH-CH730N has enough under the hood to keep most low-spending headphone buyers happy for the long term.

For example, the Nothing Headphone (a) ($199 at Amazon) is only slightly more expensive, but offers a bit more in terms of battery life and user customization. If you’re just looking for a less expensive option, you could look to Edifier’s excellent W820NB Plus ($69.99 at Amazon), though it doesn’t have a lot of the features offered by the Sony WH-CH730N, it’s definitely a competitor at a much lower price point. Finally, if you really like the Sony WH-CH730N but don’t like the price tag, keep a lookout for the WH-CH720N ($179.99 at Amazon) or Sony ULT WEAR ($199.99 at Amazon) going on sale as both are quite old now.