Sony WH 1000XM4 Headphones

It’s nice, the functions are very useful in general and the noise cancelling does seem to work well.
The sound quality is what you’d expect for such price, though it still need more time to break-in.

The touch control may not be the most responsive at times, and the ear pads are a bit stuffy in a hot summer day. Other than that, it’s a properly nice earphone.

I bought these headphones after spending the previous 15 months using my pair of Bose Quiet Confort 700. The first thing I noticed was that these headphones are noticeably lighter and can also be folded up to fit into the case that they came with (my Bose did not come with a case). The next thing I noticed is that the noise cancellation is better on the Sony than on Bose. The sound quality seems a little bit better on the Bose, but not significantly. Lastly, these (Sony) seem to charge faster and have a longer battery life than the Bose.

I decided to go with Sony this time because the Bluetooth function on my Bose had started to become glitchy about 5 months ago. I searched the internet extensively for a fix, only to discover that this Bluetooth glitch was a common problem for this model. Although I eventually found a fix for the problem after a few days of troubleshooting, the issue happened again last week and the same fix didn’t work as well this time (the Bluetooth works for a few minutes to hours and then shuts off again). I felt like my Bose were on their last legs and, since they were about $400, I was pretty disappointed. I had tried to exchange them the first time I had this problem and I was offered a refurbished pair, but was told that I needed to send my Bose in for the exchange and they needed to be received before the refurbished pair would be sent to me. I depend on these for my Job, so two weeks of waiting for a replacement just wasn’t going to work for me. Sony it is!

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.

**Disclaimer: I bought mine used like new through Amazon

I originally purchased the Sony XM5 because they were soooo highly rated in every article I read. I returned the XM5, got the XM4 and am so much happier. I’ll compare the XM4 to the XM5, Apple AirPods Max, and Bose QuietComfort 45 – just to help anyone choosing between them.

**Noise Cancellation (4.5/5): the noise cancellation on the XM4 is crazy, almost comparable to the Apple AirPods Max. I gave the XM4 a 4.5 because I still think the Apple AirPods Max have the best noise cancellation, but the Sony XM4 is very close. I also like the fact that you can turn noise cancelling on/off with a button – which is a feature not available with the Bose QuietComfort 45. The noise cancellation is much better than the XM5 and less finicky. An issue with the XM5 is that the noise cancelling would just randomly turn on/off. Like if I paused a video for a little too long, the noise cancellation would just turn off Overall, I wouldn’t say I it blocks out all sound, but it’s close. I can hear the sound of people talking and music, but it’s quieter and I can’t make out the words. I definitely can’t have a conversation with them on. Also, the XM4 will pick up on when you’re talking to people and turn the noise cancelling off for you – but it does make a little announcement when it does that may be annoying or disruptive.

**Sound Quality (4/5): the sound quality is great. Way better than the XM5, not as great as the Apple AirPods Max. I think the Apple headphones are just a little crisper. I think it’s cool that you can turn 360 sound on, but tbh I never really use it (XM5 also has this feature). The sound is clear, and I haven’t experienced any malfunctions/issues with the noise. When I had the XM5, they would just randomly sound muffled (like I was underwater) and, when that wasn’t happening, the sound quality was mediocre.

**Comfort (5/5): the XM4s are REALLY comfy. I wear glasses with plastic frames and a lot of headphones just don’t work and are really uncomfy. The Apple AirPods Max were really uncomfortable with my glasses. Obviously, an easy solution is to just wear contacts, but I hate wearing my contacts for long periods of time – especially, when I study/do work. The XM5 were also pretty comfortable, but wouldn’t stay fixed when I adjusted them – they would slip and I would need to readjust them a lot. The XM4 completely cover my ear and the ear pads are soft. They don’t squeeze my head the way other headphones do and they don’t hurt any part of my ear. I will say that the headband part that rests on top of my head does kind of hurt my head after wearing them for almost 10 hours. Also, I have TMJ so sometimes wearing the headphones does cause my TMJ to flare up and I’ll switch to earbuds. But, I think overall these are the most comfortable headphones I have tried.

**Product Quality (3.5/5): let’s be honest, they’re plastic and they feel plastic. They don’t feel like super high quality, but let me tell you that they feel way better quality than the XM5 – those felt like a barbie toy. I think the XM4 are sturdy and pretty durable. The Apple AirPods Max are also plastic, but do feel a little more high quality – but also, nothing spectacular.

**Aesthetic (3.5/5): If the aesthetic is important to you, I would say they look fine. They’re a little bulky, but not terrible. Not as sleek as some others, but they don’t look ridiculous. If you’re really against a bulky look, then they may not be a great aesthetic match for you. I was worried they would be really clunky, but after getting them and wearing them for a bit, I really don’t think they look bad.

**Connectivity (4/5): I only have Apple devices (iPhone, MacBook, etc.) and I think the connectivity is great with these products! When I got the XM5, they had so many connection issues. I wasn’t able to connect them to my laptop, they wouldn’t stay connected to my devices – it was a mess. I was really worried I would have the same issues with the XM4, but I have had no problems so far. I will say it was a little odd to have have to download the Sony Connect app and manage the headphone through that platform, but it’s user friendly and it’s kind of nice to have a control for them (it’s almost like a remote).

**Battery Life (5/5): The battery life is insane. I’ve had them for 8 days and have not charged them yet – they still have about 40% charge left. They will turn off automatically to save battery life if you don’t use them for a certain amount of time, which I personally like.

OVERALL (4.5/5): I think the XM4 are great headphones for a better price than the Apple AirPods Max. The Bose are apparently really similar, but I’ve never personally tried them. The XM4 is MUCH better than the XM5 in terms of quality and price. They’re comfy, great noise cancellation and sound quality, and have great battery life.