Sony WH-CH520 review

The Sony WH-CH520 on-ear headphones are without doubt one of the less glamorous products in the seemingly endless Sony headphones catalogue. But it doesn’t automatically follow that they’re not worthy of attention – a product doesn’t have to command a premium price or sit near the top of a company’s line-up to stand out, especially when the company in question has a line-up that goes on and on. Gems are sometimes hidden, after all…

Price

• Launched at £49 / $59 / AU$79 but prices drop significantly during sales events
• Very few notable rivals; Sony's WH-C720N (with ANC) are the next step up

The Sony WH-CH520 are available now and in the UK cost £49, although discounts during sales events have generally brought that figure to around £35-40. In the US, they cost an equally bargainous $59, a figure that often drops to around $45 during deals periods. And in Australia you are looking at AU$79 at full price, or roughly AU$60 with a seasonal discount.

You don’t have to know the headphones market inside-out to realise this is not a lot of money for a well-specified pair of on-ear headphones from one of the biggest brands around. Sennheiser had directly competing products, such as the HD 250BT, but they have since been discontinued. In the interim, we have tested low-cost pairs such as the Earfun Wave Pro (£80 / $80 / AU$120 approx), yet none have proven viable alternatives to the CH520.

Design & comfort

• Nicely made headphones... for the price
• Feel built to last and include ample earcup and headband padding

It’s important to keep your expectations realistic when you’re spending comparatively little money on a product like a pair of on-ear headphones – especially where materials are concerned. There’s no two ways about it, the Sony WH-CH520 don’t feel anything special. In fact, they feel a little bit plasticky.

But really, what are you expecting for your meagre outlay? And besides, ‘not feeling anything special’ doesn’t mean the WH-CH520 are in any way badly made or finished – quite the opposite, in fact. They’re put together well, and feel built to last. The headband adjustment mechanism, for example, is robust and moves with reassuring solidity.

At each contact point, the Sonys feel properly constructed. There’s mild padding on the inside of the headband and the earpads, which helps no end with comfort. An all-in weight of just 147g doesn’t do any harm in this respect either, and even though they’re pleather-covered, the earpads resist returning your body heat for quite a while. The hinges where the closed-back earcups meet the headband feel sturdy, and the earcups themselves swivel a little. This helps both with getting a secure, comfortable fit and with portability.

You get a slightly wider choice of finish than is usual, too. As well as the predictable black or white, Sony also offers the WH-CH520 in quite a bright blue or an understated/dull (delete as applicable) beige.

Features

• Wireless connection via Bluetooth 5.2 with SBC and AAC codec support
• Bluetooth Multipoint connectivity; Fast Pair for Android devices
• No active noise cancellation (ANC)

At the risk of repeating ourselves, we’re going to repeat ourselves: you have to keep your expectations realistic. If you do, there’s every chance you’ll be quite impressed with the feature set the WH-CH520 are packing.

Wireless connection is via Bluetooth 5.2 (with ‘Fast Pair’ for Android devices). The Sonys have multipoint connectivity, and there’s compatibility with SBC and AAC codecs – the company claims a connection range of 10 metres, which seems achievable. When the digital audio content is on board, it’s served up by a couple of 30mm full-range dynamic drivers and the claimed frequency response is 20Hz - 20kHz.

There are physical controls on the right earcup. The classic three-button strip takes care of ‘power on/off’, ‘Bluetooth pairing’, ‘skip forwards/backwards’, ‘volume up/down’ and ‘answer/end/reject call’. A single mic deals with call quality, assisted by some on-board noise-suppression processing.

Of course, you may prefer to control your WH-CH520 using Sony’s stable and useful Headphones Connect control app (free for iOS and Android). It’s slightly truncated compared to the version that accompanies some of Sony’s more expensive headphones and earbuds like the XM5 models – but it’s still a superior example of the type. As well as controlling all the major functions, the app has some EQ presets, a five-band equaliser for you to make some custom EQ adjustments, and a hearing test to help you find your ideal sonic balance. It also features Sony’s DSEE (digital sound enhancement engine), which reckons it can upscale your lossy digital audio files, on the fly, to a higher-resolution standard.

One of those physical controls also wakes your source player’s native voice assistant. Google Assistant or Siri, that is, but not Bixby – there are limits.

Battery life

• Generous maximum battery life of 50 hours
• USB-C charging

Finally, we’ve reached a point where your expectations can surely be exceeded.

The Sony WH-CH520 can run for as much as 50 hours between charges. That’s when listening conditions are optimal, of course, but even if you like to listen at full volume all the time, 40 hours is yours with no problem. These are both impressive figures, especially when you consider that, should the worst happen, just three minutes on the juice should hold you for anything up to an hour and a half. Charging is achieved using the USB-C socket on the edge of the right earcup.

Sound quality

• Even-handed, nicely balanced sound
• Solid, deep bass response with plenty of control
• Informative and eloquent midrange for the price

Fifty hours is a long time to be listening to music – but we have to start somewhere. And with a Tidal Hi-Fi stream of Soccer Mommy’s Soak Up The Sun playing, the Sony WH-CH520 don’t take long to establish themselves as a nicely balanced, quite informative and enjoyable listen.

They’re not the most expressive headphones you've ever heard where low frequencies are concerned, it’s true. But the low end they generate is solid, deep and properly controlled at the leading edges, so the WH-CH520 express rhythms confidently. They hit reasonably hard, and keep bass firmly in its lane where it can’t interfere with the midrange activity above.

The midrange itself lacks ultimate clarity, but by prevailing price standards it’s informative and actually quite eloquent where vocalists are concerned. It integrates nicely with the frequency information both above and below, and projects well – the Sonys do good work, leaving a small, but definite, area of space in which a singer in the midrange can operate.

The top of the frequency range balances brightness with substance well, so treble sounds have a little body to go along with their shine. Again, there could be greater fine detail retrieval – but that’s really to judge the WH-CH520 by the standards of more expensive headphones. And besides, we’ll probably trade the last shred of fine detail for the lack of rolling-off the Sonys indulge in – that really is a trait quite a lot of affordable headphones indulge in, but not these.

Where dynamic expression is concerned, the WH-CH520 are just a little inhibited. They’ll make the difference between the quietest and the loudest moments in a recording apparent, but not glaringly obvious. They just don’t seem to have sufficient headroom. There’s no shortage of animation to their sound, though, and their overall tonality is convincingly neutral.

Tester's notes

Our rigorous testing process for assessing the CH520s' capabilities involved putting them through their paces in several key performance areas and then comparing their abilities with those of their direct price rivals, such as the now-defunct Sennheiser HD 250BT. We test tens of pairs of wireless headphones each and every year and consequently have an unparalleled context of the market, yet direct, side-by-side comparisons allow us to assess new arrivals against our What Hi-Fi? Award winners and five-star favourites to gauge exactly where they sit within it. You can read more about how we test and review headphones at What Hi-Fi? here.

First reviewed: August 2023. Updated review: October 2024.

Also Consider

Sony WH-CH720N
If you like the sound of Sony's WH-CH520 but you really need active noise cancelling, the model-up CH720N are the logical next step. These current (and multi-)Award winners not only offer ANC but also improved sound quality – all for not much more money. They are arguably even better value than Sony's entry-level pair, especially when sale events drop their price. Hugely attractive alternatives.

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Want noise-cancelling? Also consider the next-model-up Sony WH-CH720N

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