For a short time of its existence, Sony's WF headphone line has earned a somewhat legendary status. Sony became a pioneer who created an excellent noise reduction algorithm, which many experts rated even higher than the top "noise makers" from Bose and Apple and JBL. The dominance of the Japanese was especially evident when Sony WF-1000XM3 snail headphones, favored by critics, went on sale in 2019.

The focus of Sony's ANS is that they took processors and algorithms from their full-size overhead headphones, and then scaled down the entire system and adapted it to each specific capsule. Then they upgraded their Sense Engine mobile application, teaching the headphones to independently determine what exactly the owner is doing and automatically adjust the ANS to his actions. For example, unscrew the noise control to the full while you are traveling on the train, or vice versa, switch to the "I hear everything" mode when the ambient noise fades and you need to understand what is happening around.


As a result, Sony has got a whole series of very popular and well-equipped vacuum plugs, the high status of which is supported by top-end ANS algorithms, advanced water protection, support for hi-res codecs and high sound quality. This set of skills makes them universal headphones that are suitable for going to the gym, listening to music on the way to work or for the role of a car headset.

The model range of the WF series is not updated very often, usually one or two models are released per year. At the time of writing in the spring of 2021, there are 5 variants on active sale, the most current model is Sony WF-XB700. These are purely sports TWS-plugs, in which for some reason the proprietary ANS system was removed without offering anything in return. Therefore, the Sony WF-1000XM3 "snails" mentioned above remain a hit of sales.