SONY WF-1000XM3 True Wireless Earphones Deep Dive Teardown | Hifigo

In 2017, SONY  released its first TWS true wireless Bluetooth earphones WF-1000X, which is called “Noise Reduction Bean”. Although the first generation of "noise reduction beans" failed to become very popular like Sony headset (WH-1000XM3) and earphones (WI-1000X), Sony still tried much on TWS  such as WF-SP700N, WF-SP900, and other sports wireless earphones.

WH-1000XM3 is Sony's flagship noise-canceling headphones. The latest WF-1000XM3 follows this model number. It can be seen that Sony has high expectations for it. 

Since the first generation of "noise reduction beans" has been launched for the past 2 years, Sony is still quite dedicated to noise reduction technology of TWS earbuds. After several generations, WF1000XM3 are welcome worldwide. 

We are here to bring you a detailed disassembly and analysis report and let's check the technology Sony applied to WF-1000XM3. 

Unpack of Sony WF-1000XM3 

The box with familiar smell and characters of Sony.

SONY brand logo and Product model WF-1000XM3

Battery life, Bluetooth icon, and noise-canceling printed on the bottom. The top of the box is designed with hooks for easy display on the shelves of the offline store.


The back of the SONY Sony WF-1000XM3 box has a real shot. The product features are described in English and Chinese respectively. There is a built-in HD noise reduction processor QN1e, which supports HD Voice hands-free calling and comes with a USB Type-C cable.

10 minutes charging for 90 minutes playback.

6hours battery life under noise cancellation mode

The charging box can offer 24 hours more juice

 Supports NFC connection.

DSEE HX mentioned are a SONY digital sound enhancement engine that compensates for the loss of high-frequency signals and digital audio compression, deliver us high-quality sound close to Hi-Res.


Instruction is printed on the internal cardboard.


The earphones and the charging box lie quietly inside.


In addition, 6 sets of ear tips are included.


USB Type-C charging cable, from USB-A to USB-C, and the cable length is about 20cm. 

A separate blister package with 2 materials combinations, long blended silicone ear tips (XS, S, M, L x 2), three comfort ear-tips (S, M, Lx 2). 

Close-up of the front of the charging box, there is no SONY icon here.


The back of the charging box, and USB Type-C charging port. 

USB Type-C charging port. 


SONY logo is at the top of the charging box.

Charging the SONY Sony WF-1000XM3 with a mobile phone charger, Parameters are 5.019V, 0.337A, and 1.69W showed on Chargerlab POWER-Z portable current voltmeter.


Put the earbuds into the charging case, open the cover, and put the earbuds quietly inside.

The red decorative part here is a light guide column, which will be described in detail later.

The NFC logo indicates that the SONY Sony WF-1000XM3 supports NFC connection. 


Laser etching product information on the cover of the earphone charging box, such as WF-1000XM3 model, Sony, charging box, made in Malaysia, input 5V and other information.


Take the SONY Sony WF-1000XM3 to the dark, the working status of the indicator light is visible, and the earphones and the charging box are illuminating with slight orange light.

Remove earphones from the box, we can see  L and R ear tips with different colors, POP thimble, magnet. 


Three POP thimbles are used to charge the earbuds and communicate with earbuds.


The output of the charging box is 5V 120mA, which is used to supply power to the earphones. 


The two earphones are symmetrical and have an external touch area. The Sony WF-1000XM3 supports dual transmission and low latency. The latest Bluetooth chip transmits sound signals to the left and right earbuds driver simultaneously, reducing delays, providing a stable Bluetooth connection and a high-quality listening experience.

The WF-1000XM3 has been greatly optimized for the wearing experience, making it more comfortable and firmer to wear. You can choose the right earbuds from the four pairs of long-mixed silicone ear tips and three pairs of comfort ear tips that come with you to improve noise cancellation and wearing comfort.


The earphones have left and right logos, as well as bumps and colors, are there for distinguishing. A high-friction rubber surface keeps the noise-canceling earbuds snug and secures in your ear so they won’t slip out unexpectedly.


3 charging contacts.


The hole is a noise reduction microphone.  The right side is a touch button. Tap with your fingertips to switch songs, adjust noise reduction mode, answer or hang up.


Blue indicator light.


Below the black area is the location of the sensor. 


Dustproof


A pressure relief hole located at the root of the earphone conduit.


The front and back of the earphones are equipped with dual microphones to sensitively capture ambient noise in different frequency bands, such as aircraft noise, urban traffic noise, and office conversation. Dual feedback microphones, one is on the back of the earphones and another is near the ear tips.


Silicone earphone cover.

Teardown of Sony WF-1000XM3

Let's tear down the charging box first. 


The charging box is fixed by a combination of a buckle and a double-sided tape. The buckle is located on the upper edge of the charging box cover, and the double-sided tape is located at the bottom ends of the charging box. 

There is a rib on the plastic frame and a lithium battery on the bottom.


The indicator light guides run through the front and rear of the charging box.


Remove the motherboard and battery .


The inner frame of the charging box is composed of three parts.


Remove the cover, we can find the charging contact subplate and the positioning magnet at both ends.


Three-pin charging contact with positioning magnet close-up. The sub-plate and the magnet are fixed by screws through the structural frame.


 Gold-plated spring thimble with a protective component.


POP thimble close-up.


Hall chip for detecting the cover opening. 


Hall chip close-up.

Circuit board inside the charging box. The positive and negative cords of the lithium battery are directly soldered to the circuit board.  The USB Type-C connector is soldered of through-hole, which is secured and reliable. 

 Built-in 14500 lithium battery diameter of 14mm and length of 50mm in the charging box. The capacity is 700mAh/2.59Wh. 


The battery is coded and numbered C54837305571. 


The protection chip on the battery.  And chips are sealed.  


Fuse and overvoltage protection tube.



The chip with silkscreen CJZ is TI's TPS2553 for earphones charging current limit and short circuit protection.

TPS2553 details. 

The small chip is the Maxim MAX8696, which is used to boost the built-in battery to charge the earbuds. 

MAX8696 details

The MX77734 ultra-low-power power management chip.

MX77734 details.


Voltage stabilizer, powering the MCU.

Freescale chip for connection and charging box control, model MKL27Z64VFM4.


Freescale MKL27Z64VFM4 details.


The charging box was torn down. On a full charge, the headphones offer 6 hours of power and the handy charging case provides a further 3x charges to keep you going throughout the day. That’s up to 24 hours of noise-free listening. With noise-canceling off, it’s even longer – 8 hours of power on a full charge, with a further 3x charges from the charging case, for up to 32 hours of playtime.

Now let's disassemble the earbuds. 


The top cover of the earphone is fixed with a buckle.


Inside the cover of the earphone, the upper large circle is the touch position, and the black foam in the middle is the noise reduction microphone pickup hole. In the middle is a dust-proof sticker that corresponds to the noise-reduction microphone.


The Sony WF-1000XM3 uses a larger antenna, with a BlueTooth antenna around the black plastic frame. In the middle of earphones is a noise-reduction microphone, and outside of the black plastic is a metalized Bluetooth antenna, which can guarantee the signal quality effectively.  The placement of the headphones’ Bluetooth® antenna has been optimized to ensure wider coverage. This helps keep the signal strong for uninterrupted streaming.


A battery is fixed inside the antenna frame, and the metal piece extending from the side of the battery is a negative contact.


The two earphones are almost identical in layout and arranged symmetrically.

Noise reduction microphone close-up.


The battery inside the earphone looks like a button battery, but it is actually a rechargeable lithium battery.


Sony WF-1000XM3 earphones feature VARTA Valta CP1254 lithium battery, 3.7V 0.2Wh, the origin of Germany. Comparing with the coin, it is very small.

The circular gold contact in the center of the above image is the negative contact of the battery, in contact with the extended metal piece. Above the board are a battery protection chip, a Bluetooth receiver chip, and an indicator light.


The circular gold contact in the image is the positive contact of the battery and is in contact with the battery directly. 

Back of this board is the charging terminal.

The earphones main control circuit vs. coin of 1yuan. 


The internal structure and circuit after disassembly. 


Infrared distance sensor close-up.


earphones flexible circuit board close-up.


Earbuds and noise-canceling microphone. Sony WF-1000XM3 with optimized 6mm dynamic drivers deliver richer, clean sound with punchy bass and crystal-clear treble. 


The upper big chip is Sony's own HD noise reduction processor QN1e. The multi-talented HD Noise Cancelling Processor QN1e combines Digital Noise Cancelling, 24bit Audio Signal Processing, and a Digital-to-Analog converter with headphone amplifier. The result? Stunning sound with minimal distortion.

With the Sony Headphones Connect app, you can also manually adjust the noise reduction level (20 levels total) through the app for personalized noise reduction experience.


Close-up of the FPC base on the earphones.

The chip numbered D3781835 is SONY's own noise reduction chip.

310819078266C chip close-up.

 Chip with PK close-up.


E4MW chip close-up.


There are main control chip, memory, LED indicator, etc. on the earphone board.


Below the charging terminal is three metal domes corresponding to the upper terminals.

Battery protection chip.


Multicolor LED indicator close-up.


Q128FWY is a memory chip.


Close-up of components such as crystal oscillator on the motherboard.


Sony WF-1000XM3 adopts MTK (MT) platform solution. This chip is equipped with MCSync TWS dual-issue Bluetooth transmission mechanism, which supports the seamless connection experience of master-slave interchange, and supports Bluetooth 5.0, Ultra-low power and Google Bisto Voice Assistant.

It is reported that MT2811 is a high-performance chip in the series of the AB155x platform.

MTK MT6388P power management chip inside the shield  

The whole earphone is composed of dozens of components except components on the PCB circuit board. Thanks to the ingenious design of Sony engineers, each module is easy to buckle and assemble. After disassembling, we can restore them back to use without damage.

Teardown summary

Upscale digital music with DSEE HX
Digital Sound Enhancement Engine HX (DSEE HX™) upscales compressed digital music files, bringing them closer to the quality of High-Resolution Audio.

Superior listening with a new Bluetooth® chip
Rather than relying on sound from one ear to the other, the newly developed Bluetooth® chip transmits sound to the left and right ears simultaneously for an exceptional listening experience.

Ergonomic Tri-hold structure
The noise-canceling earbuds are ergonomically designed to make contact with three different points on your ear for a secure, comfortable fit.

Since the launch of the first generation of "noise reduction beans", two years have passed and the technology has improved much.  Such as chip process improvement, Bluetooth 5.0 popularization, dual microphone, etc., combined with SONY's unique noise reduction technology, software, and hardware, technology, and art, a new generation of "noise reduction beans" WF-1000XM3 are available now.

Until now, Sony noise-canceling headphone family has finally included the head-mounted, neck-mounted, and most difficult one TWS. Will Sony WF-1000XM3  become very popular like WH-1000XM3, WI-1000X? Let's wait and see.

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