If you’ve been waiting for a pair of affordable, bass-forward true wireless earphones, Sony's WF-XB700 ($129.99) might be just what you've held out for. Keep in mind the XB stands for extra bass, and these in-ears certainly dial things up in that department—if it's sonic accuracy you're after, you're not going to find it here. But with a super-secure fit and a water-resistant design, the WF-XB700 earphones hold plenty of appeal for active bass lovers on a budget.

Design

Available in black or blue models, the WF-XB700 earpieces have a somewhat nondescript, eggshell-like finish on their outer panels. The included oval charging case is a bit larger than most, but the earpieces are also on the bigger end of the spectrum.

The earphones ship with four pairs of silicone eartips in various sizes. The in-ear fit is quite secure, and feels lightweight despite the somewhat bulky build. In fact, the larger footprint for the outer earpieces might actually be part of what helps them stay in place. Internally, 12mm Neodymium drivers deliver a frequency range of 20Hz to 20kHz.

An IPX4 rating means the earphones can withstand light splashes and should be fine to wear at the gym or in light rain, but it would be unwise to submerge the earpieces or expose them to anything more than light pressure from a faucet. And keep in mind the charging case isn't water resistant, only the earpieces are.

In addition to status LEDs, each earpiece has a single multi-function button on the lower outer panel. Depending on the ear, you can use the button to control playback and track navigation (when tapped multiple times), summon your phone's voice assistant (when held down), handle call management, and control power and Bluetooth pairing.

The flip-top case has a status LED on the inside, and a port for the included USB-C charging cable on the back panel.

The earphones are compatible with Bluetooth 5.0, and support AAC and SBC Bluetooth codecs, but not AptX. There's no app, so there's no way to adjust EQ and dial back the bass depth. In this price range, the lack of an app isn’t shocking, but it would have been nice to see support for Sony’s popular Headphone Connect app.

Sony estimates battery life to be roughly nine hours, with another nine hours in the charging case, for a total of 18. If this looks different from other battery life specs in the true wireless realm, you’re not wrong—most have a lower estimated charge in the earpieces (say, six hours), and claim to hold two or more full charges in the case. Regardless, your results will vary with your volume levels.

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Performance

On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the earphones deliver powerful low-frequency response. As you might expect, it is quite exaggerated, and while it doesn’t overtake the balance of the mix completely, this is a bass-forward, seriously deep sound.

Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the WF-XB700’s general sound signature. The bass is boosted enough that we hear things we might not normally—the plosive “p” in “people” in the song's opening line packs some serious bass punch that shouldn’t really be there. The drums on this track sound thunderous to an unnatural degree. Bass lovers might revel in this, but it’s a seriously dialed-up sound. When the bass is this pumped, Sony has no choice but to pump up other frequency ranges as well, so the high-mids and highs are exaggerated enough that acoustic strums remain crisp and bright, but nothing can compete with the earth-shaking thump of the drums.

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On Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum loop receives enough high-mid presence for its attack to retain most of its punchiness, but the boosting in the lows really brings out more of the sustain’s thump. The vinyl crackle and hiss that’s usually relegated to background status moves forward a bit—another sign of high-frequency boosting—but again, nothing can outdo the bass on these tracks. The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with club-like throttle. The vocals on this track get solid-enough clarity through the WF-XB700’s drivers, but they often seem to be taking a backseat to the powerful bass of the drum loop and synth hits.

Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, get too much bass boosting to sound natural. The lows are pushed far too forward in the mix—but again, that’s the selling point here. Sony isn’t lying when it describes these in-ears as having extra bass.

The WF-XB700’s mic offers average intelligibility. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 8, we could understand every word we recorded, but the signal was a little faint, and there was some typical Bluetooth distortion fuzzing up the edges.

Conclusions

For the price, Sony's WF-XB700 in-ears are a solid buy if your priorities include big bass, a secure fit, and a modest degree of water resistance. If you’re seeking anything close to accurate audio performance, however, this isn't the pair for you. Ultimately, the $180 Jaybird Vista and the $150 JBL UA True Wireless Flash deliver more accurate audio in more gym-friendly designs, but both are more expensive. If you're looking to spend less, the Anker Soundcore Liberty Air earphones sound great for $80, but they aren't well-suited for use at the gym. That leaves a place in the market for the WF-XB700, which might just be the right pair for you.