You’ve heard that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but with the BT-600ANC, Monoprice may just have looked at Sony’s WH-1000XM4’s, taken them out for dinner, had a shotgun wedding, and eloped to another country. Still, if you’re going to model your headphones on another design, it makes sense to emulate one of the best on the market. The real feat here though is that they’ve emulated its feature set, comfort, and audio quality, and while there’s still a difference between the two, Monoprice have managed to turn in an outstanding pair of noise-cancelling headphones for less than $100.
The BT-600ANC comes in a rectangular hard case, and while Sony and Bose have decided to go in another direction with the Bose 700 and the WH-1000XM5, these neatly fold up into a smaller space, making them just that little bit more portable. This is a good thing.
Taking them out, it’s clear to see that visual influence from the WH-1000XM3 and XM4, with the same tapered earpieces and flat exterior surface. Just as with Sony’s offering, this plays host to a touch-sensitive control panel for interacting with your music or movies, though rather than being smooth it’s coated with a leatherette-like texture which I’m not wholly convinced by. That said, it’s difficult to see any difference unless you’re a few inches away from it, so visually it doesn’t cause any issues.
The right earpiece plays host to the main controls, and it’s here that the budget constraints of the BT-600ANC are most obvious. A large, raised ridge features the power button, Bluetooth pairing and ANC toggles, and while it’s easy enough to find in the heat of the moment it really does feel cheap in comparison with the rest of the unit.
You’ve also got the touch panel on the outside of the earcup, and here you can change the volume, skip tracks, use your device’s voice assistant or mute your audio. It’s fairly responsive and does what you need it to do most of the time – though it can be confused by the muting motion of putting your whole hand over the panel. Overall, I found I had to be slightly more definite than the WH-1000XM4s expect of you.
There’s a very clear annoyance that lives on the right earcup though, and it’s the blinking LED that notifies you of the BT-600ANC’s Bluetooth status. I totally accept that headsets need this kind of thing to indicate pairing, and connection status, but Monoprice have opted to have a bright blue blinking light that fires every five seconds, and if you remotely listen to audio in the dark, whether at home or perhaps on a long-haul flight, it might well start to drive you, and those around you, mad. It’s not an issue during the day, but it’s an annoying oversight, with no way to turn it off other than to colour the LED in or cover it over.
The build quality overall though is very good, with the largely plastic build helping to keep the weight down to 283g. While it’s 29g more than the XM4s, the difference isn’t noticeable across many hours of wear. That’s likely due to the good work Monoprice have done with the BT-600ANC’s cushioning, and the earpieces in particular are amongst the softest you’ll come across, with leatherette-covered memory foam gently cupping your ear while you listen to something far more abrasive.
Nearly everything I listen to is abrasive, but no matter where your tastes lie the BT-600ANC does a great job of delivering audio to you via its custom 40mm drivers. Now, the audio cannot match the top-tier Sony or Bose headsets of the last few years, but this is a headset that costs less than a third of the price. What you hear certainly isn’t representative of that, and whether you’re listening to music, playing games or watching movies, the BT-600ANC is an enjoyable and well-rounded headset. It misses out on some of the mid-note definition and lacks the high-end sparkle that premium headsets often boast, but for many people this will be an exceptionally useable headset at a great price.
As the name indicates you’re also getting ANC, or Active Noise Cancelling. This helps to block out the outside world through a clever process that ‘listens’ to ambient sound via a number of in-built microphones and aims to block it out or reduce its potency by delivering a relative frequency to the listener.
The BT-600ANC offers a surprisingly competent version of this tech, managing to consistently reduce external sound and noises both at home and while travelling, doing a particularly good job with the low rumble of a train, and the tapping of my Macbook keyboard as I type this. While cheaper headsets often lose out on ANC, this is one of the greatest strengths here, making the BT-600ANC perfect for commuters or those that work in noisier environments.
Alongside the Bluetooth 5.0 connection, you can also use a 3.5mm cable for connecting to all those things that still have headphone sockets, like phones that are good and video game consoles. There are some caveats to that, and the first of these is that the BT-600ANC automatically powers down when wired which means you can’t use ANC when they’re plugged in. That’s a major disappointment, particularly for air travel, and if you do a lot of long-distance flying you’ll be better served by the Cleer Enduro ANC. The other thing to consider is that there’s no microphone post on the 3.5mm connector, so you can only listen to audio, not indulge in a spot of chat, further limiting their wired use case.
The Cleer Enduro ANC is one of the main rivals for the BT-600ANC, boasting more premium looks and a wired ANC mode, though at $30 more it’s less budget-friendly. Otherwise, you might consider looking for a second-hand set of Sony’s older WH-1000XM3s which offer a better listening experience, but whose 30-hour battery life doesn’t match up to the BT-600ANC’s 40 hours of life.
