Отзывы о Наушники Sony WH-1000XM4

These headphones are the most expensive cans I’ve ever bought, and I’ve bought plenty in my time !
Have you got a spare bit of cash for a pair of headphones ?......BUY THEM ! Don’t let the cost put you off.
Unbelievable. The sound quality is awesome. I was worried the full volume wouldn’t be adequate as I found with a pair of expensive Beats wireless ones I once owned. Sometimes you need a bit of power when you’re a metal guy like me....No probs, had to turn them down !
Noise cancellation is awesome, I can’t hear Coronation Street now when I’ve got them on which is worth £350 quid of anyone’s
money !
Comfortable & light, extensive use isn’t an issue, the deep bass which is missing off a lot of cans is there in abundance, and anyway you can alter to suit your taste
Battery life speaks for itself is a no brainier. 30 hrs is ridiculous but a fact

Pro’s.....The whole package. Get them !
Con’s... None

In my opinion this is the best pair of cordless headphones I’ve ever used. They won’t cheap, but the sound quality is very good. I’ve only given it for, as you have to play around with the graphic equaliser settings either on the device you’re listening on, or on the headphones app, to get it right. Anyway that having been done things are a pleasure. Great comfort! I can comfortably listen to these for for five or six hours at a time, on the rare occasions I have the time to do so! The noise cancelling even cuts out the wife’s nagging, so what could be better! The battery life is probably around 25 hours, with noise cancelling on.

Be aware that the USB cable that is shipped with ease is about a foot long, so he’s pretty much useless! These are USPC, so you might be as well investing in a longer cable when you buy them. They come very well packaged, die haven’t decided to keep the storage box.

These are best suited for home use, as they are quite big and quite heavy. Yes they fold up, but at the best part of 400 quid, not sure I’ll be taking on the train any time soon. If you want to be able to enjoy music without being hassled, have a good excuse to ignore your Mrs, and have a few hundred quid to buy yourself something that is a pure luxury, these are for you. I used to own a pair of Sennheiser HD 650s, which were the best pair of corded headphones I’ve ever heard. These come very very close to those.

NOTE: I've been a big fan of Sony headphones since I bought the MDR 1-As in 2013, then the WH1000XM2s in 2017.

These headphones are the best I've ever owned.

They have an insanely long battery life compared to just about everything I own, they sound amazing to most people (by that I mean that they have a slight emphasis on bass, but that doesn't make it sound muddy at all; the drivers do a good job of giving a lot of room to the mid and treble), and best of all, they are insanely long lasting and durable AF.

I initially bought my first pair on launch in 2020; and they've been in heavy use ever since. Around late 2021, I noticed a small popping sound in my right earcup; after telling Amazon support, they offered a full replacement (out of warranty), something which surprised me a lot, but they were very easy to work with and gave me an entirely new pair, that has also been in heavy use since then.

You already know about this pair if you've done any research anyhow: their noise cancelling is second to only the XM5s, but in my opinion, I don't quite like how the XM5s don't fold, which is why I prefer this pair. Obviously there are better headphones that are more audiophile grade with flatter sound, but if you have an LDAC phone and want to listen music wirelessly, these beat out the competition by miles. Even when plugged into a desktop, these are great, and they sound even better when you turn them on and plug them in (though I don't, they sound just a bit worse when not turned on and plugged in, and it means that it's not using its battery).

All in all, you can't really go wrong with these, especially if you have LDAC devices.

I've owned my Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones for over a year now. The sound is very good, as described in many other reviews - although I have not owned other headphones in this price range, so cannot compare these against competitor models. They're comfortable to wear for extended periods. Great battery life.

Why only 3 stars?

-The noise cancelling is very good when background noises are reasonably constant, but totally ruins phone calls when I'm doing anything like chopping vegetables or washing dishes. Anything where the background sounds are intermittent, the noise cancelling is actually worse than nothing: the sound of the person I'm speaking with cuts in and out, making it very difficult to follow anything they're saying. Doing chores at home while having a phone call is not an edge case, but the noise cancelling cannot handle these situations.

-Some of the other features don't work consistently. For example, when you take the headphones off, music is supposed to pause automatically. This often doesn't work. I suspect even a tiny bit of condensation blocks the sensor. I'm not talking about wearing these while running and getting all sweaty: more like strolling down the street in mild, dry weather.

-These headphones are warm because of the way they envelop your ears, so not that great in summer. They have no waterproofing whatsoever, so not great in the rain. Try wearing them under a hood and the hood rubbing against the headphones will cause tracks to skip forwards and backwards, volume to change, etc.

-The supplied charging cable is only 4 or 6 inches long. This means it fits very easily in the case, but it's often pretty annoying to charge these headphones. You need a plug socket on the ground (which most are not) and you need to leave your headphones lying on the floor waiting to get stood on. Or you have to buy your own charging cable. These are £250 headphones and something as simple as charging them becomes a frustrating experience.

TLDR: they sound great but features regularly malfunction in various common use cases and they're not great in hot or rainy weather, and Sony have intentionally supplied a very user-unfriendly charging cable. Were they worth £250? I'm not so sure.

The noise cancellation is incredible, sound quality is top tier, and I use them all day and only charge every 2 days. I feel minimal discomfort wearing them for long periods of time. You can't use them wirelessly whilst they charge, but that's hardly an issue as they charge extremely fast. If you want to use them for gaming, you will find that the audio quality is quite poor when it's also trying to use it's inbuilt microphone, but this is a Bluetooth issue, rather than an issue with these headphones.

I love these headphones. I spent around an hour in John Lewis trying all of the ones around this mark, these, the xm5s, bose 700s, bose 30s, marshal, Senheisser (forgive spelling) etc. These were way better than all of them but it is a taste thing I guess. I was going to go for the XM5s but didn't like the look nor feel. The XM5 pads seem too soft and whilst comfortable, it was a guess as to how long they would remain effective, also the XM4s have a more compact case and feel more premium.

Love em.

I was rooting for these to be good after reading all the positive reviews. I was hoping that through the headphone market this was Sony's glorious return to blazing trails in the portable audio space once again.

Initially everything was great, sitting listening to audio in my new pair of cutting edge Sony cans. Pairing was seamless and quick, assistant notifications through the studio handy and music/ call clarity great. The only slight annoyance was not really being able to hear my own voice during a call, so had no idea if I was speaking to load or quiet outwith some guesswork based loosely around the other callers interactions.

Battery life seemed good and at this point most use was indoors, with my device nearby to control the audio. Finally it was time to download a podcast and venture out for a stroll rocking my new headphones. Setting off the first thing I noticed was I could hear the audio crystal clear and in the background little else but the woosh of cars going by. I wondered how it would detect traffic and as my first pair of "top of the range" noise cancelling headphones was really surprised how clever and good job it was doing.

Walking on, I was almost perfect silence apart from the cars going by and the podcast.... then "CREAK"... from my left ear cup. I ignored, putting it down to a once off and continued walking. But it wasn't a once off "CREEEAAK".. oh that's annoying, I'll reposition the band a bit.... walking on... CREAK, CREAAK!! Oh FFS ... where's the pause/ stop on this thing? There I was tapping and sliding my finger all over the ear cup touch sensitive controls to no avail before finally submitting and pulling my phone out and pressing "STOP".

Taking off the headphones, I thought... l'll adjust the band length slightly maybe that will work. It was cold out, so the phone was back in the pocket at this point so again I ventured in to waltzing and tapping my fingers over the ear cup to find play and increase the volume only to be met with spontaneous and sporadic medley chaotic audio control.... I finally succumbed and out came the phone again... "PLAY".

About 6 steps later, you guessed it... "CREEAAKKKKK". Agggghhhhhh... off they came again.... "But you are £250 quid headphones" I'm shouting at them in the middle of street like a looney. "Noise cancelling? More like Noise Making!" I'm continuing to curse. ""Only music, nothing else" Sony say in their ads... more like Only music, nothing else... apart from the sound of a plastic creaking headband" I'm rambling on.

Then I get a grip if myself, realising in the grand scale of life how silly it is to get annoyed over a creaking plastic headband.. but I'm still kind of annoyed.

I Google "wh-1000xm4 creaking" then I'm like "wow, this is actually a thing?".

It's a shame, Sony have made a lot of decent products but often seem to fall at the final hurdle. These would have been great but just let down by poor controls and an lack of quality control, which at this price point isn't really acceptable/ forgivable and back to Amazon they go.

If you’ve heard about this before and wondering if its worth it, it’s absolutely is. Sound quality is amazing, noise cancelling is on whole another level. Comfort wise its great. The battery is also good. I love the touch control system on the right pad. Everything is seamless except you have to be careful with it to not get any scratches or marks on it.

First of all, the presentation when delivered is exceptional. The headphones come in a lovely, solid case with minimal branding except the Sony zip featuring the copper-like colour which is also features on the headphones themselves. Inside the case is a small instruction sheet on how to use the headphone controls alongside an airplane adaptor, a cable for physical connections and a charging CABLE. I decided to purchase the black colour and, truthfully, when I picked up the headphones, they really did look the part. They’re very comfortable and feel extremely high-quality.

Setting up the headphones via the app was seamless, not to mention the numerous features that the app offers that leave you spoilt for choice regarding personalising settings and sound. The app features an equaliser to adapt the sound to the specific type of music you’re listening to, and this works brilliantly, with presets like “bright”, “mellow” and “bass booster”. You also have the opportunity to create your own custom equaliser settings too. Other flagship features of the app also include adaptive sound control, DSEE Extreme and the opportunity to change the function of the custom button to suit your needs, i.e. personal assistant or turning off ambient sound control (noise cancelling.) Something that I found very interesting was the “Speak-to-Chat” function which momentarily lets the outside world’s sounds in upon detecting your voice. However, this I decided to disable - with singing along with the music being a guilty pleasure of mine.

Using the headphones themselves is fantastic, and this brings me on to the controls that they offer. Examples are swiping up on the right ear cup to increase the volume or holding your hand on the right ear cup to momentarily let in ambient sound. I expected a few hiccups with the controls, and thought they’d be very temperamental. However I was wrong, they are very efficient and are a pleasure to use. This was a huge relief and a surprise, to be brutally honest, for me personally.

The noise cancelling is second to none. No other words. It is exactly as described. Traffic noise becomes non existent and I feel totally immersed in my music. This is the reason why I decided to purchase these headphones. They offer total immersion into your music, using this noise cancellation, that other headphones don’t. The immersive experience is why I always go for these types of headphones and not others out of personal preference.

The sound quality is nothing but a sheer compliment to the noise cancellation, it’s phenomenal. I can hear all the details in the music I listen to, and with my eclectic taste in music, they thrive with all genres, I find.

The 30-hour battery life, I find, is not the case for these headphones and an overestimation. Why this is the case I’m not sure - some day it’s having DSEE enabled, others say it’s the noise cancellation, and then others say it is the speak-to-chat function. With noise cancellation and DSEE enabled, I only managed to get about 15 hours of playback from the headphones - 20 at MOST. This is slightly disappointing, of course, as I’m sure these 2 very strong features are the reasons people buy these headphones instead of other products. One would assume you can use these features without compromising the battery life to an extent that is - in my opinion - quite significant. I have had to come back to this review and amend it as I feel it is grossly inaccurate to assert that these headphones can last up to 30 hours - when in my experience this is only achieved when abandoning the use of the features that make these headphones so expensive and advanced. So personally, I feel that not using the unique features of the Sony XM4s is defeating the object of the device itself. So please, don’t expect these to last 30 hours most of the time! However if you’d want to listen to these headphones with a cable in all of the time, no noise cancellation, no DSEE, no adaptive sound control, a lower-end volume and no speak-to-chat function, then go ahead - and you’ll get your 30 hours...

I personally don’t experience any discomfort after wearing these headphones for a while. I find them extremely comfortable and can wear them for very long periods of time. Regarding wearing the headphones, they can be adjusted to fit different sized heads (big or small).

I really cannot fault the headphones at all. I’m planning on using them for the next few years to come, and so far I can’t see me having any troubles along the way. I use them more in a formal sense (studying, relaxing) instead of exercise as they don’t offer any form of water resistance, and judging by my last pair of Bose QC35s that didn’t take well to humidity, these may not either. And after spending over £300 I won’t be taking the risk, either! For people who love music and enjoy it, these can become your pride and joy - they certainly have for me. Although they come at a high cost, through using the headphones for the past few days I can see the reasons why: particularly the noise cancelling, audio quality and battery life, which I believe are superior to many other headphones on the market. The only feature I would say is lacking with these headphones is microphone quality when making phone calls. They let in a lot of background noise and may not be very useful when used for softwares like Zoom. This is the only thing I can specifically point out that needs improving.

I don’t regret buying the headphones. I’m very much looking forward to using them in the years ahead and feel that they’re the best wireless headphones on the market currently. With exceptional noise cancellation, what more could you ask for? Like a lot of people, I was sceptical about paying a price such as this for merely headphones but they are a lot better than I thought they would be.

I've been using the original 1000X for about 5 years and they're still working fine. Wanted an upgrade primarily for the multi point bluetooth connection. The sound quality is amazing, as always, making listening to any type of music a joy. The controls are intuitive and work perfectly. The only thing that is not great is the microphone. It picks up background noise quite a lot, making phone calls in public spaces a bit interesting, which has been a problem in the original 1000x too. That being said, i still love it and wouldn't choose another headset for any reason.

Been using these all day everything on them is perfect save for this one little nitpick the case that stores them is very tight the headphones only fit in the case when the extendable arms are completely collapsed meaning you have to dial in your fit every time you take them out the case apart from that literally perfect

Good build quality and decent ANC for commuting on train journeys.
Very happy with quality of calls when walking outside in noisy environment. No complaints either side.

Only 2 let downs for me. Firstly the touch controls on the headphones can be hit/miss sometimes.
Secondly they might be 5* music sound quality to many but I don’t find them musically engaging. This is probably because I’m used to wearing high end wired headphones and no Bluetooth headphones is going to match those due to limitation of technology. Having said that my far cheaper Q30’s are more engaging than XM4 in the music listening area. That’s the only area they beat the XM4.

It’s great for audio books, podcasts, social media videos and Netflix movies but just not quality music listening.

First a side note. Do NOT order this item for overnight delivery. It is a password protected delivery which means that someone will be at your door at 4:00 AM asking for the magic incantation.

I have the comparable Sony earbuds so I knew what to expect. Others will have to contend with micro-printed docs on 5 lb paper and a weird wordless diagram which requires a translation from pantomime to one's native language. HOWEVER, the Sony website has ample documentation in a readable format. Also, you need the Sony headphone app to fine tune the setup.

I have acute PTSD, a consequence of gun violence. My building is undergoing major construction in th4e form of concrete restoration. I suspect that, for most people, the noise from the machines is a mere inconvenience. For me that is not the case. It's a pile driver inside my head.

My earbuds were doing the job (these products have the best noise-cancelling of any device I have tried). However, they have limited battery life. The headphones solve that problem. I CANNOT HEAR A SOUND FROM THE CONSTRUCTION. Moreover, I have modest hearing loss in one ear. Hearing aids balance things out and the headphone can be worn over the aids.

I have a large music collection (mostly jazz and classical) ripped losslessly (flac) to large USB drives. The drives are attached to an Nvidia Shield Pro which is an Android TV device. Bluetooth paired right up, has decent range (not requiring LOS) and connects via LDAC (which is what you want for the best quality). I then use Kodi for playback of music and movies.

On the left side is an on-off button and another button that can be programmed via the app. On the right, the side of the speaker is actually a mouse pad which allows you to control both volume and your player (Kodi is imperfect in that regard but it works fine with the app on my phone).

The music is flat AS IT SHOULD BE. Competing devices seem to be made for the average 16-year-old, artificially pumping up the bass. If unnatural noise is what you want, there are plenty of IOS and Android equalizer apps. In any event Mr. Mozart sounds like he should. Most jazz includes a bass that comes through exactly as it would in a live performance. Well, not exactly because we experience bass physically as well as through hearing.

One final note. These things are big. I have an average-sized head (something my former employees would disagree with). The earpieces are not extended at all and the thing is a bit bigger than my headspace. Also, I wish that they were just a tad lighter.

So, in the final analysis, these offer excellent sound reproduction that is accurate, rich and natural. The controls (which include a mouse pad on the right speaker) allow you to control your device and volume. The noise cancellation could not be better. There are no compromises making this a reasonable value.

After buying the WF-10000XM4's and losing the case (replacement is $150. I paid $225 ish for the set), I thought I'd give the WH's a try. I got them for $228 or so, so opted to not get the XM5's due to the price difference. I've only had them for barely a week, but my initial thoughts are certainly positive.

Fit. Here's the deal, I have some big ears, with 3/4" gauges. With my gauges in, I do get some pain in my neck. I have pain issues, so this was no surprise, nor is it a fault of the design. My ears fit fairly comfortably inside the cups to help lock out sound, minus the gauges. The polypropylene(?) material is quite soft and moldable, making wearing them for an hour or more easy and comfortable.

I have a kinda funny shaped head (IMO. But I'm highly critical of myself and the world), but these look really slick placed on my dome. I got black, because black goes with everything, and I don't wear color. Look and fit much better than cans I've owned in the past.

Noise cancelation. The ANC is good, but not great. I found the ANC on the WF's more thorough, which is a bit odd considering they're earbuds. However, they do form a more legit seal in the ear canal, so it could be that. There is some "hissing", but part of that is also my tinnitus. I find that there seems to be some slight hissing even with the ANC off. It's akin to being in a super silent room, and you hear the "hissing" from an AV system with it powered on, but with no sound. I've not flown with them yet (Which is a huge reason why I got these), but I assume they'll be just fine for passenger and engine noise.

Sound quality. So, I'm pre-burn in on the drivers. There is usually 100 hours or so of burn in on every new speaker/driver on the planet, and these are no different (I have not researched this in actuality. I was in AV for several years, and have some knowledge). But, so far, they sound very pleasant and accurate. I opted for an EQ setting (Excited) just to bring out certain details in the instrumental/electronic music I'm currently listening to. You can hear the trilling of the tongue on a flute, and the fingers against guitar strings. The detail is fairly rich, while maintaining a fairly neutral overall tone. The sounds seem to be reproduced fairly accurately and are fantastic for instrumenal music.

For the price I paid, these are great. However, for the normal asking price of around $350, I expect the soundstage and sound field to be superior to what it is. It is evident that you are hearing music played through 2 speakers often times, instead of an amalgamation of speakers 180 degrees in front of you, or listening to a live performance where the sound comes from everywhere. Think of this as 3D sound if you will, similar to Dolby Atmos. I understand they have the real 3d audio whatever, but right out of the box, they should be fully immersive.

Battery life/Bluetooth. Battery life seems to be ok with ANC on. I use ANC exclusively because I like to drown out reality while listening, especially during meditation. I suspect you could easily get 8 hours of consistent listening with ANC on before needing to recharge, which is plenty for half the flights on this side of the world (North America). What else can I say about battery life??

Bluetooth connectivity is very strong and nearly instant. I can walk from my apartment to my neighbors apartment with my phone in my apartment and still have unbroken connectivity. THAT is freakin awesome.

Overall, I'm very pleased with these cans, especially for the price I got them at. At the normal asking price, I'd recommend checking out the XM5's since their so similarly priced. If you're looking for a solid set of cans, and these are on sale, don't mess around, just buy them. You won't be disappointed.

so ill start from top to bottom. the headphones over all are fantastic. they don't get too hot or uncomfortable after long use. the ear pieces are holding up well and ive beating them up in the last few weeks ive used them. so i mainly use them for the gym. theyre great for doing everything BESIDES having to lay down to do any kind of workout. giving theyre not ear buds its not a big deal.
noise cancellation is fine and youre able to fine tune it. the option is there whenever i do need some quiet space to do work or anything. but i end up not using it much. the transparency mode is great. i can hear people loud and clear doesnt sound muffled its almost like im not wearing them. the sound quality is great. i was daily driving in ear monitors and going these didnt feel much of a difference. theres alot of room to play with EQ BUT i would not use EQ built in the apps. it throws alot of the sound off and it doesnt feel right. i would tune everything from within their app. bass quality is great. some days I want more of pump and they easily can push out a good amount. or when im just listening to a podcast it makes the vocals very crisp. over I love them. they are on the pricy side but I personally think they're way better than the airpod maxx. ALSO side note. if you got really big ears these are great they still hold in place there is plenty of room inside the cups themselves and are super soft and dont get annoying. and i can work out for a few hours and still be okay.

I left a lengthy review of the Jabra Evolve2 85 (E285) vs Bose Quiet Comfort 35 II (QC35II) vs Bose Noise Cancelling 700 (B700) vs Sony WH-1000XM4 (SX4) (in order of when I received them) for the E285. Since that review is out there, I'll reduce this one only to E285 and SX4.

Microphone and Playback
The E285 was notably better than the SX4, as evidenced by my recordings while drumming. It’s neck and neck as far as clarity of voice goes.

Akin to the E285, the SX4 are quite good as far as pick-up goes. But unfortunately, they were a little too good (or simply worse at distinguishing background noise). A co-worker and I had a Zoom meeting with ourselves in the same closet (to maximize productivity), switching between the headsets. Whoever had the E285 could hear themselves through the headset. At first, I thought it was because of the function where you hear yourself through the headset. But alas, upon one of us leaving the room, the echo went away. This meant the SX4 was picking up the other’s voice! The main killer of the SX4 is that you have no way to mute yourself from the headset. As a pair of headphones to be used in the office, this is crucial. You never know when someone may decide to butt in your closet (or office, for most people) and shout “HHHHEEEYYYY!!”. In contrast, the E285 offers two ways to protect yourself from such intrusions – by raising the boom arm or by pressing the button on the boom arm, leaving you to look down simply in resignation at said co-worker without having disrupted the meeting. The one drawback with the E285 is that sometimes the first word or two don’t quite make it through, so you may develop a stutter of your introduction. “I’m Jason – oh – I’M JASON – oh you can hear me now? I’m Jason”. Good news is, you shan’t be soon forgotten. Despite this, it’s more favorable than not being able to mute myself, though I can understand disagreement with this point. Win for E285. Runner up is SX4.

Audio Output - DISCLAIMER - I'm not an audiophile
Both associated apps come with decent equalizers (unlike Bose). Honestly, it was difficult to tell the difference between the E285 and SX4. I think the amount of bass you get is comparable, however I think the SX4 is capable of producing an ever-so-slightly louder sound. Win for SX4. Runner up is E285.

Brand
Jabra: doesn’t require my location. Instead, it lets me know if I desire to give it my location, it will use it to locate my headphones. No, but thank you for giving me an actual choice!

Sony: same as Jabra, though with a caveat. The SX4 offers more utility when given Location permission, which will be addressed later on. They were not pertinent to me, however, so my location remains an enigma for Sony and Jabra (and Bose). Tie between E285 and SX4.

ANC
When playing on a drumpad, the E285 did a noticeably better job than the other headsets. It sounds like the pad is being muffled (which is what I’m looking for), whereas the others don’t quite succeed. The E285 does a better job with impact noises (or maybe it’s just higher frequencies) than the other headsets, though the SX4 is perfectly satisfactory.

In addition, the hear-through function of the E285 is awesome. It almost makes it sound like you’re not wearing them (tested at maximum hear-through). The SX4 has essentially the same feature, with an added “Focus on voice” option. I couldn’t tell a difference when that was on/off. Besides that, the SX4 didn’t do as good a job at allowing sound through as the E285. Win for E285. Runner up is SX4.

Connectivity
The E285 and SX4 have longer ranges than the QC35II. The E285, most of the time, reconnects automatically when coming back into range. Unfortunately, I don't remember specifics about the SX4. SX4 and E285 have a 3.5 mm jack. Why doesn’t the B700? Because it sucks.

Double-connection to my PC (independent of range): E285 is easier because it’s just plug-and-play, no downloads or “connecting”. The QC35II and SX4 are only Bluetooth, so you have to do the standard “add device”, etc. One annoying thing about the SX4 is you have to use the app to establish a Bluetooth connection to another device. Not a big deal, but for comparison’s sake, the E285 is better. An added feature of the Jabra is Jabra Direct, a software you can download to better manage your Jabra. It gives you a few more options and is worth using, in this writer’s humble opinion.

Response time: The SX4 is the fastest, though we’re talking minute (not 60 seconds) differences. The E285 is on the cusp of being slow enough to be annoying, but not quite. The E285 and SX4 have the cool feature of pausing media when the headphones are removed from your skull. Again, the E285 feel lack-luster in comparison because they take approximately 4 M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-I seconds to pause, whereas the SX4 is half that time. For the E285, I’ve noticed the ear detection only works properly when playing music from your phone and not the PC. When using it with the PC, if I remove the headphones, the music will pause as it should. But it doesn’t resume when I put them back on. If I pause the music with the button, then remove the headset, it resumes. Again, cool feature, but needs work, especially when using it with the PC. So SX4 is better about ear detection (presumably because it's laser-assisted).

App connectivity: some issues with E285. Some issues with SX4. LOTS of issues with B700 (Bose Music). Unfortunately, apps are prone to some bugs every now and then. I can’t say which of the two (Sony/Jabra) had more, so neither bothered me much. Winner is SX4 (better media response time). Runner up is E285.

Voice Assistant
The E285 and SX4 worked exactly as expected. No setup or anything, I just pushed the button and my assistant came up. The caveat for the E285 is you have to pull down the boom arm to use the feature (you can still press the action button with the boom arm up and have the assistant prompt, but because the arm is up, the microphone is off so it’s pointless). Tie between E285 and SX4.

Controls
On the E285, the buttons take up little surface area and are rather flat. Muting is done with the E285 by simply raising or lowering the boom mic. In contrast, the SX4 doesn't have any way to mute yourself.

After just a little use of the “touchless” controls (B700 and SX4), I can see their usefulness. It’s certainly easier to play/pause music and use the Voice Assistant (which is no easier to actually setup because Bose sucks). Changing volume is annoying because every click up/down requires an extra swipe. As debilitating as this is, one would not likely be changing by a bunch of increments at a time. After more use of the touchless controls, I much prefer the them over the physical ones. Win for SX4. Runner up is E285.

Comfort and Style
Comfort is pretty much a tie between E285 and SX4. I've worn both for hours and hours without any issue. But I prefer the style of the SX4 - it just feels more premium. Winner is SX4. Runner up is E285.

Extra
The E285 has the hear-through feature, which I really like because I use ANC only when there are sounds I actively don’t want to listen to, like from mine or my roommate’s drumming, running water, laundry, phone call, or pooping with the fan on. Other than those times, I want some awareness of my surroundings because there’s nothing more frustrating than trying to get the attention of someone with headphones on (especially at work). In addition, the E285 and SX4 have ear detection (discussed previously). The E285 has a great way of handling multiple calls with its huge button on the right cuff. You can switch between two phone calls by putting one on hold and accept/end/reject calls using it. This is RARELY used, but it's cool.

Issues
There’s some variability with functionality of the Google Assistant with the E285. At the very least, the action button on the arm activates the assistant. But sometimes the input for said assistant is on the phone rather than the arm. Most of the time it works as expected. I think the additional connection to the PC adds complexity that needs to be vetted out for seamless functionality for the E285.

Final verdict, best to worst: E285, SX4 (killer - no mute function, worse hear-through), QC35II (killers - older BT connection, worse audio, poor ANC). Literally wouldn't buy B700.

UPDATE: It's been several weeks since I returned all but the Jabra Evolve2 85 (I use it 3-10 hours every single day) and my final rating is four stars, same as the SX4. When the E285 works, it's great. But it doesn't work all the time, unfortunately. I can't say the same for the SX4 since it was ultimately returned. I ended up choosing the E285 over the SX4 because it has an edge when it comes to office use, for one main reason - you can't mute yourself on the SX4. But if muting yourself directly from your headset isn't important to you and you're not typically in a noisy environment during calls, then I would honestly recommend the Sony WH-1000XM4.

Honestly, there was a part of me that was worried that these headphones would not be the best pair to own after the issues that I experienced with the prior generation of them: the WH1000xm3. The main issue that I had? The build quality: the plastic around the headband snapped due to a flimsy connection, resulting in me having to tape both headbands together so that the headphones don't fall apart on me. I tried several alternate brands to see if they would work, but they never came close to giving me the same level of satisfaction while wearing them as the WH1000xm3 did, even with the taped headband taken into account. So I decided that the best replacement for a Sony headphone was another Sony headphone, and I invested in the M4, which succeeded the M3 last year (as of this writing).
My initial thoughts were as follows: the headphones were a definite improvement upon the originals, retaining what I liked most about the original headphones (largely the overall comfort) while also improving the headphones in other small ways (especially in regards to the special features-the M4 are way more feature-packed than the M3 were, incorporating many elements that are being found on most other headphones these days). My favorite thing that was fixed, however, was the sound quality. You see, the original sounded amazing, and honestly sounded better overall than the likes of Bose and Sennheiser, which I have tested as potential replacements for the Sony headphones. And that is despite the fact that the headphones have a relatively small 40mm driver inside, instead of a more traditional 50mm driver. However, the one minor issue I had with the M3 was that the low frequencies were heightened a bit more than I would have liked, making songs sound a bit bass-heavy even when the EQ was turned off (the only way I was able to fix this was by setting the EQ to 'bright', which isn't ideal since the EQ does degrade the battery life). With the M4, Sony improves this by tuning down the low ends, resulting in the headphones having a very flat frequency response, which in turn results in every song having a much wider sound stage than the M3 did (and almost making them sound as good as the various open-back headphones I have tried, including the Sennheiser 650, which is my personal favorite open-back headphone).
In terms of the special features, I think they were implemented quite well in these headphones. The noise cancelling is exceptional, much like it was on the M3, and the transparency mode is somehow even better than it was on the prior generation headphone, sounding a lot more natural and less tinny overall. The auto activation of transparency mode during conversations is fantastic, and enables me to talk to people naturally without ever having to remove the headphones from my ear. This also means that I don't have to awkwardly tap my hand on the earcup with the M4, either. The DSEE Extreme audio enhancer really helps to make music sound a lot more full, even when using devices that don't support the LDAC wireless standard. It isn't as good as listening to lossless files wired, mind you, but it is still an amazing feature that helps to take advantage of the flat sound stage and frequency response of the headphone drivers.
Now, this isn't to say that these headphones don't have issues, mind you. The auto-pause when removing the headphones from your ears is very much a gimmick, and doesn't always pause the song (and may even resume the music before you have a chance to place the headphones back on your ear). Since the headphones use a light sensor to tell if you are wearing your headphones or not, it means even a simple shadow can cause the headphones to think that they are back on your ears and restart music playback. It is quite obnoxious, and it is best left out. Another, more minor issue is the touch controls. While I personally have no issue with them, I know that there are many people that don't like them whatsoever. So I will just make a note that they are still here, and they work in much the same way as they did on the M3. Finally, I should mention that the flat soundstage, while amazing for my listening experience, may not be for everyone. Bassheads in particular would likely prefer extra pronunciation on the lower ranges. And while they will never be quite as bass-heavy as the Skullcandy or Beats line, the EQ can still bring the bass levels up quite a bit, using a 'clear bass' slider that reminds me of the slider on the Skullcandy Skullcrushers: raising the bass without causing distortion.
Overall, the headphones turned out to be quite an exceptional pair, especially when it comes to listening to music during commutes. The great noise cancelling, beautiful audio, and fantastic transparency mode definitely make these headphones a winner in my book. And the app only helps to improve the flexibility of the headphones, allowing for many different features to be unlocked. And while these headphones certainly have some issues (no pair of headphones are perfect, after all), I think the benefits more than outweigh the issues for me, and put these at the top of my list of best closed-back headphones that I have worn. Hopefully Sony will continue to make amazing headphones like these in the ears to come.

I will start this review by stating that I am not an audiophile. I know there is a law of diminishing returns when you get past a certain point in the pursuit of audio reproduction. And while I have owned decent systems and headphones over the years, I have not been one to chase those last few precent that leads to exploding costs.
That said, I have thoroughly enjoyed studio monitors and headsets from AKG to Sennheiser. I have been nonplussed by sets that others raved about. I have been pleasantly surprised by underrated gear. I place these phones in the category of the latter. It may be that the tuning specifically matches the anomalies of my own hearing.... But these headphones have blown me away

Sounds are well rounded. Bass is smooth and full without muddying the waters or overwhelming the sound. Vocals ring out clearly. Drums stun me. I hear the decay of each tap, separated out. For reference, I listen to Florence + The Machine, Miles Davis, Steely Dan, Smashing Pumpkins, Mitski, Everything But The Girl and much more. These headphones have played nice with all of them.
Noise canceling is fantastic. I work from home and have a world of distractions I need to make go away. These have suited my purposes well. I can't speak to how they measure up on planes, trains, etc.

I know the XM5 is supposed to offer marginally improved performance across the board... And maybe that is true. But these have proven to be tuned well to my hearing, are supremely comfortable and make the outside world melt away. And they were a flat out steal at the black Friday price point where I got them. That said, I would be no less happy had I paid full price.

If you are debating, stop. You will NOT be disappointed with these headphones!

02/22/23 Update: I grow fonder everyday. The thing I have come to love the most is the separation. I clearly hear elements in old favorites that had previously been lost in the mix for me. As these break in, I only fall more deeply for them!

The Sony WH-1000XM4’s is a comfortable pair of headphones, designed for comfort, convenience, and to provide a whole new hearing experience with music and audio. Its base focus is ergonomic meaning it has adjustable bands, a comfortable padding, and smart controls that you can customize to suit your preferences. In March 2021, I was searching for a new pair of headphones for my birthday and this happened to come up. At that time it was priced around $300 but I did some further research and thought that these headphones would be a good investment because for one; I like to listen to music and two; I loved the features.

Some of the strong aspects of the Sony WH-1000XM4 include the smart features, the app, customizable controls, battery life, and an ergonomic design for comfort. The smart controls can also be connected with the Sony Headphones App and it can also connect up to two devices at once. There is also a speak-to-chat function meaning that if you are wearing the headphones with music on and you start to talk to someone, it will automatically pause the music for you. Once you stop talking, it will resume the music. Besides this, it also has an ambience, normal, and noise-cancelling mode. It can be switched with the side button. Another one of its strengths is that these headphones have the ability to read the environment. When I used to ride my bike to the park while listening to music, they would switch to ambience mode for me to hear the cars and the music would be on low. As for the customizable controls, you can control the sound elements that you want either to be higher or lower within the app to maximize your listening experience. They also have some presets available but I usually stick with the ones I customize. I used them almost everyday and these are the most comfortable headphones so far. The hold is not too tight or loose. They also have Google Assistant and Alexa Built-In. But my most favorite part about these headphones is that I can change the track, change the volume, or make calls with just a tap or swipe on the right ear. The paddings are comfortable. The battery life on these are 30 hours and just charging for 10 minutes will give you 5 hours.

Despite these strengths, there are also some flaws. Sometimes when I talk to someone, having the music stop can become annoying. But I changed the controls in the app so that it does not pause the music. Another flaw is that the microphone on these headphones are not good. I heard that from most of my friends, it sounds muffled and unclear. I have to carry the Apple Wired Earphones if I have a meeting to join because the microphone quality on those are better than the Sony WH-1000XM4 (though I heard that the newest one 1000XM5’s have a better microphone). However, I think it is partially my fault for not setting up the microphone. I also wished they came in more colors.

Overall, these are one of the top industries’ best headphones. It is a great investment that will improve your audio/music experience. I recommend it to those who have to study a lot, travel a lot, or maybe those who like to up their music game. For the final grade, I give it an A. Depending on what you look for in headphones, the Sony WH-1000XM4’s are a good investment that will bring value to your lifestyle. Wear it with an outfit and it will also become part of the look.

I'm not an expert! these are my first pair of expensive(for me) headphones

comfortableness:
pretty comfortable, doesn't slip off my head easily as I'm bending over. got a headache only after I wore them all day long and my ears were sore, too. I have some pretty big ears tho, haha. they aren't heavy at all either.

noise cancelling:
I have never owned noise canceling headphones...
i was in zoom class and had my laptop volume maxed, my teachers voice was pretty loud. after putting the headphones on, his voice was just a whisper. i was amazed.
sometimes my dorm neighbor plays his guitar, and the headphones cancel out the noise so I don't hear it at all. it can get pretty loud.

the battery is pretty long lasting.
headphones are also pretty smooth.
I think the sound quality is the most amazing I've heard too. I really love these headphones. worth.

UPDATE #2: After returning the first set of these headphones, I ordered another set on Prime Day and have now had a little more than a month to try them out. Based on this experience so far, I'm raising the rating from 2 to 4 stars. Trying not to jinx things, but the new unit does not have the right earcup static issue that plagued the first set (and that a not insignificant number of users have complained about). I'm not sure whether one of the firmware updates addressed the issue or whether the first set had a hardware issue of some sort, but the new set has not had the issue.

I now believe the "bluetooth stopping for no reason" issue noted in my prior update is not a defect, but the speak to chat feature, which stops the playback whenever it detects a human voice. I understand the point of this feature, but Sony should calibrate it better. As it is, even when set on low sensitivity and not to focus on voice, it still stops playback at even low human voice volumes. As a practical matter, this means you can't sing or hum along to songs without having the playback constantly cut off. I've wound up disabling this feature.

Other than that, the new headphones have been great -- super noise cancelling and music quality, decent phone call quality (maybe not best in class but more than serviceable), and day-in, day-out comfortable. The only reason I didn't rate them at 5 stars is that this set, like the previous one, has a very high default volume, such that sometimes when you turn the headphones on, the music will start blasting out at an uncomfortably high volume. (I think that if you use another set of headphones, as I sometimes do, the XM4 will forget its last volume setting.)

UPDATED: I decided to mark these down from 3 to 2 stars because, in the last few days, the bluetooth has started to act buggy. Audio files simply stop playing for no apparent reason (in some cases, my music has stopped apparently because someone else with a bluetooth device gets within about 30 feet of me, but in other cases the music stops for no apparent reason at all). At other times, there are skips or pops. While the noise cancellation is fantastic, and I'm still thinking keeping them for this reason alone, I'm now more likely to return them -- $350 is just too much money for these kinds of problems.

These are great headphones -- outstanding in many respects -- but they have some issues that, given the $350 price, do not merit a 5-star review. I was torn between 3 and 4 stars, but decided on the lower rating given the very high price for this product.

PROS:

1) ANC -- by far, these have the most effective noise cancellation of any ANC (or other) headphones I have used, including Bose. They drown out almost all ambient noise -- including close lawn mowers, leaf blowers, revving car engines, etc. -- even when you're not playing music or listening to another kind of audio file. When playing music or an audio file, you are very much in your own world. I did have an issue at the beginning where I could hear a static-like sound when ANC was on but no audio was playing. A software or firmware update pretty much, but not entirely, eliminated the issue; it's still noticeable from time to time, but at a very low volume, lower than the older set of wired Bose ANC headphones I still have. It's no longer an issue for me; I think that this kind of noise is a "feature" of ANC headphones.

2) Comfort -- by far, these are the most comfortable set of headphones I have used. The ear pieces in particular are outstanding. I bought another brand of (much less expensive) headphones right before I got these and wrote a review in which I said those were very comfortable. However, I wound up returning those because, after about a week, they became quite uncomfortable. These Sony headphones, however, have withstood the test of time, seeming to become more comfortable as time goes on. I can comfortably wear these for hours.

3) Music quality -- excellent, what you would expect of Sony.

4) Gesture controls -- the gesture controls for turning music on / off, picking up a phone call, volume and next / previous song work quite well. I had a set of Sony 900 headphones prior to these, and the gesture controls work a little better on these.

CONS:

1) Default volume -- for some reason, these headphones, like my prior Sony 900 headphones, seem to have a high default volume and there is no way in the Sony Headphones or Sony Music Center to change them (and there is also no native iPhone setting that works, either). The result is that, all too often, music comes blasting out at an uncomfortable, probably unhealthy volume when you put the headphones on and start playing music. Beside the Sony 900, none of the other (many) headphones I have used have had this issue. I have now become accustomed to checking the iPhone's bluetooth volume when I put the headphones on, but all too frequently when the iPhone shows a low bluetooth volume, the volume resets itself to a much higher (almost max) volume when I actually start playing an audio file. I believe the problem must be related to the fact that all the settings for these headphones are run through the Headphones app and there is no control for default volume in that app; apparently, Sony sets a near-max default volume and doesn't allow users to change it. It's really quite annoying, and I may wind up returning these headphones for this reason. For $350, Sony could do a lot better on this metric.

2) Phone call quality -- meh. Some calls are good, others not so much. Nobody on the other end has complained about call quality. However, on my end, the other person often sounds distant, low volume, in a tunnel, etc. Every other set of wireless headphones I have used with phone call capability has been at least as good as these headphones, and some have been better. I read that the MX4 is supposed to have corrected the problems of the MX3 regarding phone call quality issues but, if that's the case, I can only imagine how bad the MX3s were.

3) Making you register with Sony in order to get updates -- as noted above, I needed to do a software or firmware update to get rid of the static noise when ANC is turned on. However, to get software updates, Sony requires you to register with it (provide email, etc.). It is obnoxious of Sony to require users to provide this kind of personal information that it will then market and sell, and presumably also spam you with promotions, as a precondition to getting updates to fix the bugs in its (expensive) products -- particularly where Sony has a history of data breach.

Bottom line, these are mostly excellent headphones, and they are exceptional with regard to the primary purposes of noise cancelling headphones. However, they do have some problems that a $350 set of headphones should not have. I'm likely to keep them, but if the default volume issue noted above does not improve, I may well return them.

I got these primarily for traveling on airplanes, and they work amazingly well for that purpose. They bring the noise down to a super low level, and once you start playing pretty much anything through them, it pretty much completely overpowers the sound of the plane.

Despite getting them primarily for travel, I use them a lot in my day to day life as well. They're quite comfortable, especially around the ears.

The bluetooth range is excellent, the battery life is phenomenal, and you can even use a wired connection if the battery runs out(although sadly, this takes the noise cancellation with it).

They seem quite durable, but also come with a nice carrying case, making damage even less of a concern.

My one small issue with them is that rather than being controlled with physical buttons, they use touch sensors, which are much easier to accidentally set off when adjusting your hair, leaning on your hands, etc...

To give you some context: I've had 3 ANC/noise cancelling headphones now. The Sony X4s are my third. I started with a $40 pair of Taotronics. These are great for a budget pair of noise cancelling headphones. I moved up to a more expensive pair of Taotronics 90 (~$80). The Sony XM4 is my third and at this junction, I was looking for the following features:
1. Better noise cancelling.
2. Better comfort, that I would wear longer than an hour).
3. Better sound quality (for music and podcast).
4. Portability (for traveling).

The Sony XM5 just came out so these XM4 were priced at $228. I'm not used to spending this much on headphones but I'm glad I decided to upgraded to these. I was on the fence about the XM5s but the ability to fold the XM4s up, plus the fact that it was priced much less was all the reason I needed to go with the XM4.

Things to note about the XM4s:
1. ANC - Noise cancelling is great. It covers more of the frequencies than my previous cheap pairs did.
2. Ambient Sound - Ambient noise is pretty bad. When you turn noise cancelling off to talk to someone or to hear the outside world, the sound is hollow. If you want ANC headphones where ambient sound comes through clear, these XM4s are not the best. They have the feature but it's not great. Personally, I just take my headphones off when I need to talk to someone. Otherwise, I only wear these with noise cancelling on.
3. Comfort - The XM4s are very comfortable. I can easily wear these for 2 hours+ without any discomfort. I've slept in these too (to help me sleep). The ear cushions are soft and pliable enough where I don't feel any pain points. As other reviewers have mentioned, because it does such a good job with noise cancelling, there will be heat that builds up inside, especially if you're exerting energy or wearing these on a wam/hot day. It's not unbearable; just something to note.
4. Sound Quality - Sony has an equalizer you can mess with and it helps to fine tune the how music or speech (ie., podcasts) comes through but it's not as good as some of the higher end headphones. But again, for $228, these headphones are a good deal, especially compared to others in the same class.

Note: There are other features like the auto-pause, touch navigation (ie., play/pause/next/prev, and volume), and the hand-over-ear to turn ambient noise on... These work fine for me. I like how it works but I don't consider these as PROs or CONs... They're just different and may be useful based on personal preference.

Summary: I would highly recommend these noise cancelling headphones at the current price of ~$228. If you want comfort, portability, slightly better sound quality than other comparable/competing brands, this is a very good choice. If you're coming from cheaper-type headphones, these are a great upgrade. If you're on the fence between a much more expensive pair of headphones AND need a pair of affordable headphones straight away, these are a great option. I will likely purchase another in my lifetime but these will work for me for years to come until one that has better sound quality for music and speech becomes affordable [for me].

Because I do so many meetings over Teams (I'm a professional software trainer), I thought it would be time to finally invest in a really good headset. Up until now, I'd been using a $50 over-ear set by MPOW with a really nice boom mic. It was great, but it wasn't wireless, certainly wasn't portable, and didn't have the audio quality I'd want when listening to music.

I thought that by splurging more than $300 on a Sony product I'd get something that was beyond all of my expectations. I was almost right, but so very wrong in other ways.

CASE: Let's start here. The case is as slim as can be, very high-quality build, looks nice, feels nice, keeps everything protected. Excellent design here with one flaw: you can't really charge the headphones while they're snug in the case; they don't fold up the right way.

APP: To use most of the features, Sony requires you to download an app to your smartphone. That wasn't a big deal and the app was easy to figure out. It crashed twice on me (once during the first setup, again the next day). It offered some location-based services but I declined and it never asked me again. It wanted me to sign up for a free trial of some 360° music service -- not sure what that is, but I skipped it. I was disappointed that there wasn't a PC version of the app. For example, if I needed to switch which device the headphones were connected to, I can only do that from my phone -- that means my phone always has to be one of the two devices. There's no way to control the advanced features, or the equalizer, from the PC.

PAIRING: Bluetooth pairing was hit or miss, over and over again. If I were only pairing to my phone, I think it would be fine. But I wanted to also pair it to my desktop and laptop. The device supports pairing to two devices at the same time -- which was great -- but nearly every time I wanted to switch devices I had to literally turn off bluetooth so the headset would "let go". Other times, upon reconnecting, the mic wouldn't work. Once, which turned out to be the final straw for me, was when I could not get the headset to work in Teams no matter what I tried, even though it worked fine a few hours earlier. (For context: I literally train employees and other trainers on how to use Teams, so I very much know what I'm doing.)

SOUND QUALITY: Let me say that the sound quality IS exceptional. I had a blast listening to all my favorite songs streaming from my phone or laptop. I really can't understate the quality, base and treble. And the ANC (active noise cancelling) was AMAZING. I could be sitting right next to a whole house fan and not hear it. I was blown away.

RANGE: Twice during the day I tried walking around while on a call. It wasn't until I went downstairs that anyone said the quality of my voice had dropped. If I was less than 25 feet from the device, everything was great.

BATTERY LIFE: After a day of use it was down to about 50% and that impressed me. Then I watched TV and ate dinner and later that evening I put on the headphones and realized that the battery dropped to 10%. I thought the system had an auto-off feature but something didn't quite work.

CHARGING: So after my surprise drop in battery, I plugged it into my desktop with a USB C cable I already had. A little light on the headset turned red. When I woke up the next morning, I was surprised to learn that the headphones were still at 10%. Apparently the USB C cable I use to charge my mouse won't charge the headphones. I guess you need to use the cable it ships with? I'm not sure what the deal was here, but that was pretty annoying.

CONTROLS: I found the touch/gesture controls to be mostly intuitive. Pro Tip: If you swipe up and hold your finger, the volume slowly increments up. Once, however, I accidentally hung up a Teams call when I was trying to adjust the volume. I love the feature that let's me hear ambient sound by cupping my hear -- super cool. Tap the power button to hear the battery level -- very nice touch! However, there's one extremely important flaw in the controls that I was shocked to discover. THERE IS NO MUTE BUTTON. The ONLY way to mute your mic during a call (Teams, phone, Zoom, etc) is to use the mute button on the desktop/phone. The headset, whose very first bullet is "clear hands-free calling", has five built-in microphones, and a dedicated gesture to use Alexa... doesn't have a damn mute button. Sadly, the successor to this (the 1000XM5) has the same flaw.

Individually, the issues I raised wouldn't be enough for me to return the headset or give it a low rating. But for a $350 purchase, I expect it to be able to do what it says correctly. I expect a mute button. I expect it to power off when not in use. I expect any generic USB cable to work. I expect to be able to join a meeting without fussing with bluetooth.

I'd totally keep this if all I wanted it for was to listen to music.

I was looking for headphones for work and personal usage. I did a lot of research and it was clear that there was no one model that was best at everything. So, I prioritized what I was looking for (in rough order):
1) physical comfort (nothing else really matters if they're painful to wear)
2) blocking out outside noise (household noise, cars passing by, leaf blowers, etc.)
3) technical ease (i.e., easily connecting to both my phone and laptop)
4) microphone quality (for phone calls and Zoom)
5) sound quality for music (I tested with EDM and IDM music)
6) cost (I was willing to pay more for quality as long as it wasn't outrageous)
7) battery life (not really important to me as long as it gets through the workday)

After a lot of reading, I narrowed it down to five:
Bose 700
Sony WH-1000XM4
Jabra Evolve2 65
Jabra 85H
Jabra Evolve 75

And I ultimately ordered the top 3.

Here's my review:

Sony WH-1000XM4:
- This was the clear winner for me: most comfortable, best at blocking out outside noise, excellent music quality, and easy to use
- I appreciate how it automatically adjusts the noise canceling settings based on activity (sitting still, walking, etc.), and I had no trouble connecting it to my phone and computer at the same time
- The biggest downside (other than the high price) is that it was definitely the worst microphone of the three. People on the other end were able to understand me, but when I listened to recordings it definitely sounded more muffled and less clear than with the other two headphones
though its microphone quality isn't great
- It's probably also worth mentioning that my brother tried these on and he found them uncomfortable because he has large ears, whereas the Bose 700 felt fine for him

Bose 700:
- This was a close runner-up: good at blocking outside noise, comfortable enough (but I felt it squeezing my head more than the Sony), and good music quality (I even preferred it to the Sony for some songs, though in general I felt like the instruments were somehow a bit further away or flat compared to the Sony)
- It gave me just a little trouble to connect to phone and computer at once but it was fine once I got it set up the first time
- The microphone was noticeably better than the Sony's but still not great

Jabra Evolve2 65:
- Surprisingly good music quality given its purpose as more of an office headset; but, given its protruding microphone arm, I was expecting significantly better mic quality than the other two when in fact I only found it to be a little better than the Bose
- Fairly comfortable, but I preferred the way that the other two completely enclosed my ears rather than just squeezing against them as the Jabra did
- Setup was easy and I appreciated the USB dongle to wirelessly connect it without fiddling with Bluetooth

SOME TAKEAWAYS:
- Ultimately, I learned that all of these have pretty bad microphones, so you'll need to get a dedicated microphone if you really care about recording sound quality
- This is of course personal preference, but I still find my Jabra Elite Sport earbuds from 2018 to be more comfortable than all of these, and they surprisingly had just as good or better microphone quality than all of these fancier larger headphones. I'm able to wear the Sony or the Bose headphones for a few hours, but my ears still feel a bit tender when I take them off
- I was quite surprised that the active noise canceling was fine for me on both the Bose and the Sony. I had tried a previous Bose model years ago and experienced a lot of painful pressure on my ears, so I was quite happy to discover that I rarely experienced that here. I'm not sure if the tech has just gotten better or if I've acclimated somehow, but consider giving the Bose or Sony a try even if you've had trouble with this in the past

DECISION:
I ended up choosing the Sony WH-1000XM4, which are in most ways the best headphones I've ever used (with important caveats below). When I started my search, my top priority was how well they worked for Zoom calls. Music quality was a secondary concern. But after spending weeks with these headphones, I'm pretty blown away by how my music sounds, like new dimensions have been opened up. I recommend them, along with the Wavelet smartphone app for AutoEq equalization tuned to these headphones specifically. However, there are two glaring flaws you should know about:
1) The microphone quality really isn't great. When I'm in Zoom meetings, I set it to use my laptop's built-in microphone instead since it sounds better.
2) It does pair well with my laptop and smartphone at once. But, there are some quirks that are extremely annoying. Whenever one of the two disconnects, a voice loudly announces, "Bluetooth device disconnected." So, say I'm listening to music on my phone or on a phone call—if my laptop falls asleep or I turn it off, my music or call will be interrupted with that useless announcement. Even worse, whenever you answer a phone call, it disconnects momentarily from the computer, so as soon as your phone call begins it makes that loud announcement and you miss the first few seconds of your call.

Yes, you heard that right: If your laptop is on and the headphones are connected to it and your smartphone (which is supposed to be one of the best features), then every time you answer the phone the first few seconds of the call will be interrupted.

So that's why it loses one star. But truly, the music quality and noise-canceling are so great that I really like them anyway and am willing to work around this limitation. I sure wish Sony would release a firmware update though allowing us to disable that voice completely!

In passive mode, the sound quality is all over the place, resulting in some of the worst headphones I've ever used in this price bracket. In active mode, it's... decent, with boomy, mildly unclean bass; acceptable mids; and messy but listenable highs. It is very responsive to EQ past sub-bass range, though you can crank up the already boomy mid-bass if that's your thing and it can get pretty loud. At about 70–80% volume, the amp begins to distort, and at 100% volume the distortion is highly audible and really crunches the highs and muddies the bass. There is also a noticeable frequency response and volume difference between the cups, likely due to the indentation for the sensor array inside the left cup; if you aren't listening for it, it is still noticeable sometimes, but it fades to the background if you are using the noise canceling or are otherwise occupied.
The ambient sound feature does not pick up outside sounds very clearly. If you're using the Sony | Headphones Connect app, you can enable a "voice mode" for ambient sound that cuts out the bass and boosts vocal range with EQ, but it cannot be turned on with the toggle buttons on the headphones themselves or when connected to PC, making it tedious to enable without the automatic switching feature that tracks your location and habits to enable it when it thinks you need it. The noise canceling however is truly top of its class and easily removes 80–90% of outside noise, and you can't hear anything else if you're playing something. I have noticed that the DSP appears to crank up the bass, either to compensate for the harder-to-remove low-end frequencies or to trick you into thinking the noise canceling is better than it really is in that range.
The ear cup touch controls work fine and I have not had any mis-inputs, though volume up/down steps are too small. You can hold down the up/down slider instead of repeatedly sliding your finger, but the repeat delay is very long and it takes forever to adjust to what you want.
The headphones are fairly adjustable to different head shapes, but if you have a reeeally big head/ears or lots of hair it may be difficult. The headband padding is a bit hard but the headphones are so light you can't feel it. The closed cups have no ventilation so your ears stay warm, and I imagine it would get sweaty in warmer weather.
The headphones can fold flat and can sit around your neck comfortably. The auto-pause when it detects you remove them, and the 15 minute auto-off means you don't ever need to bother turning them off explicitly, just take them off your head and put them down. Their ability to fold also works great for stowing them, and you can fit them into any bag. The included carry case is a bit bulkier than it probably needs to be, but it's still small enough to fit in even a medium sized purse, and it does have room for cables and small accessories.
The mic quality is pretty bad and doesn't pick up your voice well. What it does pick up well is everything around you. You'd think Sony's engineers could have used the ambient sound mics to dampen outside noise while focusing on your voice, but it unfortunately doesn't do that. Call sound quality in general takes a major dive due to the protocol it uses under the hood; it halves the sample rate and sounds like a cheap dollar store headset.
The battery is massive; I charged it to 90% once I received it a few days ago and have not had to charge it since with daily listening. Rtings.com got 37 hours out of one charge, far past the advertised duration.

Overall all of the features work to an acceptable level, except passive mode sound quality. If you are buying these for the battery longevity, small stowable size, ease of use, and noise isolation and canceling, they're a great package. Great for traveling. Would not recommend for even casual listening, get a good closed back pair like the Hifiman HE-R9 + Bluemini R2R wireless dongle. If you need to make important calls or want headphones for conference calls or online meetings, these will work, but it won't be pleasant—get a dedicated conference headset.

If you really insist on these for more active listening situations, do yourself a favor and get the AutoEQ preset for them as a baseline, and tweak to your ears. I also recommend a -1dB loss on the left earcup to help offset the response difference, though it's an approximation and not perfect and differences in track volume will make this obvious. With these changes, passive mode is at least bearable.

Alright, So I have put alot of time into these 1000xm4s over the last three months. These headphones are fantastic! However it took me about 50-100 hours to get used to them. I'll explain.
So I have owned cheap "noise canceling" TAO Tonic $40 black friday special wireless headphones and I had good wired $200 Sennheiser 599 open ear headphones.
My previous experiences with headphones were to get the most out of the audio or to cancel out noise I needed to near max out sound volume and reach deafening thresholds. After listening to these headphones I started to realize I needed to change the way I was using these headphones. First of all the app is nice. You can adjust the EQ to custom or use a preset EQ setting. I chose to turn of the speak-to-chat as it would easily pick up my voice if I was singing along or making any loud adublie sound while working out. But getting back on track I found that I could listen to music, podcasts, Netflix ect at a very low level and hear everything perfectly. I was so use to staying at a 80-90 percent volume from my previous headphones that I was at little sad that the 80-90 level on this headset didn't sound as loud as my older headphones. Simply put these bad boys do such a great job noise canceling that you can clearly hear audio at very low levels. You may not feel alot of punchy bass with them (it's there though) you also won't hear any distortion even bumped to max levels. Also, these Sonys will automatically and continuously track your environment and adjust noise canceling and ambient sounds according to if your laying in bed or get up to a walk, or sitting a plane ect. They will also save you hearing as well but sadly not your bank account.
If you plan to work out with them they will be a solid option. Again I haven't heard any distortion while working out or on a treadmill, bike, or rowing machine. Since they are closed ear style they may get warm on your head. I always get a q-tip out and swipe off the sweat condensation that accumulates inside the left ear cup on the plastic ear sensor after workouts (I dont know if this is recommended). I haven't had any issues with them slipping off my head either.
The hand and swipe gestures take a little time to get used to but work well. Every now and then the swipe forward/backward and up/down to skip tracks or volume doesnt work but I feel this is user error on my part. The cover over the right headphone is a cool feature. It will easily flood ambient sound in allowing you to quickly and temporarily converse with someone or you could leave the speak to chat feature on.
Additionally you receive a nice hard carrying case, charger brick, usb-C cable, and aux cord. I've used the aux cord quite a bit with my nintendo switch and it does a great job. Also the 1000xm4s are very forgiving if you forget to plug them in when runinng low on power. In 10mins I can quick charge them to last about10hours. I think the specs say 3 hours till 100% charge but I swear I had my headphones fully charged in about 1 hour. They are dual voltage which has been great for traveling abord. Lastly you can connect up to two Bluetooth devices which at time. Honestly I didn't think I would even need this feature. However I found out it is very convenient for seemlesly swapping devices or getting notifications from my phone/watch while connected to my laptop or when I'm bluetooth connected to my switch.
So they are a great pair of headphones but you will take a hit to bank account. I picked up a open box Amazon return which knocked off over $100 on the price and the headphones came without any issues. If you see these on a decent sale I would scoop up a pair. Also if you want more of a punchy bass type headphones I would also recommend XBN-900N which I tested out shortly and you can tell they are more focused on bass bumping. I believe they are significantly cheaper new but don't have all of the same features.

I've been looking for some noise canceling headphones and once these went on sale for Prime day, it was a no brainer that these were the headphones to get. Although there's a newer version out, many reviews have continued to praise this version and its ability to fold in on itself and greater adjustments for the ear cups. My goals for a headset were a lightweight, wireless, and noise canceling to use with my PC, phone, and video game consoles. I didn't really plan on using these for traveling since I prefer to travel very light with just some earbuds.
Upon first use, I was amazed by noise canceling ability just by putting it on. Even turned off, the ear cups create a great seal around your ears against outside noise. The sound optimizer is amazing and truly does find a great setting to cancel out the most noise taking into account little details like its placement on your head and atmospheric pressure. Many reviews have stated it feels like you get transported to a different place when you use the headphones because it immerses you into your music and although I can see where they are coming from, there were times I were a bit underwhelmed from its noise canceling ability since I could still hear my fan in the background but when I removed my headphones and realized how loud the fan actually is next to me, I was like alright these are pretty good. When I'm working on my desk, sometimes people sneak up without me knowing because the noise canceling is that effective. The ambient noise with focus on voice doesn't do well when someone is talking to me and does become a hassle to remove every time, versus my Samsung earbuds' ambient mode allows me to talk to others without fully removing them from my ears.
Sound quality is great in my opinion and the difference is significant from my daily Logitech headphones. I am using Logitech G435s for my PC for its superior light weight and very light pressure against my head, not really for mic and sound quality. While these headphones' 254 grams weight took some getting used to for me coming from a mere 165 grams headset, it is still quite comfortable to use for long periods of time. In the beginning, I was debating if I should return them because they didn't fit as well on my small head as the small Logitech g435s did and the Sonys ear cups put significant uncomfortable pressure against my jaw and side of head, but after using them as my daily for weeks, the pressure loosened and has become a lot more comfortable. I barely feel any discomfort nowadays, but the pressure against my jaw is still present and noticeable. While snug enough to use for work, these are too loose to use on my small head during exercise. They fall off my head very easily and are too warm for me to use during strenuous activity. These are too expensive to risk breaking at the gym. Because my head is a bit too small for these headphones, I have to be more conscious of the headband placement. I find myself readjusting it on my head more often than my previous headset, but this small annoyance wasn't big enough to warrant a return yet.
I really like these headphones and the noise cancellation is amazing! Sound quality is great. However, ambient mode for having conversations without removing the headphones is poor. Battery life is great, but I haven't tested it to its limits yet. Touch gestures and use of buttons have worked well for me, no issues. I'd say that the comfort level is a B tier for my small head, but manageable. Heavier than what I'd like. This is where the headphones score the worst for me, but everything else is pretty good and I'm more than happy with this purchase for the price.

Here's my honest review. I apologize if it's going to be long, or if I offend your own opinions.

First, I'm not an audiophile. I usually listen to YouTube and Spotify on my Windows computer through a $50 pair of headphones. But I do know what excellent sound should sound like. My dad taught me that when I was young.

Second, I never thought I would ever spend $350 on a pair of headphones. But with COVID-19 forcing me to work from home, I just can't function with the noise from the neighbor's landscapers (two neighbors, two interruptions per week) and another neighbor's yard construction going on. I stumbled upon multiple reviewers practically wetting their pants over how fantastic the NR in these headphones was. And since I'm always getting the headphone cord tangled up in my chair, I though I would go for high-end Bluetooth headphones.

My review:

These headphones are very comfortable. I don't understand how anyone could wear them for eight hours, and they're not as easy to wear as my $50 Plantronics headsets. But they are very lightweight for cans. I can wear these for 1-2 hours.

I plugged them in with the uselessly short wire included in the box. That wasn't going to work. Then I added a 4" extension cord. The sound, even through my Dell laptop or my HP tower was very good. They don't have the powerful bass that my $50 inside-the-ear-canal ear buds have. But for over-the-ear cans, they're pretty good.

Next, I tried the noise reduction. After reading some of the glowing reviews I expected I would hear nothing but my heart beating. Sorry to disappoint you. The NR is very good. The NR is much better than the $300 Bose 3 headphones I tried 15 years ago and immediately returned for a refund. It does completely block out my neighbor's landscapers (yeah!) and my neighbor's construction (workers). And they even block out the annoying hum from my overhead lights and the annoying noise from my laptop fan. That was a pleasant surprise. But the reason I bought them for to block out the landscapers, so I am keeping them. But do they match the glowing reviews I read before I ordered them? No. They do not block out people's voices, of the TV set downstairs. I was hoping to use these when flying, instead of my inside-ear-canal ear buds. No chance. If you don't like to listen to people on your airplane yapping, stick with inexpensive ear buds.

Last, I disconnected the wired connection and tried Bluetooth. It connected easily to my iPod, my Windows 10 PC, and my Windows 10 laptop. With Bluetooth, at best the sound quality is mediocre. It's about on-par with my $30 Plantronics headset when they are wired (although the Plantronics headset doesn't have NR). At worst, the sound with Bluetooth and Windows 10 is terrible. Sometimes it sounds like it coming through a flanger. The sound volume phases through either the volume swaying up and down, or the bass/treble is swaying up and down. I have not experienced this problem when connected through BT to my iPod. I saw on Reddit this is a known problem due to the limited CODEC's supported on Windows 10. The Reddit poster suggested plugging them back in through the wired connection. I did that, and they sound very good.

So, my conclusion:

For comfort I'd give them 8/10. For the price I expected them to be a bit more comfortable.

Noise reduction: If you're sitting at your desk they're excellent at blocking out office/house noises: 10/10. But if you're on an airplane and want to block out people yapping away, or if you want to block out your coworkers yapping in the office, you might be disappointed: 3/10.

Bluetooth connectivity. We expect it to be easy. That's the purpose of BT. 10/10

Bluetooth sound quality with Windows 10. This is where they disappoint. I give them 4/10. And don't throw away the 1/8" plug that comes in the box. You will need it. You might not have this problem with an iPod, but there's no way I'm going to fiddle with a tiny iPod when I'm sitting at a desk.

Value for the money: 8/10. They are very good (with a wired connection). But they do not live up the glowing reviews I read on the internet (yeah, what was I thinking).

Andy Frazer
I stand by everything I wrote here. Feel free to tell me if you disagree. I know I'm right :-)

A disclaimer: I received this product as part of Amazon’s Vine program. While I didn’t pay for the item, the review is totally my personal, unbiased review. Neither Amazon, nor the vendor has influenced this review in any way.

Pros
Excellent noise cancelling
Very good sound quality for all Bluetooth profiles (Listening to music, phone/video calls)
Battery life
Excellent Bluetooth range
Automatic voice detection to pause music and enter transparency mode

Cons
Touch controls are simply awful!
Dual Bluetooth device support
Constant beeps and noise cancelling turned off especially with “Detection of Actions” enabled
Voice detection for stopping music and going into a transparency mode responds to almost any sound you make. A large breath, grunt, anything will trigger this feature.
Rubs on the “helix” outer part of the ear on the left ear
Somewhat complex set up process

Overall these are really excellent Bluetooth headphones. The noise cancellation is absolutely excellent. This is probably the best noise-cancelling headphone available. The Bluetooth range is also exceptional. Audio quality for music is also very good, and I expect most people will find them to be excellent. Phone/video call audio is also good receiving, and acceptable for the microphone. They have long battery life and charge quickly. They are relatively comfortable as well. The touch user controls are simply dreadful. There are many other features with a range of benefit.

Comfort:
They seem comfortable, and the ear pads are soft and plush. However after several hours the outside of my ears start to hurt from rubbing on the insides of the headphones (the area called helix on top of the ear rubs on the inside of the left ear around optical sensor area.) If at sometime we resume taking long international flights this could be an even larger issue.

They are still comfortable though when wearing them with glasses. They ear pads are pliant enough to continue to make a good seal without painfully pushing them into your head.

Bluetooth, Pairing, Multiple devices:
These support 2 Bluetooth devices to be connected simultaneously. The Bose QC35 has had this feature for some time. I initially paired my iPhone X with the headphones. I then added a MacBook Pro from within the Connect app. I was then able to play music from the MacBook. I went back to the iPhone and tried to play something. It didn’t immediately play. In fact, it is rather finicky. Sometimes starting something with audio on the iPhone will cause audio to switch. Mostly it doesn’t if something is playing already on one device. Stopping the audio, waiting, and then starting the audio on the phone is a bit more reliable. Even if the source on one device is paused and not playing it may not switch back.
This is a bit problematic though since the iPhone still thinks it is connected to a Bluetooth headphone, so the audio is still routed to the Sony WH-1000MX4, but isn’t played – so it goes no where. This works far more seamlessly on the Bose QC35. I actually found myself disabling this feature half the time.

While the WH-1000MX4 does have voice announcements, it doesn’t speak the name of the device. It will say “Bluetooth device 1 connected,” whereas the Bose QC35 will speak “Joe’s iPhone.” Even more confusing is that device 1 and device 2 doesn’t always refer to the same device. Sometimes my iPhone is device 1 and other times it is device 2. The only way to really know is to go into the app where it will identify the device associated with device 1 and device 2.

I added a 3rd Bluetooth device, again from the app. This works, but will disconnect one of the 2 already connected devices. It works pretty much like most Bluetooth devices. You disconnect at least one of the currently connected devices and then connect the new device. You can have multiple devices paired, but a maximum of 2 devices currently connected. You can see the list of devices within the Connect app.

Bluetooth range is excellent. It would easily stay connected when going from one area of a reasonably large house to another. The range exceeds any other Bluetooth headphones.

Sound Quality:
Sound quality has to be the most subjective area to evaluate, yet one of the most important. Most people will find these really very good to excellent. For most these may well be the best sounding headphones they have ever had. Those more critical may find a few areas where they lack, but still they are excellent for noise cancelling headphones. Sound quality is probably one of the best aspects of these headphones.
The sound quality when listening to high quality content was very enjoyable. Overall they are fairly well balanced, albeit a bit heavy on the low end, but not boomy or with obvious peaks in the response. More so they sound “warm.” The bass is noticeable, and quite deep. You will clearly hear the thump of a drum, but still somewhat tight. The deep bass on some of the Billie Eilish tracks is impressive. The bass is not so excessive though that it drowns out mid or high frequencies. Music sounds good with individual instruments clearly identified. Male and female vocals sound good and natural.
The deep warm bass works well for movies and similar entertainment. These will likely work quite well for watching airplane entertainment. High frequencies are clear, and more smooth than harsh. They are balanced overall with a bit more low frequency emphasis that shifts the balance a bit.
The iPhone app does have equalization settings, so it is possible to adjust to your personal preferences. I reviewed these set at flat, default setting.

If one is going to compare these to audiophile headphones they will clearly notice differences. They will not replace examples of the best open or closed back audiophile headphones. They simply lack the detail, imaging and placement that those headphones present when paired with a quality DAC and headphone amplifier. That really isn’t a fair comparison though as these are noise cancelling Bluetooth headphones and they do a great job at that.

I did listen through both Bluetooth with the AAC codec and wired with a quality external DAC while listening to high resolution content streamed from Tidal through a Master Quality Authenticated DAC. They do sound better with the same content played through a wired DAC than Bluetooth. The difference wasn’t as much was expected. Sony did a good job with Bluetooth. I also tried listening to them with the power off, as plain wired headphones. They didn’t sound that different, which is rather a good thing. The same experiment with Bose QC35s will have a totally different sound. Bose relies extensively on equalization to get their otherwise somewhat poor sounding headphones to sound good. Sony starts out with decent sounding drivers.

I have not tried using the LDAC hi-resolution Bluetooth codec yet. This isn’t as easy as it would seem to use on either iOS or MacOS. You can’t simply use a high-resolution source to use it. You need to download and install the Sony Music Center app, then load the high-resolution content into that app to play. I’m not sure how to get it to work with a Mac at all. The better codec should sound better. To be fair, at least part of the problem is Apple in this case.

I did try the DSEE Extreme feature. This supposedly improves the sound quality of low bit rate compressed content. I listened to some low bit rate MP3 files, and some standard streaming services, such as Amazon Prime music. It sounded different, I’m not sure I would say it sounded better. At least what I noticed was a boost in high frequencies. It made some of the squashed high frequency details more noticeable, but they still sounded highly compressed, and to some extent the compression artifacts became more noticeable. This may well be a personal choice, and likely varies over content, level of compression, and codecs used. The bottom line is that you really need to start with quality content.

The 360 Reality Audio was a disappointment. I tried playing a variety of tracks in 360 Reality Audio on Tidal. I did this using the Tidal app on both iPhone and a Mac. I did link the Tidal app with the Sony app as part of the initial setup. I did notice a wider sound stage. It wasn’t like demos in a movie theater for Dolby Atmos or anything that dramatic. There was some front/rear placement depth. It was interesting to play with for a while. What I found though is that it just sounded strange. I played some of the same tracks on Tidal HiFi or MQA and to me they sounded much better, much more musical. Call me a purist, audiophile, or whatever, but I found the highly processed audio more annoying than enjoyable. It doesn’t replace the stereo imaging or placement that superb headphones can present as described above. Honestly overall these sound good enough without these audio tricks. Perhaps if there were some movie encoded with 360 Audio it would be better to enjoy special effects and less about musicality. It seems more of a gimmick than musical. By far the best quality was the same song in Master Quality on Tidal with an external DAC and the 3.5mm wired cable.

Phone calls
The audio quality on phone and video calls has been excellent on the receiving side and is about as good as Bluetooth HFP profile gets. it is excellent for conversations. With the excellent noise cancellation these are excellent for long video calls. They will likely continue to be great for those forced to endure a noisy open office environment, or need to make phone calls in a noisy area such as an airport or train station.
Phone call microphone:
Overall I’ve had only a few complaints from those that I’ve in meetings or on calls with. Most people said I sounded fine. I was on one phone call with my iPhone and the person had difficulty understanding me and could hear me fine when I switched to the iPhone. They said I sounded “far away.” On a video call I had some people refer to the sound as “bubbly.” After switching to AirPod Pros and the sound improved.
They seem to isolate ambient noise reasonably well, although I haven’t had extreme cases to try during working from home due to COVID-19. This is one area where Bose QC35 were awful. I don’t know if they match AirPod Pro for microphone beam forming, but so far they seem fine. These work for phone and video calls, but aren’t great.

Noise cancellation
These are fantastic at noise cancellation. I haven’t been on an airplane with them, the real test, but these seem significantly better than the already excellent Bose QC35. At least around the house they block out the low frequency sounds that noise-cancelling headphones are best at. Around the house even a Ninja blender was mostly attenuated while I was on a conference call. My neighbor’s air conditioner that still can be heard with the Bose QC35 and AirPod Pros is completely gone with these. I was even using a really loud flooring saw and used these. I did still hear the saw, but not very loud, and I could still enjoy music while sawing flooring! Family talking is mostly gone during conference calls and entirely when playing music. I expect that these would be great in an open office environment or an airplane. Bose QC35 were the best I had used prior to these, and the Bose don’t work nearly as well, especially for voice. They have much better noise cancellation than Apple Air Pod Pro buds too. If your main reason for looking for headphones is noise cancellation, these are what you buy.

One annoyance I had with the Bose QC35 headphones is if I wore glasses the sidepieces would create an acoustic leak and let some noise in. They still work, but especially on an airplane you would hear more air noise. I haven’t tried them on an airplane yet due to covid, but so far I don’t notice nearly as much difference as I did with the Bose with glasses.

Battery:
Sony claims 20 hours of battery life without defining what mode. Other headphones sometimes have decreased battery life with HFP (phone calls). These definitely exceed the rated battery life. With the first charge they lasted almost a week of varied use. I used them for a multi-day virtual conference, and other meetings (combination of HFP and A2DP) for over 14 hours, and they still had 60% charge. Sony doesn’t specify any longer battery life with the wired cable. On the Bose I would plug the cable in when I would go to sleep on international flights, and Bose quoted 40 hours like that, so 20 hours isn’t fantastic. It is more than enough though. It will get you through the longest flight plus some other use. Almost any other use it should be more than enough. I used them over 10 hours straight one day and they were still around 70% charged.

Charging:
These charge with a USB-C connector. They come with a very short (about 6”) USB-A to C cable but no power supply. They charge relatively quickly (less than an hour from 20%, but I didn’t time it). You will need around a 10W power supply to get the fastest charging. I monitored the charge current from 20% capacity. They started at 0.44A or roughly 2.2W, which seemed reasonable for headphones. Then they jumped to 1.32A or about 6.66W, then to the maximum I saw was 1.8A or about 9 W! It is surprising that Sony pushed that much power into a headphone! The actually battery capacity has to be pretty large, so it apparently does use quite a bit of power. In most cases this is of no issue, they charge up quick. It can be an issue is if you are stuck trying to charge them in an airport or airplane port. They will also suck a lot out of a battery pack.

User interface:
This is the worst aspect of these headphones. The touch controls are simply dreadful, almost unusable. Simple buttons would have been much better. Even with practice it is almost impossible to master the gestures to go forward, backward, start/stop, and change the volume. Either it doesn’t register the touch, or it does the wrong thing. You try and turn the volume down and track changes. To be fair, they do have a volume control. The Air Pods Pro don’t and that is really annoying. Even with practice controls don’t work right.
Some guidance: to change the volume, especially lower it, swipe down on the right ear as if you are petting it. Just swiping as if using a smartphone touch screen won’t work right. Swipe down from above the top just like petting it, and then it might change the volume. Changing tracks is even harder, and only seems to happen when trying to change the volume. Hitting the start stop button doesn’t seem to work, except of course when you try to adjust the headphone on your head and then it stops what you were listening to, and would likely hang up a call – be careful of that. I end up using controls on my phone or computer most times. Simple buttons would have been SO much better.

Voice assistant:
Setting up Alexa is not all that easy. Assuming the headphones are already set for Alexa, you already have the Alexa app installed and set up, and the headphones are already paired to the phone you still need to add the WH1000MX4 to Alexa. This takes going to the Alexa app, and adding the device. It will then want to pair with Bluetooth. I put the WH1000MX4 into pairing mode by using the almost hidden mode of holding the power button (rather than the app). It then showed it failed to connect, but it actually seemed to pair on the second attempt. If you were successful you will have a second pairing of the device as LE_-WH1000XM4, for a second Bluetooth Low Energy pairing.

Then Alexa did work hands free (if enabled in the Alexa app). You could just say Alexa and it worked. You could ask Alexa what ever you normally would. It seemed to actually work better than the Echo Auto that also relies on the app. The response audio always has the first syllable of cut off though. This works fine for querying Alexa, or invoking Alexa content. It does NOT work for controlling other functions on the phone, even changing the volume. Telling Alexa to play won’t resume what was playing on the phone, it will resume what the Alexa app used last it seems. This may be iPhone limitations, but I will likely switch to Siri and see if that works better. It would be great if you could have all of them and just invoke the desired one with the appropriate wake word (Alexa, Hey Siri, OK Google). I haven’t tried other voice assistants with these yet.

The automatic speak to chat feature is both great and annoying. At least with the sensitivity set to automatic it will detect voice quite well and stop the content you may be listening to, and allow ambient sound to be heard. This, when desired is far more convenient than Air Pods Pro where you have to hold be button for a few seconds to go into transparency mode. While you still can’t hear what someone says to you, at least when you reply to them, it immediately lets you hear them, and doesn’t take the seconds the Air Pods do. With AirPods you also need 2 actions to stop music and enter transparency mode. This mostly works. In the automatic mode it doesn’t need to actually be voice that triggers it. Anything like a grunt, large breath, anything it seems will trigger it. The slightest grunt or sound and they stopped the music and went into ambient mode. There is a low sensitivity mode that I haven’t tried yet. You will find this feature to be a love/hate relationship after a while. Even with the “Focus on Voice” feature enabled this still seems to be overly sensitive.

Another feature is adaptive sound control. This is supposed to optimize the sound based on location, and detection of actions. This is likely useful when changing between an office, train station, etc. I haven’t evaluated that during a pandemic.

As for automatic detection of actions, that can be very annoying. It was fine when sitting in one place. Initially I didn’t know why EVERY time I bent down the headphones would beep and go out of noise cancelling mode. Then resume playing normally. This is apparently the notification for detection of actions. This can be disabled in the app. If someone were to use these headphones in a gym or exercising this would be annoying as well. (Note: These are NOT sport headphones!)

App

The app is essential to setting up, using, adjusting, and updating the headphones. Sony even uses the app for pairing with the iPhone, which is unusual. The app allows configuring the many options available, equalization and more. You also use the app to optimize the headphones for the shape of your ears by taking a picture of your head and both ears. I went through the whole process.
There are a lot of options in the app, and the layout is OK. It can be a bit confusing.

The app does provide a lot of control and information. It shows battery level, and the current codec in use. This last part I really like, Apple typically doesn’t show these details. Many options can beyond simply being enabled or disabled from the app can also be further controlled.

Case, accessories
A nice rigid fabric coated and lined travel case is provided. It is similar in size to the Bose QC35. It appears that it would protect the headphones and hold up well with travel.

A 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable is included. This allows using the headphones with a wired source, such as an airplane entertainment system. The cable does not have a microphone or controls and will not control and iPhone, iPad, or Mac or support calling. It is only a 3-conductor plug for stereo listening.

While the Bose QC35 headphones come with an equivalent cable, the Bose QC25 cable, or the Amazon Basics alternative cable can be purchased that does allow using the QC35 for phone calls, and wired remote.

Also included is a short USB-A to USB-C charge cable, no charger, and the old 2-pin airplane adapter.

Update 10.28.20 - So I'm 1 week past my return window, and the Bluetooth has stopped connecting to anything. I have to manually go into my phone to connect it any time I want to use it, which is multiple times per day. And the headphones are only connected to my phone right now - they're not connected to any other device, so they aren't connecting to something else automatically and not to my phone. They just don't connect to anything. I am extremely disappointed with these headphones overall. At this point, I wish I'd never bought them.

I've only had these for a few days, so this review may change. I'll update it if it does.

After using these headphones for many hours a day since I got them, I can say unequivocally that they are... fine. They're fine. First of all, it's important to note that I am one of those people who don't know anything about sound mixing, sound quality, equalizing, bass, treble... I don't know anything about any of it. I use my headphones almost constantly - 10 or more hours a day for podcasts, audiobooks, and the occasional work call. So I'm way more concerned with how the headphones function than how they sound because for me, they all sound pretty much the same.

And that's my biggest problem with these. They don't function as smoothly as I wanted them to.

When I turn them on, I hear "Power On" then a few seconds later "bluetooth connected". But I don't know what it's connected to, because every time I do this, I have then open the Sony Connect app and tell the headphones to connect to my phone. It isn't doing that automatically, even though I only have them connected to this one device. I've tried waiting a few seconds, up to a full minute, and I still had to manually tell them to connect to my phone in order to use them.

The speak-to-chat function is great in theory, but since the headphones (obviously) can't tell if I'm actually starting a conversation or just telling my dogs to get off the couch, they were pausing constantly. (It's possible I talk to my dogs too much) It even pauses automatically when I sneeze or cough. Which brings me to functionality problem #1. When that happens, the headphones are supposed to restart 30 seconds after you've stopped talking. And if you want it to restart sooner, you just unpause them. 8 times out of 10, this doesn't happen. The few times I waited the full 30 seconds, twice going to a full minute, they didn't unpause. I had to manually unpause them. So I turned that feature off, which is disappointing because it's one of the features I was looking forward to.

Which leads into issue #2. You really have to double-tap the right headphone really hard to get them to acknowledge the tapping and pause or restart. Multiple times I've had to stand there tapping the side of my head like an idiot, then still go to my phone and manually unpause whatever I was listening to. The headphones will give a little beep to let me know that they have received my taps, but the book/podcast whatever doesn't start playing again until I go in and unpause it on my phone.

Problem #3 is that if I double-tap the headphones to pause, at least 7 times out of 10, the Audible app, podcast app, whatever I'm using, actually closes so that 1 minute later, when I'm ready to restart, I have to actually open the phone, go to the app and restart again. I can't even just grab my phone and hit the play button, I have to restart the entire app. This whole thing is extremely frustrating.

The volume control isn't terrible, though you have to be pretty precise with your up and down swiping, because if you slant even a little to one side, the headphones are likely to read it as a forward or backward and skip the track whichever way it thinks you want. And you have to swipe a lot, because the volume goes up or down in very small increments.

The noise-canceling seems to work pretty well, though I haven't tried it out as thoroughly as I'd like. One minor irritant, though, is that these automatically turn on in noise-canceling mode, which I don't need or even want when I'm at home, so I have to manually change this every time. That gets annoying.

So I haven't decided yet if I'm going to keep these or not. It's a lot of money to pay for headphones that frustrate me as much as these currently do, but maybe some of these issues are just settings I haven't figured out yet. I don't think so, because I've been through them pretty thoroughly, but I'll give it at least a full week before I make a decision. And I'll update my review once I do.

If you're an audiophile, or you care about the sound quality, all these headphones are mediocre. They are tuned to the taste of the average consumer - there's a lot of bass and not much else.

Advanced users could fix the bloated bass. It involves using a parametric EQ and a preset based on precise lab measurements. I did that, and after the EQ they sound very good.

Noise cancellation is very good. These headphones will remove most noise from the ambient. They are a tiny, tiny bit better than the previous model (XM3), but the difference can only be noticed if you have both headphones, and you switch quickly back and forth between them. Otherwise it's impossible to tell. I would say they are about the same if you're not very picky.

The XM4 has a major flaw IMO: the electronics themselves make a bit of noise. You can hear it in the pause between songs, it's called "hiss" noise because it does sound like an animal hissing. It's not loud, but in silence you can hear it. To me that's not acceptable for noise cancelling headphones. They ought to be dead silent on their own. The XM3 (the previous model) are indeed dead silent in between songs. Most people may not notice this; if you're a discerning user, then you will hear it.

They are very comfortable. I could wear them for hours without problems. Same for the previous model, which is almost identical.

The battery lasts a very long time. After a full day's work, battery is at 70% for me. I guess it could last 3 work days if I didn't recharge it daily.

I actually returned the XM4 and kept my old XM3.

I received this $350 pair of headphones which I thought would be new. When I went to set it up it was already connected to "Ian's phone". I'm NOT Ian nor does a Ian reside anywhere in my neighborhood. I then realized that there was NO packing material in the box at all. No plastic bags, nothing was taped or sealed. I got them connected and the sound quality is on par with a $60 pair of Sony headphones that I bought for my wife. This may be the reason that Ian returned them. There is a setting which cancels the noise cancellation when you speak, but it also pauses the music for 15+ seconds. It's a great idea, if you need to ask what someone said before you start speaking, except for the fact that if you cough, sneeze, snort, laugh, or sing along it pauses your music. (That setting can be turned off.) I'm returning these and going to buy some from Best Buy to see if I received a defective pair since they don't sound as expected. I wish I could contact Ian to see what headphones he ended up buying.

So what can I say that hasn't already been said by everyone of repute. It's the active noise canceling, over-ear headset that MKBHD and dozens of tech Youtubers swear by as probably the best (or top 3) in its price range. In my personal use, the battery life is incredible (haven't drained it dry, but it's supposedly around 30 hours). The sound quality is great, although I'm not an audiophile so it's just my opinion. The noise canceling is also really good. I have the Sony noise canceling Earbuds and it's better than those (of course they have some passive noise canceling from being over-ear).

What I don't think any Youtubers have talked about, is that with an extra $35 purchase, you can actually make this headset function perfectly with Xbox AND PlayStation consoles. I'm talking about the "V-MODA BoomPro Microphone for Gaming & Communication" (not sure if links work in a review, but this is it - https://amzn.to/3aA536a ). The microphone side connects directly into the 3.5mm headphone jack in the bottom of the left earcup and sits right next to your mouth and can be adjusted. On the cable of the microphone you have a mute switch and a volume wheel (for the headset volume not the mic). The bottom of the cable plugs into either gaming control. I have personally used it multiple times with both my PS5 and my Xbox Series X. I also tested it out with my old Xbox One X and PS4. While I have not tested it on the Xbox One, PS4 Pro, or the Xbox Series S, I have to imagine it will have similar results. I spoke to friends on Xbox and they said the mic sounded pretty good, but not amazing, then again it's only $35.

The major downside to this whole setup is that the cable the headset comes with is super long (about 75") and gets in the way a lot. You can throw rubber bands on it or order something online to manage it. I bought this "Nite Ize Curvyman Cord Supervisor" that can be seen easily in the 4th picture (link here: https://amzn.to/3hakkvC ). There are other options for wrapping it up, but this was $3 with free prime shipping and works great.

All in all, a great setup that just works. I previously was using an ASTRO A50 with my Xbox One and don't even use that anymore. That headset frequently has random cutouts and you have to flip the mic up to mute which is annoying. I don't even miss the simulated "3D audio" that it supposedly has. The Sony Headset is the best!

Let's start with the good. The noise cancellation is incredible. The sound quality is also quite good, when it works. That's the rub.

Cons:
Connectivity
Connection is fiddly on a good day and mostly just doesn't work well. The internal bluetooth antenna is terrible compared to other headphones I have used. The headphones constantly connect and disconnect.

Bluetooth features
no aptx low latency, so useless for video and games

Fit
These say they are over the ear but are smaller than any over the ear cans I've owned. They rest on my ears and thus hurt after a few hours :(

Built in Alexa
The technical term for this is a lie. There is NO BUILTIN ALEXA. What they mean by, "built in alexa", is that you can assign one of the two hardware buttons on the headphones to alexa. When you press this, if you are connected to your phone and if the software works, then it will run alexa on your phone. In practice I never got this to work on my android phone.

Connecting to multiple devices
Not what it sounds like. This is actually the same, "feature", that most headphones implement, only MUCH worse. ie you can pair them to a bunch of devices and then easily switch the connection over.
Only through the app, only to 2 discrete devices and the connection is noisy and twitchy and continuously shifts back and forth

Basically none of the features really works. The adaptive environment feature cuts in and out. The touch controls half work and seem to randomly misinterpret gestures etc etc

While stereo music sounds great, the hands free mode has VERY bad quality. You can not use the quality stereo mode if you use the mic, so games, zoom meetings etc sound like a tin can.

Oh and doing anything requires the app.

I hesitated before purchasing this product since it's a big investment. The experience is AMAZING so far with sound quality, noise cancellation, built quality, and battery life. I'd strongly recommend this product and can gladly say that this is one of the best headphones out there.

Plus, Amazon really exceeds my expectation in terms of shipping & delivery. At first, Amazon promised me that they would deliver the product 2 days after the launch. However, it ended up delivering the product within just 1 day, making me one of the first customers that can try on this product. So 5 stars for Amazon as well!

UPDATE 11/11/20: With the release of firmware 2.0.7 these have become usable for conference calls on Windows 10. The issue with initial syllables getting cut-off appears to be fixed and overall I have reports when using Skype and Zoom from my co-workers is that I now sound as good as (or maybe even a bit better than) other co-workers using Bose NC 700 headphones. According to Sony's release notes this firmware update is only supposed to address connection stability on Windows. I have increased my rating to 4 stars.

UPDATE 10/30/20: No update from Sony on the microphone issue. My co-worker have asked that I use a different microphone as the microphone audio is quite poor. I'm outside the Amazon return window, but am currently working with Sony to hopefully get these at least exchanged if not returned.

UPDATE: After a week, I am getting many complaints from people on the other end of my conference calls. Zoom / WebEx / etc. This is a serious issue that impacts me on a daily basis. I have put a case into Sony support and hoping they release a new firmware soon to fix the call quality.

Below is my "evergreen" review which I will update whenever I have revised my opinion of these phones due to either new experiences or updated firmware, etc.

Compared to my 2 year old Sony WH-H900N:

Pros:
+ More equalization options, including the ability to use the EQ with LDAC codec.
+ Stronger ANC, particularly high-pitched whines and voices are significantly more attenuated by the XM4. Airplane or fan noise is not hugely different. Overall the ANC on the XM4 is superior.
+ True multipoint connectivity allows you to connect the XM4 to two different devices simultaneously. Both AD2P and HSP profiles can be simultaneously connected to 2 different devices. The H900N can independently connect their AD2P and HSP profiles to two different devices which can allow music to be played on a PC while using a phone for voice calls, but it is tricky to connect/disconnect the correct profiles each time you power cycle the headphones. The XM4 are much improved on this front, although the priority switching is a bit dodgy in my opinion and takes a few seconds to detect and switch devices, so it's easy to miss notifications or other brief sounds when multiply connected.
+ The XM4 are better for making calls in noisy environments, although the overall quality is mediocre at best. Any halfway decent gaming headset or office headset will do a better job of capturing just your voice. I tested versus my Sennheiser G4ME One wired headset.
+ (slightly) more compact travel case since the earcups both swivel and fold whereas the H900N only fold
+ XM4 allows you to mix in a variable amount of ambient sound whereas the H900N has only 1 setting for ambient sound
+ The WH-1000XM4 while improved, are still poor in windy situations, even when put into "wind" mode, which does help. I haven't had a chance to compare the XM4 on a voice call in windy environments. The H900N are unusable in wind for phone calls, I have to switch to the handset.

Cons:
- The WH-1000XM4 have significantly less Bluetooth 4.0 range, I get crackling and break-up within 3 meters where the WH-H900N easily reach 10 meters. This is a big deal when working from home. With the H900N I could make a phone call from the kitchen with my computer in the office and be pretty confident that I could still speak and hear everything. With the XM4 I can't leave my office without huge glitching. EDIT: I swapped out my BT4.0 adapter to a BT5.0 adapter on my desktop and with this, I can get ~20 meter range with my XM4, still not quite as good as the H900N gets with BT4, but acceptable for my uses.
- Overall, WH-1000XM4 do not sound much better, in fact at default factory settings, the midrange is a bit muffled and bass response bloated versus older headphones, tweaking Clear Bass setting to -2 helps
- The WH-1000XM4 ANC presents a low-level background hiss and a sucking sensation on the ears
- The WH-1000XM4 do not support Qualcomm aptx codecs
- The WH-1000XM4 have worse microphone quality when used in quiet environments.
- Hold-hand-to-right-earcup-to-speak actually works better on the older headphones as Sony apparently wants you to use the deeply problematic speak-to-chat automatic feature instead

Equal:
* Battery life is roughly the same, with ~24 hours for the older headphones versus ~30 hours for the newer
* Bluetooth pairing is similarly slow on both headphones
* Both support LDAC codec for high bitrate sound (although when in 2-device mode LDAC cannot be used)
* Overall weight and comfort is similar, with the XM4 being a bit lighter
* Ear heat is a problem with both headphones, slightly cooler on the XM4
* Neither headphone can use the microphone when listening via wired connection, come on Sony!
* Neither headphone can be used as a USB headset (even though the phones are recognized by Windows 10, they do not show up as an audio device)
* Touch controls are essentially identical, in fact the H900N are actually a bit more responsive although perhaps I'll get used to the XM4

Personal Preference:
* The style of the older headphones is a bit nicer in my opinion, and they are available in more colors
* The newer XM4 use USB-C charging versus micro-usb for the older headphones. This should be a pro for the XM4 but the XM4 won't charge on any of my USB-C PD chargers, so I have to either plug them into a port on my computer or find an old low-power phone charger to charge them. The H900N are less finicky about what charger they will accept.
* The "silver" XM4 is really a grayish-beige which is pretty ugly, I wish I'd have bought boring basic black.

Overall I am disappointed that these are not a bigger upgrade over my 3 year old headphones. I knew from various reviews that the H900N sounded better than the 1000XM, and 1000XM2, with reviews being a bit equivocal on the XM3. I was expecting the XM4 to blow the H900N away, but really they are barely better except for multipoint and ANC.

I have never spent more than $70 on a pair of headphones, so Sony's new XM4 Headphones was a large purchase for me.

To give you some context, my main headphones have been the Sony MDR7506 Large Diaphragm Headphones.
They've been awesome for delivering balanced sound, creating music and using for my laptop when I'm stationary, but they've never been the best type of headphones to bring with me when I'm on the go or traveling.

I've had these headphones for 3 days now, and while I expect more updates in the future via the Sony Headphones app, I've been pleasantly surprised to find how comfortable they are and convenient to use when I'm walking around or simply relaxing in my room.

Compared to my previous headphones, if I wore them longer than a couple of hours, my ears and sides of my head would hurt. As a glasses wearer, I was concerned that these headphones would do the same, but they've been awesome so far - I've worn them for 6 hours straight with no ear pain! :)

I prefer turning off the Ambient filter setting in the app while I'm at home, since I like to hear what's around me, but once I start traveling again, I'd imagine I'd use it more. The noise-cancelling definitely works, even without the headphones turned on - I almost find it disorienting how quiet everything becomes when I turn the headphones on (I'm used to a lot of background noises in my daily life).

In terms of sound quality, I can't say I was amazed. This mostly is because I think I already had a pretty great pair of headphones to begin with, and now with the XM4's I can hear details a bit more thanks to the noise canceling! I haven't experimented much with the equalizer yet within the app, but that's something I would like to update people on as I continue to use them.

The only disappointment I have so far with them is the incapability I have with pairing them with my main PC.
I checked to make sure my drivers were updated and the headphones themselves, but they seem to have a hard time being detected at all, or they are paired as an "other device" on my Windows 10 PC. This could be due to my own doing, as I built the PC myself, and perhaps there is a problem, but nonetheless, I tried to find a solution online but couldn't find one...so I have resorted to using them plugged in, which is a tad disappointing, but I do realize these headphones are more meant for on-the-go then plug and play.

Considering this is my first time buying expensive headphones, I want to be honest - I think I may have been better off buying cheaper ones, but at the same time, they do deliver what they said they would - the speak to chat feature is extremely helpful when I'm busy or my hands are full and can't actively touch my phone or headphones (the music or whatever you're listening to is paused and outside voices are amplified so you can hear what you and others are saying). This feature can be disabled in the app, and set to different times in terms of when to turn off. EX: I was speaking to my mom when I was doing the dishes, and I couldn't quite take them off when my hands were wet - music was paused and I could hear what she was saying! :D

I'll probably update this as I start using them more when I'm outside the house.

I hope this helps you decide if you would like to purchase these headphones.
Stay safe out there!

I've been pro-Bose for YEARS (QC35's being the most recent headphones). Not necessarily for the booming bass/audio quality, but for the convenience factor (on the go, on the plane, zoom meetings, etc...), excellent battery life + amazing noise cancellation. To balance, I have a pair of Sennheiser Momentum 2.0 (though oddly designed), sound great both via Bluetooth or cabled/analog via a DragonFly, playing FLAC, etc...

Well..., my QC35's encountered the infamous always-on "feature." Flipping the button to off will give you an audible beep that it's being powered off, only to find that you missed 20 calls in your log that you never heard ring. If you're under warranty, you're golden (they'll offer to fix or a discounted upgrade). If not, you're forced to operate with miniature tools under a magnifying glass to bend the button contact points to maintain constant connectivity to the board. My QC35's were months out of warranty & I was SOL... Hacked per all the DIY vids which worked well for about 6 months. Earlier this week, however, I noticed several missed calls + the Bluetooth connection active. Sure enough, the Bose were "back at it again..." Didn't feel like hacking for another 6 month band-aid, so seriously considered picking up a pair of 700's. My coworkers, however, (the same ones who all originally had/suggested Bose), said they switched to Sony months ago... After researching pros & cons/side-by-side comparisons, the WH-1000XM4's seemed more & more a worthy competitor/option...

Go-To Amazon of course had the WH-1000XM4's in-stock (& $60 cheaper than the Bose!), so ordered without hesitation. Headphones arrived (packaging & product) looking very slick (nice touch w/ the rose gold accents on black. Charged for about 30 minutes, then tested audio & call quality... BLOWN AWAY... Streaming music, movies, etc... seemed lightyears beyond what I subjected myself to w/ the Bose. My QC35's sounded flat & bass was non-existent. These headphones feel like I'm back in the mid 90's, cruising in my lowered Accord on wire wheels, bumping my Cerwin Vegas powered from an M100 Phoenix Gold Amp w/ Boston Acoustic pro series highs/mids. Yes, "slight" exaggeration (anyone w/ 12" Vega's know what I'm talking about), but it DID take me back... Beyond impressed... No issues w/ audio quality as well on my Zoom's or direct bt to my phone.

So..., audio quality is OUTSTANDING... What caught me off guard, however, was the noise cancellation! I thought Bose was amazing, but Sony's latest technology is on another level. It works so well, it's scary... Damn near can't hear a thing when they're on. Without any audio at all, it's as if you're trapped in "soundproof vacuum purgatory," with nothing but you & your now blaringly loud tinnitus to keep you company. When you take them off after a few hours of wearing, you (to be continued: Apparently, my family has been calling my name for the last 10 minutes. They gave up & sent my youngest upstairs to physically wave her hands in front of me @ my workstation to tell me we're eating soon. Yes, the noise cancellation is THAT good). Ok, continuing where I left off above: When you take them off after a few hours of wearing, your ears are now hyper-sensitive to every day sounds. Birds chirping, humming of video equipment, the heater, etc... I always assumed that Bose was the leader in this technology, but Sony just knocked it out of the park...

As far as cons? Very minimal & more of annoyances if anything... I use mine strictly for voice & audio (though I did install the app), so not really taking advantage of any of the advanced features. The Bose has a massive R & L inside the padding + the on/off switch is an easy queue as to which side is R or L. The Bose padding at the top of your head also appears to be a bit firmer/more comfortable. With the Sony, the buttons are camouflaged into speakers & the R & L are tiny (but color coded) markers on the inner headset. Marking is tiny, but as long as you associated Red with Right, then you're golden. Also, after a prolonged period of time, the very top of my head was throbbing/sore. I'd have to raise the headset slightly to give the to of my skull a break. Again, these are merely minor annoyances & the pros far outweigh the cons...

Can't really say much more & for those TLDR, Sony's WH-1000XM4 put my Bose QC35's to shame (voice, audio & outstanding noise cancellation). Not sure how long these suckers will last, but assuming they stand the test of time, I don't see any reason why I'd ever return to Bose...

Noise-cancelling is astounding! But I was so disappointed by the audio quality initially.

But that's cos of the codec it was on - default is SBC on this - Which is prolly the most stable connection but just so bad for sound quality if you're sensitive about that sort of thing.

I have changed my phone settings to no longer allow multiple device pairing for bluetoth. Same on the headphone.

All those compromises were done to be able to use the LDAC codec for Bluetooth transmission between my phone and the headphones

I am running lossless audio through the ancient looking but amazing sounding DFX player - so i don't want the bluetooth protocol to reduce that quality

And, man, does LDAC sound good. I was previously using aptX wherever possible and LDAC is even better

Yes, I can tell the difference

And especially when you swithc from using SBC on this to LDAC, you WILL notice an improvement in audio quality, especially if your audio source isn;t something like mp3 or spotify etc

Run lossless audio from your phone over a good app that renders it well using LDAC to this and you get very very good sound quality

You will lose multi-device support using LDAC though - And I know that's one of the new things this has over XM3 - But I find losing that feature worth it for the sound improvment with the better codec

Now what I'm really hoping for is that a future update enables multi-device support with LDAC where available

Works with iphone/ipad but not connecting to MAC OS X. It's quite hard to switch between the three devices. Once connected to Mac OS X it's just baffling the static and disruption sounds for both music or zoom calls. Very disappointed.

They sound great when listening to iphone/ipad but one must turn off "Notification & Voice Guide" otherwise if you're walking around your room - one gets a bell sound every time you stop due to the Adaptive Sound control changing when moving and standing still.

I previuosly used the XM3's for a week or so and then I saw these were coming out so I got the XM4's instead.
Although these XM4's ended up being $80 more, I'm glad I spent the extra money.
I honestly can't tell the difference in the sound quality, but the whole user experience is vastly better in the XM4's.
The cushions feel softer they pause my music when I take them off my head.
The biggest difference however, and what makes it worth that $80 extra, is now I can simultaneously be connected to two devices at the same time.
While working at home I don't have to constantly keep pairing between my phone and laptop depending on which I'm using.
Fantastic sound quality, all day+ battery life, quick charges, and 2 device connection at the same time make these my favorite headphones to date.

Had a pair of the 1000XM3 and returned for sound quality being just okay. Once again, purchased these for a travel only headphone for convenience and noise cancelling for flights. Returned these within a week, sound quality has not improved at all. Bass is loose, highs are not crisp and the mids are drowned by the boomy/dirty bass. Chinese IEMs that cost $50 are dramatically better sounding and at the end of the day, that is why you buy headphones.

Improved BT from XM3, Comfort seemed to be better for long listening sessions, touch controls improved. If you want a travel headphone and you are pleased with airpods or Beats sound quality, this will work for you. If you care about SQ, PASS.

Take it from someone who has gone through 10+ headphones including: Beats Studio 2.0 + 3.0, Tzumis, Skullkandy, Sony xb950N1, Razors, iHome, and some others that I don't miss. My advice: spend the money and get these. I'll go through some quick pros and cons to keep things simple:

EDIT: had these for like 4 weeks and then the right earcup noise cancellation started crackling. Had to get a replacement. If these don't last, I'll start camping outside Sony Headquaters with a pitchfork.

Pros:
-Amazing Noise Cancellation- Supposedly the best in the industry. Definitely, the best I've owned. Far better than Beats FYI. Almost no hiss, just a sight wiss that is hard to notice. I've tried the Bose 700s at Best Buy and those do seem very good as well. I would say these are roughly even, with the Bose possibly edging them out. I think the Bose have zero hiss, however, I've never owned the 700s so I can't tell for sure. I think different headphones cancel out different sounds better too so I don't know if it's possible to name a sure winner.

-BASS (the one thing I know) - If you're someone who loves massive bass, these headphones do an excellent job. Far better than Beats. People say Beats are bass-heavy and they must be nuts cuz they have very little. The default sound setting on these isn't overly bass-heavy so if you aren't a bass fan then you'll be fine. You can adjust the bass settings in the app. Turn the clear bass to +10 if your a bass fan and you should be happy. The only headphones I've had that have more bass are the Sony xb950N1s, and they are very close. The N1s are solely dedicated to bass, so they manage a bit more punch, but don't have half the sound clarity or noise cancellation capabilities.

-Great Build- Just holding these you can tell they are well built and durable. They have a smooth rubberized feel that is very satisfying to the touch.

-Very Comfortable - They distribute the weight amazingly. No pressure points. I've worn these for hours. The most comfortable pair I own.

-Great carrying case

-Great Smart features- the most helpful are the pause sensor when you take them off your ears and then they shut off after a certain amount of time. Saves battery. I don't really use the speak-to-pause cuz I'm a fantastic singer and I don't want my headphones to pause when I release gold. ;)

-The multi-device pairing is pretty good. It's not overly fantastic for switching back and forth, rather it's nice to be able to pick up one of the two devices and not have to go to the setting to connect it.

-The touch features are decent, takes some tech awareness so recruit younger humans to teach you if you are 50+

Cons:
-I wish I could fire Karen from letting me know every time they turn on or connect to a device. They should have just used quick sounds or something like that, but an annoying lady lets you know when you do anything like turn them on/off, turn on noise cancellation, let your dog out, when you've lied to your parents, etc.

-Sony If you see this please fix this: the earcups turn the WRONG WAY. It's hard to explain but when you take them off your ears, the ear cups turn to face you. They should turn away so that you can set them down on a table/it would make it easy to put them in the case.

-That's honestly it. These aren't the cheapest but they are much better than their competitors and even rival headphones that sell starting at $550 and look like alien earmuffs.

I used bose for 15 years, bought this one thinking it was a time to change. What a mistake.

The biggest issue is the microphone in online meeting, and I assume phone as well, terrible. Everybody could not hear me well for a week, I thought it was something else, until I really narrow it down to those headsets. My old QC35II worked great, AirPod Pod worked great, laptop mic worked better, the voice on this one was terrible.

Then, I did some research (too late), and basically many reported the same issue with the Bluetooth and apparently need to buy another dongle, and I am not even sure it will work. Also, I have the latest Macbook 16", so, not sure why I need to buy a Bluetooth adapter for this headset while other always worked.

Also, some features are nice, but other are annoying. When in a call, audio change time to time, kind of tricky to find which setting to turn off while keeping the NC. Also, no way to turn off the voice assistant completely off, always have the voice, "one device connected" "second device connected." I would have loved to be in the product management meeting where it was decided that the user should not be able to turn those voices off (you can turn some off, but not completely)

Anyway, but I wasted $350 on this, I will probably buy the Bose 700 at some point.

On positive note, the sound is good, and some features are good as well. Just wish they would have try to match Bose on the call side.

V.3 is better than V.2, except multiple reviewers (including ourselves), find V.3 has unusably poor telephone conversation quality. We are not retaining this V.4 long enough to discern its telephone call quality.

After hours of use, V.4 seems a tad more uncomfortably tight on our head than prior versions, but that may well be because this is new, and hasn’t stretched out. If you want a more comfortable headphone, you may need to get one that does not have active noise cancelling, as ANC seems to require a bit more clamping pressure against the head to isolate outside noise.

On 14 October, 2020, Ash Vecchio posted an Amazon review claiming this V.4 works intermittently and stutters with their 2018 Samsung T.V., so they are returning the headphone. On 19 Oct., MAGMAN117 posted a similar review about connecting to both his Samsung T.V. & Samsung phone.

We updated this headphone to the latest Sony software, but still have the same issue after pairing this V.4 to our Bluetooth 2017 Samsung T.V. Model UN40MU7000. So like the other two reviewers, We also are returning this headphone.

Ash Becchio claimed difficulty reaching Sony, but when they did, Sony blamed their Samsung T.V. Which may be accurate, but does not help, if using this headphone with certain bluetooth T.V.s is important to you.

We are returning this, but highly recommend it if you are O.K. with both the modest head clamping pressure ANC requires, and do not use it with whatever Samsung devices these do not work well with. We are going back to using V.2 for phone calls, and V.3 for both music and television.

First of all, I am not an audiophile. I don't care about the 95% percent good sound quality to 95% percent good. Nor will I spend thousands of dollars on that. So the sound quality of this is perfectly fine with me. That aside, since the noise canceling is so great, the music sounds even better even you are on a train.

The noise-canceling is, well, freaking amazing. Truly, freaking amazing. And the app can let you adjust it. When you need to talk to somebody, you can put your palm on the right ear cup, then you will be talk and hear others. This is truly a great design. If you want to play with the app more, you can set your preference for each location you an in, and the headphone will auto load that setting. I don't need this, but I can see how useful this could be to others.

Second, the music sounds very good. Some people would argue, you should use different headphones for gaming and music. I find those people stupid or inefficient at least. This headphone should cover all aspects of gaming and music. For music, 360 music sounds good, but it's nothing that you should buy the headphone for. Oh, 360 music literally has a few songs, I mean, a few.

Third, this headphone feels very comfortable. It's the result due to a few designs. The headphone is very thin. Of course, you can't compare the weight to an earbud, but for a headphone, it's very light weighted. And the earcup and band have sufficient cushion. This is important, my last headphone was Sennheiser moment m2 ivory edition. The damn headphone will head my head and ear with only one or two hours of usage. But not with Sony's this headphone, I can easily wear it for days. The ear bud's cushion is way better than m2's. Those germans always bloat about how good their engineering is, but always short on materials. A lot of users with m2 complaining the ear cushion couldn't cover the ear, I can't explain how uncomfortable that is.

Fourth, the app is really useful. The app comes with the headphone has a lot of useful features. You should definitely check it out. Event google has a low score for it.

Fifth, the ability to connecting two devices through Bluetooth is a very good improvement. In short, you can listen to music on your laptop, and if there is a call, you can answer it immediately. When you are done with the call, get back to the music with ease.

Last, the battery lasts 30h. And if it's out of battery, you can charge it for about 5-10 min and be able to use it through the day.

I have owned the Bose QC 35 series I (the originals) for four years now, and just recently replaced the ear pads since they finally deteriorated. I figured after four years there has to be some serious improvements in noise cancelling technology, and since the WH-1000XM3 model got so many good reviews I figured these would be awesome. So I pre-ordered them.

I pulled them out of the box and followed the very quick connect process of downloading the app and using it to pair to my phone. It downloaded a firmware update automatically while I fiddled around with some settings briefly and listened to some music. Super easy, awesome.

The sound is very impressive. Punchy kick drum (I listen mostly to rock/metal) and nice bright sound. I quickly settled on a slightly customized version of the included Bright preset.

But things quickly went downhill from there.

After using the headphones for a bit, the touch controls became frankly annoying and easily susceptible to mistakes (I triggered track skips multiple times just by removing and putting the headphones back on). The volume adjustment is especially tedious...if you want to raise or lower the volume significantly you have to swipe it up or down a large number of times because the volume adjustment is done in small increments. With the Bose QC 35 and its dedicated buttons, you just quickly push the buttons. Simple.

I spent about 20 minutes trying to figure out how to pair the headphones with my laptop, reading the guide in the app and doing some web searching, thinking it must be provided by one of the two dedicated buttons like on the Bose QE 35s. Nope. It must be done with the app. In fact, everything has to be done with the app except whatever you have the custom button configured to do, and the power. On the Bose I just have to slide the power button, and it goes into pairing mode. Simple.

The above are honestly smaller issues that you could probably put up with since the sound these produce is so good. However, the deal breaker for me was when I connected them with the included wire to the controller on my Roku Ultra to enjoy some TV time after a long day. I always watch movies and TV with headphones. To my horror they produced a clearly audible hissing sound that is incredibly distracting. I turned them off and on again, disconnected and reconnected the cable. No change, still the hissing sound. My Bose don't produce this sound. Ugh.

After listening to them for a couple hours I had a slight headache and felt fatigued, almost nauseous. I know some people are affected differently by the noise cancelling technology, but I don't get this from my Bose, even after listening to them all day.

Additionally, speaking of noise cancelling, I compared my Bose QC 35s to these, and I couldn't tell the difference between the noise cancelling. They sound the same to me. :shrug: I'm sure you could tell the difference with laboratory equipment though.

All-in-all the sound these produce is really good, and the noise cancelling is great (although I can't tell the difference from my Bose QC 35 Series I). But they have 1) lots of annoyances in the touch controls instead of dedicated buttons, 2) the fact that the app is required to do everything (including pairing) except turning them off and activating the custom button, 3) the hissing on the wired connection to my Roku Ultra, and 4) the fatiguing after listening to them.

I'll be returning them.