The Sony WH-CH710N, the affordable NC option is here

The second new wireless headset unveiled today is the Sony WH-CH710N, the successor to the WH-CH700N. Last month when an Anatel certification revealed the design, I said that the shiny surface in the photos was most likely just for the pre-production model and it looks like I was correct. The official photos show a much more matte paint scheme now.

As with the WI-SP510, Sony has not put up the specifications on the site and the press release is not working on their site. Looking at the design, it looks much better now, less cheap and more premium. A side by side comparison with the predecessor shows this quite well.

The design is more inline with the current generation of products and looks fantastic as an affordable NC headset. Colour options will be black, white and blue.

The new headset features Dual Noise Sensor Technology, which according to Sony is dual microphones feeding forwards and backwards. Is this the same tech as the WH-1000XM3 uses, Feedback and feedforward microphone? I do not know, the location and function of parts in the online guide show only 2 mics, the left and right one, with no other mics. Perhaps once more photos appear, hands on reviews, or a teardown, will we know what this means.

The WH-CH710N feature NFC, Automatic Artificial Intelligence Noise Cancelling (AINC), up to 35 hours of battery life (see below0, a quick charge of 10 minutes providing 60 minutes of use and voice assistant support. Codec support is only SBC and AAC, no LDAC, although I am sure Sony could easily add it with a firmware update if they wanted to.

One major change are the drivers, they are now 30mm versus 40mm on the older model. Seems like this smaller driver trend is continuing at Sony, with the h. ear on 3 line also having smaller drivers when compared to their predecessors. Hopefully these sound just as good as the 40mm they replace.

Availability is unknown, but pre-orders start this month, priced at $199.99 USD / $249 CAD / 149,90 €. I will update the post with specifications (updated) once they are posted up and the FCC teardown when it becomes available. The white version appeared on Amazon Germany, ships on April 8th.

FCC photos

The photos are not of the highest quality, for example I cannot make out the battery size here.

Next up is the Bluetooth chip and internal code. The chip being used here is the Airoha AB1531 and the internal code is HDX-2947. I posted a device with this same code back in January, so finally this can be linked to an actual product. It seems I was wrong about the specific chip, not the AB1532 or AB1536, but AB1531 it seems, but I think they are the same chip, the AB1531 is for wireless headphones, where as the AB1532/36 is for TWS headsets.

The Bluetooth chip can be seen on the right side in the above photo, with an unknown chip to the left. This chip does not appear to have any markings or they were rubbed out. Using the Airoha chip as a size reference, the unknown chips dimensions are 5.3mm x 5.3mm, this matches the CXD3775 from Sony. I have a post about this chip here. This is only my guess that this is the CXD3775, will need to wait for a full teardown to confirm. The chip is capable of high resolution audio support, and has hybrid ANC, so feedforward/feedback, the technical details can be found here.

The other side has the rest of the components, like the 3.5mm port and USB Type-C port. Hopefully there will be a full teardown in the future by someone to see more of the details, like the battery and the writing on the unknown chip.

Specifications

• Power source:
  • DC 3.7 V: Built-in lithium-ion rechargeable battery
  • DC 5 V: When charged using USB
• Usage hours:
  • Music playback time:
    • Max. 35 hours (NC ON),
    • Max. 40 hours (Ambient Sound Mode), Max. 45 hours (NC OFF)
  • Communication time:
    • Max. 35 hours (NC ON),
  • Max. 35 hours (Ambient Sound Mode), Max. 40 hours (NC OFF)
• Standby time: Max. 35 hours (NC ON), Max. 40 hours
• Ambient Sound Mode
• When connecting via the headphone cable with NC ON:
  • Max. 50 hours
• Charging time:
  • Approx. 7 hours (About 60 minutes of music playback is possible after 10 minutes charging.)
• Mass:
  • Approx. 223 g
• Bluetooth Specification version 5.0
• Supported Codec:
  • SBC / AAC

Check out the product video below.