Sony WF-1000XM4 Noise Canceling Wireless Earbuds

I was looking for new earphones specifically for fitness with the main usage test being running. I wanted to test across several price points to see which would be most worth the money. I’ve only had cheap running earphones before (though I have nicer cans that I use to listen with in other scenarios and some nice wired in ears for when I perform live). I don’t really care about noise cancelling. My primary criteria were about comfort (and if it can stay in my ear while running), and the sound quality vs price (how much marginal return do I get per dollar). I ended up picking a premium pair because you can really notice how much more digital/fake the audio sounds when testing side by side, the lower down in price you go.
(note: a lot of what I put were just notes I was jotting down while testing them. I try to do a more succinct summary in the first line of each option, and then it gets more rambly/random after that)

In the running:
Sony WF-1000XM4 $189.00 | Beats Fit Pro – $179 | Power Beats Pro – $179 | Jabra Elite 4 Active – $89 | JBL Endurance Peak 3 – $89.95 | Soundcore Sport X10 – $69.99 | JLab JBuds Air Sport – $69.88 | Golrex $29.99 | BMani T16 $39.99

Here are my thoughts:

Power Beats Pro – $179 (149) – My winner overall

Sounds great. It is not the best sound I’ve heard in earphones, but doesn’t seem to lack anything. Has good thumpy bass, presence in the mids, and good clarity up high. Nothing to complain about the sound.
Big/heavy case (doesn’t matter that much, but I do take these on big hikes so smaller case would have been nicer)
I think ultimately will be more comfortable for long use than the Fit pro. The stock medium tips fit fine, unlike the fit pro for some reason.
Sounds essentially the exact same as the fit pro which makes sense

Beats Fit Pro – $179

I wanted this to be my favorite. It’s light, small, has fun color options, and sounds great. But it ultimately was just not comfortable enough to leave in my ears for longer than 45 minutes. This would vary from person to person obviously.
Pretty comfortable, but had to switch to the small eartips (only earbuds I had to switch from the medium/stock tips). Stays in the ears well, but I think that the whole thing being in there will get uncomfortable pushing my ears after a while. Really little case which is nice.
Really great clarity, feels perfect
Can’t find any eq in the app, but I didn’t feel the need to adjust any eq settings either, every band/frequency was very satisfying, so that’s kind of nice not having to set it myself

Sony WF-1000XM4 $189.00

I believe this has a slightly fuller sound quality to it. Can’t really pinpoint how or why, but seems to be the most superior sound quality of all of them. I thought it might be better bass but that’s not it. I can’t pick a part any individual component that seem superior, it just has an overall fuller sound
There just doesn’t seem to be any way that these are going to stay in during a run. Would be great for any non-exercise application, but just wasn’t what I was looking for. I would choose these if I were looking for just walk around town kind of earbuds.

Jabra Elite 4 Active – $89
Great clarity and bass out of the box. I am the kind of guy who can only really tell sound differences when a/b testing it. If I only listened to these earbuds, I would have been fully satisfied with the sound quality, the comfort, and the security. It’s only because I tested it next to the premium models above that I decided not to go with this. But if this is your budget range, these are definitely the winners.
Excessively comfortable, like the most comfortable of any of the earbuds (premiums included), and feel like they will stay in on a run even though they don’t have any sort of little hook like the soundcore or powerbeats, or over ear hook like the others. Definitely the best ergonomics. Would take this over the JBL endurance or any other in the sub $150 price range.

Soundcore Sport X10 – $69.99

more satisfying for non edm music than the other options down below. Better separation for instruments and vocals.
Compared against JLabs with blue tips in, the bass is more comparable. Soundcore keeps more clarity than on higher end (albeit a little tinny sounding), than JLabs
Bass is definitely much better than JLabs. It does feel a bit more muddy because of the heavier bass, there may have been better vocal clarity with JLabs
Everything else seems fine
ANC is decent
small profile is light, really comfortable and stays in the ears

JLab JBuds Air Sport – $69.88

bigger profile, slightly less comfortable than the Soundcore. Bass is lacking out of the box. There’s better mid and high clarity on these than the soundcore.
Bass improves a noticeable amount by switching to blue tips, but you lose some clarity higher up
bass feels punchier in edm in these than x10
These are definitely more satisfying for thumpy edm music than the x10
The sound quality just feels lacking in depth, no matter which eq setting you choose.
Has a connected usb charger on the case as a charger (rather than a separate chord to plug into both charger and power), which I don’t think I like

JBL Endurance Peak 3 – $89.95

Clear vocals and instruments in mids and highs. Slightly more clear and crisp than the soundcore
Nice bass as well, (slightly worse bass than soundcore), less satisfying than the sound core on lyrical song but actually has punchier bass on edm
Plenty loud (other reviews saying they don’t get loud)
The equalizer app gives lots of control
This bass is also superior once equalized. So both bass and instrumental/vocals have more clarity. After messing with eq, is better than soundcore.
This sounded perfectly fine until compared with higher tier, then when a/b compared it sounded a bit more fake, a bit more digital, definitely enough to notice a difference

Golrex $29.99
It is okay sound, probably the best in this price range. If you just want something cheap that will give you sound, these are fine. If you care about sound quality even a little bit, it’s worth it to get a better headset.
There is no clarity at any frequency, just a decent amount of noise.
Has an attempted cheap premium look with led interfaces.

BMani T16 $39.99
Sounds way below average, worse than the golrex.
Really similar packaging and look to the golrex, so they’re either just copying each other or made by the same people

Los audífonos se escuchan increíble, por desgracia no puedo escuchar el códec LDAC que mejora a un mejor la calidad de sonido debido a que mi teléfono pone el códec cómo predeterminado y no me deja poner LDAC, chequen eso en su teléfono antes de comprar estos audífonos.

La cancelación de ruido es sorprendente pues te aisla de la gente y un poco de los autos si lo solo llevas la cancelación sin música, se llegan a escuchar los autos un poco pero es muy mínimo lo que se escucha, ten en cuenta que también son un peligro si vas en calles muy transitadas, pues te aislaran de todo si llevas la música con 50 de volumen.

El sonido ambiente es bueno pero no lo suficiente como para decir WOW se escuchan como si no llevará nada, si se escucha obviamente el ambiente pero diría que lo suficientemente bien como para poder escuchar a una persona y autos pero no para captar detalles mínimos.

El sonido es genial, cuando activas 360 reality audio puedes notar la diferencia en una canción normal y 360 reality audio, se escucha como si la música se moviera a tu alrededor y no se quedará estática en un solo lugar, también hay que decir que si uno quiere mejorar su experiencia con los audífonos hay que descargar la aplicación Sony headphones que nos ofrece la posibilidad de usar su ecualizador con distintos modos y hace resaltar aspectos como la voz, instrumentos, etc.

La comodidad, no los recomiendo del todo en ese aspecto pues llegan a doler un poco después de varias horas y eso que yo tengo oreja grande, no quiero imaginar si tendría oreja chica.

La batería, hay que tener en cuenta esto y es que en la página de soy dicen que los audífonos duran 8 horas, claro si duran 8 horas pero solo con cancelación de ruido o sonido ambiente sin música, con música y cancelación de ruido o ambiente solo duran 5 horas con 30 minutos en mi experiencia, puede que algunos tengan otra emperiencia distinta a la mia y por último el estuche ofrece las dos cargas como dicen.
Por recomendación mía diría que cuiden bastante bien el estuche pues si tienen manos sudorosa pues ten por seguro que si te descuidas se te van a caer, no me ha pasado pero he llegado a pensarlo y cuiden las almohadillas, se llegan a desgastar con el tiempo y mi recomendación es que las limpien con algo para que estas les dure aún más.

These were expensive but when it comes to sound quality and noise cancelling, I don’t want to cheap out and these didn’t disappoint (I think I bought these at full price too at something like 300$). The noise cancelling honestly feels like magic when I turn it on. It still gives me goosebumps. I’ve used these earbuds nearly every day for like the last year and a half and have had zero regrets in buying them.

Pros: Fantastic sound quality, comfortable fit (I’ve forgotten I was wearing them on occasion), magic noise cancelling, long battery life, durable earbuds, easy touch controls, outside noise isn’t blocked at all when ANC is off so others are still easily heard and understood, sound profiles with the app are pretty easy to play around with and offer some good customization.

Cons: Foam ear-tips can get really nasty if used at the gym or for extended periods without taking the time to clean them thoroughly, charging case build quality isn’t great (creeky plastic and has some give where others are much more solid feeling), possible bluetooth interference from time to time, simultaneous dual device connection isn’t really a thing despite the marketing, no tracking method on the case is a bit of a bummer for earbuds this expensive.

I’ll jump into the aspects I disliked since they’re easier to write about.

I’d tried beats before these and while I also liked those (and at their price points, they are quite competitive) I found these to have superior noise cancelling and were a bit more comfortable to wear for extended periods.

I don’t think they’re the most comfortable earbuds I’ve ever used and frankly, if they were any less comfortable I would have returned them and repurchased the beat fit pro’s I’d originally bought and saved a hundred dollars. I did find the Sony pair to be the more comfortable of the two hence why I stuck with them. I think the issue I have with them is that they’re just a bit large and it can be difficult to feel exactly how they’re supposed to sit in your ear. The way you see them pictured isn’t very comfortable for me so I don’t feel like I’m necessarily wearing them “correctly” but they don’t fall out during my gym time and they don’t look like I’m wearing them the wrong way so it’s really just a nitpick. They don’t sit as flush with my ear as I’d have liked. They look fine though in the mirror. I don’t feel self conscious while wearing them in public which I’d worried about when seeing how large they were.

*That could make the difference for you if you like to wear earbuds to get some peace and quiet and get a nap in since they’ll be pushing against your pillow and that’ll get uncomfortable very quickly.

The ear tip pieces are not the typical silicon material you find on nearly every other set of earbuds, they’re like a type of memory foam. I assume they chose this material to help with the noise cancellation and I’m sure it does provide a better seal between your ear and the outside world but in I’m opinion, silicon would have been better. Reason being that they’re very difficult to clean off the earwax inevitably gets on them. I clean my ears often and you’d think I never did if you caught a glimpse of my earbuds. For whatever reason, the wax really sticks to the foam and it’s difficult to remove. I damaged one of the tips trying to clean it, they aren’t the most durable things.

I ended up removing the silicon ear tips from an older pair of earbuds and using them to replace the memory foam tips. I found them to be more comfortable to wear, easier to get a good fit in the ear, and faaaar easier to clean. The degradation of the noise cancellation wasn’t *that* significant. I did flip between the two types of tips a few times to see the difference and it wasn’t much. It’s a personal preference really, I don’t think the tiny loss in noise cancellation outweighs the easier cleaning. **Edit from future me* Good god, please use silicon ear tips. I made the mistake of squeezing a foam ear tip and I discovered that they act just like little sponges where they absorb all the sweat and ear wax that gets near enough. Wiping them down isn’t good enough with foam tips.. you have to literally wring them out and wow was that disgusting. That’s with *any* foam ear tips though, not specific to these earbuds.

I haven’t really messed around with the equalizer settings all that much. I found a suggested setting on YouTube and tried it out and have since increased the bass some but have left the other settings as they were. It’s pretty easy to change them if you’re into that.

Battery life seems great. They haven’t died on me yet and I’ve used them for several hours in a session before when I’d listen to podcasts or use them at home to game with.

My advice, try the beats pro fit before jumping up to these. Those had great sound quality and noise cancellation but the little silicon but that holds it in your ear became really uncomfortable for me after half an hour or so. If that doesn’t bother you, then you can probably save yourself the hundred dollars and get those instead. I don’t think the improvements in sound quality and noise suppression on the Sony’s is worth another hundred dollars.

But again, these are great earbuds and if you’re willing to spend the money, you’ll get fantastic sound, noise cancellation, and a tolerably comfortable fit. Whether or not that’s worth 50% more for over the competition that has almost the same sound quality is up to you.

***Update*** 1 year and some months later

I still recommend these headphones. A year on and they’re still fanastic for me but there are a few small issues that have cropped up that I’m not sure existed earlier on in my use with them. The most annoying of which is that I will periodically just lose the sound while gaming for a period of 10 seconds or so. It sounds a bit like that trope where someone’s pretending they’re going through a tunnel and losing the signal so I wonder if I’m getting some kind of bluetooth interference from another piece of tech in my apartment building. It’s not an issue that ruins the product or anything but on occasion I have gotten frustrated with it enough that I took them out and used my wired headset for the remainder of my game session.

I think another thing to note with these earbuds is that they’re easy to drop and the way they fit into the case often means you’ll have to pick them back up because you tried to put them in the wrong side. I’m a cluts so naturally have dropped them dozens of times and on hard surfaces but despite that they still work (nearly) flawlessly.

The other issue I have with them is that they’re marketed as being capable of being connected to two devices simultaneously when in reality, they’re really not. You have to jump through too many hoops for this feature to actually work like it’s advertised to. It’s not a deal breaker but it does mean that if you use them with multiple devices you’ll have an extra step to go through to connect them since they’ll often end up paired with the wrong one. Disappointing and inconvenient but again, not a deal breaker. They’re still great earbuds.