SonarWave X1 ANC Headphones Review

Who the SonarWave X1 is actually for

This is a commuter headphone first and a music headphone second. Everything about the tuning and the ANC design points at one job: making a noisy bus, metro carriage or open-plan office quieter without draining your wallet or your battery.

If you mostly listen at a desk in a quiet room, you are paying for a feature you will barely switch on, and a cheaper passive pair will sound better for the money. If your day involves an hour or more of engine noise, this is exactly where the value sits.

Noise cancelling performance

The hybrid four-mic setup is tuned aggressively at the low end. On a moving bus, the constant engine drone drops to a soft background hum rather than disappearing entirely. That band from roughly 80 Hz to 400 Hz is where most commuting fatigue comes from, and it is handled well.

Where it falls behind flagships is the mid range. Nearby conversation and announcements still cut through clearly. Some people consider that a safety feature. If your goal is total isolation, this is not the product that delivers it.

Transparency mode

Transparency is usable but obviously processed, with a faint hiss at low volume. It is fine for a shop counter exchange, less pleasant for a long conversation.

Sound quality

The signature is a mild V-shape with a lifted bass shelf. Electronic and hip-hop tracks land with weight and no obvious bleed into the mids. Vocals sit slightly forward, which suits podcasts.

The weak point is the top end. Cymbals and hi-hats are noticeably softened, which makes long listening sessions less tiring but costs detail on acoustic and live recordings. There is a five-band equaliser in the companion app, and lifting the 8 kHz band by two or three decibels recovers most of it.

Comfort and build

At 258 grams it is light for an over-ear with this much padding. Clamp force is moderate, so glasses wearers get a seal without pressure points. The memory foam earpads compress over the first few weeks and then stabilise.

The frame is plastic with a steel-reinforced headband slider. It does not feel premium, but the hinge is the usual failure point on headphones in this bracket, and this one is reinforced rather than bare plastic.

Battery in real use

On a five-day week with roughly two hours of ANC listening a day, one charge covered nearly four weeks in our tracking. The ten-minute fast charge genuinely returns most of a working week, which matters more than the headline number.

Verdict

Buy it if your commute is loud and your budget is firm at Rs 10,000. Skip it if you take frequent outdoor calls or you want reference-grade treble detail.