Sometimes it feels like Sony are a victim of their own success. It’s been four years since they released the WH-CH510, the older version of this headphone, and that’s largely because the CH510 could still compete with, and even beat, a lot of headphones in the sub £50 price category. But Sony has made so many advancements in wearable audio tech over the years that the time has come to raise the bar again in the affordable on ear category.
The competition here is fierce, and if you search for budget headphones under £50 on Amazon right now, the options feel endless. Few of them, though, are quite as fierce as the Sony WH-CH520. Stick around and it’ll become clear why. Right now these are available in cream, black, blue, and white.
Design Quality
There’s some nice, obvious but subtle Sony branding across the headband, just to make sure you know it’s a Sony. The materials used are largely plastic with a matte finish, which keeps the CH520 incredibly lightweight at just 144 grams.
They look and feel surprisingly premium for the price, and Sony has upgraded the padding on both the headband and ear cups, making these genuinely light and comfortable to wear. Comfort and weight are two of the most important requirements for a good pair of headphones, and Sony has really nailed both here.
One design touch that stands out is the ability to wear these around your neck and twist them outward when you’re not actively listening on your ears. This lets you keep music or a podcast playing and still hear it without having the cups directly over your ears, a genuinely useful bit of flexibility.
When you are wearing them properly, the grip is firm, making them a solid choice for running, general gym use, and even more physical activities like trampolining. The tension on the headband feels just right too, staying secure even lying back, without ever feeling like they’ll slip off.
Overall, the look and feel is very much like a miniaturized version of Sony’s WF 1000XM5, currently the brand’s ANC flagship, though you could buy roughly seven pairs of the CH520 for the price of a single pair of those. Not a suggestion, just a fact worth knowing.
Controls
The CH520 uses clicky physical buttons for volume up and down, which double as skip forward and skip back when held. There’s a raised button in the middle for play and pause, which also handles two extra functions, a quick tap to answer or end calls, and a double tap to wake your device’s default AI assistant. Two important things worth knowing here too, there’s no 3.5mm audio jack, and the USB C port cannot be used to connect to a device for wired listening.
There’s an LED indicator that blinks while pairing, shows remaining battery, and lights up while charging. Behind the ear cup hangers, there are also small air vents designed to let the drivers move air more freely, which may help keep your ears cooler during longer listening sessions. For calls, there’s a single forward facing beamforming microphone on the right ear cup.
Voice Call Quality
Testing covered mic quality in a quiet room first, followed by loud background noise, and then wind blowing directly into the microphone at varying intensities. Across all of these conditions, voice pickup remained clear and easy to understand, holding up impressively well even as the noise and wind levels increased.
The Sony Headphones App
This is really where the CH520 pulls ahead of the competition. The software features on offer here are better than many headphones priced more than double. On first pairing through the Sony Headphones app, you’re prompted to take photos of your ears, allowing the app to calibrate EQ specifically for 360 Reality Audio, a format that’s likely to become far more common in music going forward.
The CH520 also benefits from Sony’s Digital Sound Enhancement Engine. In simple terms, this works a bit like blowing the dust off an old vinyl record, enhancing more compressed audio files so even older recordings, made when technology wasn’t as advanced, sound noticeably better than they would on other headphones at this price.
Another standout upgrade, and again something usually reserved for pricier headphones, is multi point pairing thanks to Bluetooth 5.2. This allows the CH520 to connect simultaneously to a phone and a computer, useful for getting work done or jumping into a gaming session, while still switching automatically if a call comes through on your phone.
Battery Life
Battery life is where the CH520 really shows its strength, rated for up to 50 hours of playback at 60 percent volume. Testing at a more realistic maximum comfortable listening level of around 70 percent volume still returned roughly 45 hours, which is plenty for most people. Charging is handled via USB C, with just three minutes of charge providing around one and a half hours of playback.
Sound Quality
Due to the compact size of the CH520, the drivers are proportionately smaller too, at 30mm, delivering a frequency response range of 20Hz to 20kHz. Supported codecs are SBC and AAC, with no LDAC on offer. Sound quality is always somewhat subjective, but based on extensive headphone testing experience, the flat, out of the box profile here is worth breaking down properly.
By default, bass output is nice, bouncy, and full, and it’s genuinely one of the stronger attributes of these headphones straight out of the box. Vocal clarity is respectable across both male and female vocals. If there’s one area that could use a slight lift, it’s the mid range. What makes the CH520 genuinely impressive at this price point, though, is just how adjustable all of these attributes are, letting you shape the sound to match your own listening style.
The Equalizer
Inside the Sony Headphones app, there are a number of strong preset EQ modes. Two standouts are Bright and Excited. Bright suits rock, indie, and older styles of music particularly well, while Excited leans better toward hip hop tracks.
For anyone wanting to go a step further, a custom EQ setting has also been dialed in specifically for hip hop and bass heavy tracks, and it genuinely brings that extra low end punch those genres call for.
Final Thoughts
If there’s one small gripe, it’s the name. Something a little more memorable would go a long way, perhaps even a cool sounding Japanese word. In a price category this competitive for on ear headphones, there’s a huge amount of choice, and plenty of brands are doing an excellent job at marketing. Very few of them, though, carry the audio expertise and heritage that Sony brings to the table.
For anyone looking to make a genuinely good sound investment at this price point, the WH-CH520 from Sony is unlikely to disappoint. There are four clear reasons these sit firmly ahead of most of the competition. First is Sony’s build quality. Second is the more than 40 years of audio expertise clearly dialed into the sound signature. Third is Sony’s headphone software, which is genuinely unrivaled at this price. And fourth is that seriously impressive 50 hour battery life.
For anyone shopping under £50 for a comfortable, feature packed, long lasting pair of on ear headphones, the Sony WH-CH520 is very much worth a place on the shortlist.
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