Is the Sony WF-1000XM6 worth the upgrade from the Anker Soundcore Liberty 3 Pro?

Verdict

Clear upgrade

Going from the Anker Soundcore Liberty 3 Pro to the Sony WF-1000XM6 buys you 18.0 points of HearWiki score - a clear step up that reviewers agree on rather than a marketing refresh. The gains are concentrated in noise cancelling (7.0 to 9.0), sound (8.0 to 9.0) and battery (7.0 to 8.0). You do give up ground on value (8.0 to 7.0). On paper: battery life 8 h to 12 h, weight 12 g to 6.4 g and battery life (anc on) 6 h to 8 h. Worth checking: codecs goes SBC, AAC, LDAC to LDAC and driver size goes 10.6 mm to 8.4 mm. One caution: this steps down a line tier (Soundcore Liberty 3 Pro to WF-1000XM6), and base models usually trade away tier features - check the codec and ANC rows above before trusting the score gap alone. That costs $128 more, or about $7 per point of score - reasonable value for the jump. If your current pair is worn out or the gains line up with how you listen, this one is worth the money.