Sony WF-1000XM5 vs Beats Studio Pro: A Confirmed Successor Against One Nobody Has Announced
Sony's earbuds already have a replacement and a price to match; Beats' over-ear headphones are being cleared out ahead of a successor that hasn't been confirmed.
Sony’s WF-1000XM5 lost its flagship status on 13 February 2026, when the WF-1000XM6 launched at $329.99 and pushed the older earbuds down to about $249.99. Apple’s Beats Studio Pro hasn’t been officially replaced, but the signs point the same direction: an FCC filing for a new model, listed as A3577, went public on 22 May 2026, and Amazon sold the Studio Pro for $169.95 on 5 August 2026 against Apple’s $349.99 list. One product is confirmed superseded and priced accordingly; the other is being cleared out ahead of an unconfirmed replacement. In-ear against over-ear again, with codecs and measured battery doing most of the deciding.
A Launched Successor Against an Unannounced One
The Sony side of this comparison is settled: the WF-1000XM6 exists, has a price, and the WF-1000XM5 is discounted because of it. The Beats side is inference, not confirmation. TechTimes reported the FCC filing for model A3577 going public on 22 May 2026, and Amazon’s $169.95 price on 5 August 2026 – roughly half of Apple’s $349.99 list – reads like clearance pricing ahead of a replacement. But Apple has not announced a new Studio Pro, and nothing in the public record specifies what one would change. A reader should treat the Beats discount as a strong signal, not a confirmed fact, and shop accordingly: the deal is real today, and the risk of a successor landing soon is real too.
One Codec List Is Documented; the Other Isn’t
The WF-1000XM5 supports SBC, AAC, LDAC, and LC3, and does not support aptX. That much is confirmed by Sony’s own specifications and SoundGuys’ testing. The Beats Studio Pro’s codec support is SBC and AAC only, with no LDAC and no aptX, per SoundGuys. Neither is generous by 2026 standards, but the Sony list is meaningfully longer, and LDAC in particular matters for an Android owner streaming higher-bitrate audio.
For an iPhone owner the difference narrows to almost nothing, since Apple devices use AAC regardless of what else a headphone supports. The gap is real specifically for Android listeners, and it is one of the few places where these two products can be compared on a like-for-like spec rather than on form factor.
Measured Battery: 9 Hours 32 Minutes Against 31 Hours 25 Minutes
SoundGuys measured the WF-1000XM5 at 9 hours and 32 minutes, beating Sony’s own 8-hour claim. The same outlet measured the Beats Studio Pro at 31 hours and 25 minutes, well past Apple’s rated 24 hours with ANC on and closer to Apple’s 40-hour ANC-off figure. The gap is mostly a function of size – an over-ear headset simply holds more battery than an earbud – but Apple’s charging speed is the more distinctive number here: a 10-minute charge is rated to add 4 hours of playback, a fast-charge feature the WF-1000XM5’s published specifications don’t include an equivalent for.
For a buyer who forgets to charge overnight, that fast-charge figure can matter more than the headline battery total: 10 minutes plugged in while getting ready in the morning covers most of a workday, a recovery the WF-1000XM5’s case-based topping-up doesn’t match at the same speed.
260 Grams Against Under 6 Grams a Bud
The Beats Studio Pro weighs 260 grams with ear cups measuring 59 by 40 millimetres – a full-size over-ear headset, and SoundGuys noted those cups are compact enough to press on larger ears over long sessions. The WF-1000XM5’s buds weigh about 5.9 grams each, with a charging case around 39 grams. As with any over-ear-versus-earbud comparison, this is less about which is better and more about which fits how the product gets used.
The 260-gram figure is also the more relevant one for anyone who already owns an over-ear pair and is deciding whether switching to earbuds is worth it. Going from a 260-gram headset to a pair of 5.9-gram buds changes how a workout, a run, or a long call at a desk actually feels, independent of anything either product’s drivers or noise cancelling contribute.
The Risk Sitting Inside That $169.95 Price
A discount this size – more than 51 percent off Apple’s $349.99 list – is unusual for a product with no official end-of-life announcement, which is exactly why the FCC filing matters as context rather than as a footnote. Buying the Studio Pro today at clearance pricing means accepting that a successor could be announced with little warning, the way Sony’s own WF-1000XM6 was: nothing about the WF-1000XM5’s retirement was signalled months in advance either, and then it happened on a single day in February. The Sony earbuds no longer carry that risk, because the event has already occurred and the price already reflects it.
None of this means the Studio Pro is a bad purchase at $169.95. It means the discount is doing two jobs at once – rewarding the buyer for taking on timing risk, and clearing inventory ahead of a launch Apple hasn’t confirmed – and a shopper should recognise both rather than reading the price purely as generosity.
How to Decide Between Them
- If a specific Android codec requirement matters, check it against the WF-1000XM5’s confirmed list – SBC, AAC, LDAC, LC3, no aptX – against the Studio Pro’s SBC and AAC only.
- If an over-ear fit and Apple’s fast-charge feature matter more than buying at the safest point in a product’s lifecycle, the Beats Studio Pro at $169.95 is a large discount, accepted alongside the real chance a successor arrives soon.
- If avoiding that risk matters more, the Sony WF-1000XM5 has already been through its supersession and is priced at about $249.99 with nothing pending – the safer of the two purchases, if not necessarily the better-suited one.
Sources: SoundGuys · SoundGuys · SoundGuys · Apple · TechTimes
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