Stop the presses and hold onto your wallets, everyone. Sony has finally done it. They’ve slashed the price of the WF-1000XM6 earbuds by a staggering, life-changing, economy-shifting… nine percent. If you were waiting for the heavens to part before dropping three hundred dollars on plastic beans for your ears, Amazon and Best Buy have heard your cries and lowered the price from $329 to $298. I hope you have a plan for that extra $31; maybe you can use it to buy a single month’s subscription to all the high-res streaming services you’ll need to actually hear the difference these things claim to make.

The tech world is currently tripping over itself to call these the “best noise-canceling wireless earbuds you can buy.” It’s a bold claim, primarily because “best” is tech-journalist shorthand for “the manufacturer sent us a review unit and we like the matte finish.” While the XM6 supposedly outperforms the Bose QuietComfort Ultra and AirPods Pro in silencing nearby conversations, let’s be real: if you’re spending $300 just to avoid hearing your coworkers talk about their weekend, the problem isn’t your hardware—it’s your LinkedIn profile.

Sony’s big innovation this year, aside from the “richer bass” (which is corporate speak for “we boosted the low end because we know you like shaking your brain loose”), is a new listening mode that mimics the background music of a cafe. Truly, we are living in the future. Sony has engineered a high-end device meant to block out the world, only to include a software feature that artificially adds the world back in. Why go to a local coffee shop and support a small business when you can sit in your dark room and pay $298 to pretend you’re at a Starbucks? It’s the ultimate feature for people who want the aesthetic of productivity without the pesky requirement of actually leaving the house.

Then there’s the hardware itself. Sony is still clinging to those polyurethane foam ear tips like a toddler with a security blanket. They claim these foam tips are the secret sauce for superior noise isolation, yet even their own reviewers admit to struggling with the fit. Nothing says “premium experience” like spending ten minutes kneading a piece of foam like sourdough bread just to shove it into your ear canal and hope it doesn’t pop out like a champagne cork. Sony is so confident you’ll hate them that they’re offering to send you silicone tips for free. It’s a classic move: “Here is our revolutionary technology! Also, if it hurts or sounds like garbage, here is the basic stuff everyone else uses for free.”

Let’s talk about the LDAC codec, the holy grail for audiophiles who insist they can hear the difference between 900kbps and 320kbps while standing on a noisy subway platform. LDAC is great—if you have an Android phone and a library of FLAC files. If you’re an iPhone user, congratulations: you’re paying the Sony Tax to listen to the same AAC files your $129 AirPods can handle. But hey, at least you’ll have that “richer bass” to distract you from the fact that your ears are currently sweating inside a proprietary foam seal.

The WF-1000XM6 is undoubtedly a feat of engineering, but let’s stop pretending a $31 discount is a “deal.” It’s a rounding error. If you really wanted the best value in audio, you’d probably buy the previous-gen XM5s, which are currently sitting at $248 and offer 95% of the same performance. But then again, the XM5s don’t have “Cafe Mode,” and how can you possibly focus on your spreadsheets without the simulated sound of a barista screaming “Oat Milk Latte for Kevin” in your left ear?

Buy them if you must, but don’t pretend you’re doing it for the “savings.” You’re doing it because you want the newest shiny object on the market, even if that object is just a slightly more expensive version of the one you already have, now with more foam and the artificial ambiance of a Brooklyn bistro.