Sony WH-CH510 Review

Welcome to a review of the budget friendly Sony WH-CH510 (called 510 for the rest of this review). These are wireless on the ear headphones.

Accessories

There are practically no accessories included in the box except for the USB charging cable. The cable is a USB-A to USB-C cable measuring about 7 inches in length.

If you attempt to buy official accessories directly from Sony’s website, nothing is available including replacement ear cushions. So, if you get the ear cushions torn or ruined, you might be able to get 3^rd party ones but don’t hold your breath.

Design & Comfort

When it comes to how it looks it has a very simple design which is kind of expected at this price point. It’s just decent to look at. Nothing bad, nothing great, but just okay.

The body is primarily constructed of plastic and feels weak even with this low price point. It does weigh a light 132 grams. The body is durable when the headband is stretched and twisted at odd angles but it doesn’t feel strong enough to take a few drops on concrete. I have a concern if that were to happen, some parts of the plastic could crack in the frame.

The earcups do not fold in for slightly better portability when travelling but I find that to be a good thing as that would have meant having an even weaker body.

There’s no information if the 510 is dust or water resistant. My recommendation is to not get them too dirty or wet at all, otherwise you risk damaging the unit.

When it comes to comfort, I’m a little disappointed. When I put them on, within a couple minutes my ears start to get warm (but not hot). Even close to an hour my ears still feel warm, thankfully not sweaty but abundantly warm. Close to the 90-minute mark is when they start to feel too tight and they get a bit too uncomfortable. I then have to take them off for a minute to let my ears “breathe” and recover, and then I can put them back on and start using them again.

I think this discomfort has to do with the headband flex. At rest the flex isn’t too bad, but as you stretch it more to fit on your head, the flex starts to get rather tight.

Another weird thing is that the interior of the headband is pure plastic, there is no soft cushioning. I recently got my haircut during my testing of these headphones and whenever I put the 510 on, I can notice that it wasn’t that comfortable. This will be worse for someone that has very little hair or no hair at all. If you fall into one of those categories, I recommend to not buy these headphones.

Despite all the above, I still have to mention that the ear cushions have some decent cushioning which feel soft. Again, that doesn’t make much difference as these headphones aren’t the most comfortable to wear.

The headband has decent extension to fit most head sizes and the adjustment is done in notches, it’s not a sliding adjustment. The earcups also have decent rotation as they can rotate up, down, left, and right.

When placing the 510 around my neck, it’s quite comfortable. I can turn my head left, right and look down without rubbing my chin against the earcups. Wearing them in this manner if you’re at a bus terminal or airport will work great.

To fit your personal tastes, the 510 comes in 3 colour options: black, blue and white.

Controls

When it comes to controls, there are none on the left earcup. All the controls are on the right.

Going to the back of the right earcup, the top button is for volume up (holding it will to go next track), the bottom button is for volume down (holding it will go to the previous track).

The middle button is where most control functions are present. Pressing and holding it will power on/off (while turning them on and holding for longer will activate Bluetooth pairing). Simply tapping it will play/pause media, or answer/hangup a call.

While connected to your Android or iOS device, double tapping the middle button will activate your phone’s default voice assistant. In my testing I used Google Assistant, and it worked just fine.

There’s no passive play/pause on these headphones. That basically means that while listening to media it’ll play just normal, the second you take the headphones off then media will automatically pause. When you put them back on, they’ll automatically resume your media. This feature shouldn’t be expected at this price point but it’s something I wanted to mention.

Noise Cancelling

Another item that shouldn’t be surprising that’s not present is active noise cancelling (ANC).

When it comes to passive noise cancelling (simply putting them on), it’s almost non-existent. Despite these being on the ear headphones with some decent ear cushioning, you can still hear almost everything in your surroundings. Again, this shouldn’t be surprising given the low price.

The one thing I noticed online is that there are some complaints on forums about side tone. That basically means when you have the headphones on and you’re on a phone call, side tone will activate which allows you to hear your own voice and surroundings. This is done intentionally on calls so you can hear if you’re talking to loud or if your surroundings are too loud and might annoy the person on the other end of your call.

Side tone works fine on calls, as it should (as many other headphones can too) and it works well. So some of the complaints online is that when listening to music (not on a call) and they happen to mumble to themselves or talking out loud, side tone will activate. Seemingly that the 510 thinks the person is on a phone call. Now I’ve tested this by connecting to multiple devices and I can’t replicate the issue. It seems to be very random and seems quite rare. In fact, of the people that complain online, they mention that it’s extremely rare.

Battery

The battery, simply put is pretty good considering the price point. Sony advertises 35 hours of usage, however in my testing I always average 45 hours. That average was calculated by doing multiple battery drain tests.

When it comes to recharge time, Sony claims it’ll take about 4.5 hours which is a long time and it’s fairly accurate. I averaged similar recharge times. Now you might think that’s a bit of a bummer but you need to consider that 1 hour of charging will give you roughly 10 hours of usage back.

One thing to keep in mind is that you cannot use the headphones while they’re charging, it’ll remain off.

The USB-C charging port is located on the bottom of the right earcup. You don’t get a charging power adapter out of the box as you’re expected to connect to a computer USB port or use your own power adapter.

Microphone Quality

For my microphone test I did it in various situations.

The first was in a quiet environment and it was just okay. You can make out what the person using the 510 is saying but it’s easy to tell that they’re using headphones and not a headset.

Where the performance surprised me was when replicating a noisy café. It’s able to suppress most of the surrounding noise and try to isolate and emphasize my voice. Some of the background noise will come through as quiet murmurs so people on the other end of your call will notice you’re in a public setting but it did quite well considering the price.

When replicating a windy environment, it was able to block some of the wind noise. At this price I wasn’t expecting anything great. Depending on which way the wind is blowing, if it’s going right at you and the headphones you’ll be able to make out some of what is being said but you might get asked to repeat words sometimes. Oddly, despite the Sony WH-XB910N being 3 times the price of the 510, the 510 microphone in a windy environment performs much better.

Audio Quality

Out of the box at this price point, I have to say I’m rather impressed. Even with a flat audio profile, I noticed that the lows, mids and highs are relatively well balanced. None of them are overbearing compared to another and none of them are too flat either.

One thing to keep in mind is that there is no native equaliser designed for the 510 (more explained in “Software” section). You’ll need to use a 3^rd party app on your computer or phone to adjust sound to your preference.

In my testing when I increased bass, it worked well. Again, you’re not going to get the best bass in the world due to the price tag but if you increase it high enough, it doesn’t get distorted and you’ll notice that extra kick. When increasing mids, vocals will get more emphasized and works pretty well. What I noticed was rather strange, was when I increased highs. Increasing highs didn’t make much of a difference for high but the bizarre thing was that bass and mids decreased in quality a bit (they got flatter). I’m not sure why that happens but I was able to replicate that behaviour through different devices.

Honestly though focusing again on price point, with the flat profile out of the box, the sound quality was adequate. I wouldn’t say the odd behavior for adjusting highs should be a bummer.

When it comes to codec support, it works with SBC and AAC. It shouldn’t be a surprise that it doesn’t work with aptX.

Software

There is no official app compatibility with these headphones, that includes Sony’s Headphone Connect app. You’re basically stuck using it as it comes out of the box, unless you use a 3^rd party equaliser app.

One important thing to keep in mind is that this means it doesn’t receive firmware updates. Basically, what you get out of the box is how it’ll perform for the duration of ownership.

Conclusion

I have to say at this price point for sound quality, Sony has outdone themselves. I was surprised by audio quality to be honest, that Sony put such good quality speakers here. Of course you’re not getting the best audio performance on headphones, but that’s not the point. You’re getting much better audio quality than expected for this price.

Of course there are some strange nuances that you’ll need to consider when making a decision about purchasing these headphones. Those of course recapped below.