Mpow X6 Truly Wireless  Headphones Review

The Mpow X6 have a somewhat premium look, mostly as a result of their dark color scheme, which is available in either dark blue or purple, and lighter contrast accents. However, their overall shape and size isn't entirely dissimilar to that of the Mpow X5 Truly Wireless.

The Mpow X6 are comfortable. They don't exert too much pressure on the inside of your ear canals and have a fairly shallow fit. Since their controls are touch-sensitive, making an input also doesn't force them any deeper into your ears. However, their selection of ear tip sizes is somewhat limited.

These in-ears have a good control scheme that works very similarly to that of the Mpow X5 Truly Wireless. A double-tap on either bud pauses and plays media. A single tap on the right earbud increases volume, a triple tap skips forward, and holding it for two-seconds turns on your phone's voice assistant. Four taps on the right bud turns on their low latency mode, which is meant to reduce their Bluetooth audio latency. You can decrease media volume with a single tap of the left bud, while a triple-tap skips your track backward, and a two-second hold cycles through the ANC on/talk-through/ANC off settings. Using single taps to adjust volume could be a little annoying, as stepping the volume up by multiple increments could be interpreted as a double or triple tap. It's also impossible to put these headphones into Bluetooth pairing mode without first disconnecting them manually from the last device they were paired to.

Like most truly wireless in-ears, the Mpow X6 are exceptionally breathable. They trap very little heat and allow your ears to breathe. You shouldn't sweat that much more than usual while wearing them or notice much of a temperature difference.

The Mpow X6 are exceptionally portable. They can be easily stored in your pocket or a bag, and their carrying case doesn't take up all that much room either.

The Mpow X6 have a good charging case. It's shorter in length than the TOZO NC9 Truly Wireless' case, though a little taller. Its lid is magnetized, allowing it to stay tightly shut, and it's made of fairly high-grade plastic. There are two LED lights on its front that provide a rough estimate of the remaining battery life.

The Mpow X6 are well-built. The buds are made of solid-feeling plastic and are rated IPX6 for water resistance, though we don't currently test for that. Their case also feels quite sturdy. However, their silicone ear tips feel as though they could tear fairly easily.

These in-ears have a stable fit. They should have no trouble staying in place while you're out and about or during light-intensity workouts, though vigorous head shakes could cause them to move around a bit.

• Mpow X6 in-ears
• Charging case
• 3x ear tips
• USB-A to USB-C charging cable
• Manuals

The Mpow X6 have a very bass-heavy sound profile. This may please some fans of genres like EDM or hip-hop, though others may perceive this exaggerated bass response as being very overwhelming, as it can slightly muddy and clutter vocals and lead instruments. Thankfully, their well-balanced treble range means that most mixes aren't too dark. Unfortunately, these in-ears lack any sort of sound customization features.

Like most in-ears, the Mpow X6 offer superb frequency response consistency. Once you achieve an airtight fit with the included ear tips, audio should be delivered consistently on separate re-seats.

The Mpow X6 have poor bass accuracy. It's heavily overemphasized across the range, resulting in excess rumble, punch, and boom. This may please some bass-hungry listeners, though others may perceive it as being overly boomy and muddy.

These headphones have excellent mid accuracy. While the overemphasized bass response does carry over into the low-mids, slightly muddying vocals and lead instruments, the rest of the range is quite well-balanced, yielding good clarity and detail. A slight dip in the mid-mids can nudge vocals and lead instruments to the back of the mix, but this shouldn't be too noticeable.

The Mpow X6 have very good treble accuracy. A small rise in the low-treble range can give a slightly harsh quality to some vocals and lead instruments, though this shouldn't be too noticeable overall.

The Mpow X6 have good peaks and dips performance. A dip in the mid-mids pushes vocals and lead instruments to the back of the mix while a sharp rise in the low-treble range can give them a somewhat harsh quality. A smaller dip in the mid-treble can dull sibilants, like S and T sounds, to a minor degree.

The Mpow X6 have excellent stereo imaging performance. Their weighted group delay falls entirely beneath the audibility threshold, resulting in a tight bass and transparent treble. The L/R drivers are also well-matched in regards to phase, amplitude, and frequency response, so objects like voices and footsteps should be accurately placed within the stereo image. That said, these results are only valid for our test unit, and your experience may vary in the real world.

The Mpow X6 have a terrible passive soundstage. This isn't uncommon for in-ear headphones that bypass any sort of interaction with the outer-ear, which is crucial in creating an out-of-head listening experience. Their closed-back enclosure also contributes to their closed-off soundstage, and sound is likely to be perceived as coming from inside your head rather than all around you.

These in-ears have good weighted harmonic distortion performance. Aside from a bit of distortion in the mid-treble range at moderate and high listening volumes, the rest of the frequency range falls within good limits, resulting in clean and pure audio reproduction.

These are the settings used to test the Mpow X6. Our results are only valid in this configuration.

The Mpow X6 do a poor job of filtering out ambient noise. Their ANC system isn't especially effective, and the headphones do a poor job of filtering out bass-range ambient noise, like the rumble of bus or plane engines, and aren't that much better when it comes to isolating you from background chatter. Thankfully, they block out a decent amount of high-pitched ambient noise.

Note: Our subjective assessment of the ANC system's performance is better than the results would indicate, though its overall performance doesn't seem especially impressive. In an attempt to achieve a more representative result, we turned the headphones on and off, re-seated them, restarted the test PC, re-paired them, and did a full factory reset, but none of these measures improved their performance in this respect. This issue may be unique to our unit. That said, if you do experience a similar issue, let us know in the discussions below.

The Mpow X6 have superb audio leakage performance. Even if you're in a fairly quiet environment, you should still be able to listen to your music at high volumes without worrying about annoying people nearby.

The integrated mic delivers okay recording quality. Recorded speech should sound natural and be mostly free of distortion, but also slightly thin and muffled.

The integrated mic does a middling job of isolating speech from ambient noise. Those on the other end of a phone call may have a hard time understanding you if you call from a noisy or crowded environment.

These headphones have disappointing battery performance. Their continuous battery life of under four hours with ANC turned on is far less the seven-hour-plus continuous runtime offered by the Mpow X5 Truly Wireless. That said, power consumption can vary drastically depending on your usage habits, and these in-ears get very close to the advertised battery life of four hours. Their case supplies roughly four extra charges, which is handy, and you can listen to audio from one bud while the other recharges in its cradle. Unfortunately, they don't have any power-saving measures like a standby mode or an auto-off timer.

Update 02/16/2022: These headphones were updated to Test Bench 1.5 and their latency values have changed. The previous Test Bench 1.4 measurements reported the gaming latency on PCs at 152 ms, 103 ms on iOS, and 83 ms on Android. However, the new test bench uses an average of three measurements instead of one. When using the 'Gaming Mode', there's 268 ms of latency on PC, 147 ms on iOS, and 208 ms on Android. As a result, the text has been updated to better reflect test bench 1.5 measurements.

The Mpow X6 have decent Bluetooth connectivity. They support Bluetooth 5.1 but no NFC or multi-device pairing, so you can't stream audio off your phone while staying connected to your computer. Their latency on PCs is quite high, which could be somewhat disruptive while streaming video, though they perform better on mobile iOS and Android devices. That said, although they have a 'Gaming Mode' which can help reduce audio lag, their latency is still fairly high at 268 ms on PC, 147 ms on iOS, and 208 ms on Android. That said, different apps and devices compensate to varying degrees for latency, so your user experience may differ in the real world.

The Mpow X6 don't support any wired connections. They come with a USB-A to USB-C cable for charging their case.

These in-ears come with a charging case that supplies roughly four additional charges. It can be recharged wirelessly or via USB-C.