Sony WI 1000XM2 Industry Leading Headset

Excellent headphones with high sound quality. Comes with free portable pouch.Love it!

I am not enough of an audiophile to comment on music quality. I listen to audiobooks and podcasts

I bought these to replace Bose ones

Most important is the eartips. They don’t stay in place. I tried others which require manipulation to insert.

Bose has s style with the supports over a bit of the ear. They stay in place

Attenuation is good while they are in tight, which is a matter of minutes at best. Attenuation is lost when tight. Bose are vastly better, and fit continuously

Sony do not shut off when not in use. Bose do. I hate dead batteries resulting from something so simple

Sony battery is much worse

Sony flexible neck is why I bought the Sony’s. That is a plus for Sony

The big plus for Sony is that the Bose are no longer made

Sony is very expensive and , in my view, a very poor alternative. Try something else

I must say that I’m willing to give this product 4.5 Stars, as it is what I would describe as being almost what the doctor ordered but there are a few drawbacks that I should point out. I have no hesitation in recommending purchasing this product. I have several high-end headphones which range from over the ear to earbuds. There are certain things that are very important in my life. They include working out at the gym both aerobic and strength training. I also travel by Air quite a lot. In addition to this I am an audiophile and therefore my demands were quite complex.
This was especially so since I had already had quite a collection of expensive listening devices in my possession. I was therefore not in favor of spending quite a lot of money again. I am not an Apple fan but I tried out three apple products that were owned by my children and they included the earpod pro and the ear Pod 3rd generation. My main complaints with them was that they do not fit my ear tended to fall out quite easily during exercise. The sound quality was also inferior to what I was accustomed of hearing. I have had occasions to lose my monster ear buds during flights between the seats.
I will therefore give in tabular form the pros and the cons. I hope this will be helpful to someone else
PROS
• The sound quality is quite excellent and superior to any of the apple products and other earbuds that I own excluding the Sennheiser across the whole fidelity range. Because of my location I was not able to get the Sennheiser “over the neck” Delivered to me in Canada. The sound is quite comparable however.
• Even though they do not fit my ear very well because they are over the neck ;if they do get loose the worst case scenario is that they would hang down on my chest so that I can replace them quite easily during exercise.
• The app which is an integral part of the Sony system was extremely helpful in customizing the sound to my ear without over emphasizing the low frequencies or the high frequencies. I’m still in the process of customizing this app for use in different conditions so that I can hear the surrounding noises without them being totally blocked out by noise cancellation.
• It has a connection for traditional non-Bluetooth connections which is very useful on planes that do not have access to Bluetooth at the moment on most flights. It even has one of the very old-fashioned connectors that I have not seen on a plane since 1985.
• It, therefore, has the option of using it both Bluetooth and analog.
• The over the neck configuration is very comfortable.
• The size of the case is also perfect for fitting in small bags or jacket pockets. it even has enough space for me to place one of my locator devices like “TILE” so that if I misplaced it, which I know inevitably will happen I can track it down quite easily globally.
• The range was quite good and all of my telephone calls the recipients commented as to how clear my voice was over this particular set of headphones.
CONS
• It is extraordinarily expensive and if your needs I’m not as demanding as mine, there are other options that would fit the bill if you do not need the analog component.
• They do not fit my ears properly in spite of a wide array of both silicone and foam inserts.
• On the advice of one of the reviews I am ordering separate insert for them which this reviewer said solves my problem of the earplugs popping out during exercise (which was not quite often) even though there was a sensation that will get loose at any moment.
• I was reassured because I knew that if they did dislocate they would never be lost.
• I was disappointed that they could not connect to my PC computer by Bluetooth and be functional. To be clear, you can obviously connect them by direct analogue connection but to me that defeats the purpose especially at this price point. My cheaper monster ear plugs athalf the price could easily connect to my PC and so can the Apple earPods. The connect but then are functional you cannot use them because they do not take over the function of your sound system.
• I was also disappointed that when they were on there was not a continuous light on the product to let me know they were on or that they were turned off completely. You had to rely on the connected device or have them in your ears to hear that they were disconnected
Conclusion: They are quite an excellent product with some nagging flaws but for my purposes, they were the closest to the perfection of all the earphones that I have tested for my specific purpose.

Im going to begin by saying I like to write reviews that will definitely help people out with their decisions. With that being said let me make this one short and sweet for everyone.

In general, if you want a great alternative to the Sony WF-1000XM4 earbuds, then this is your best bet. They are comfortable, but i found them to be a bit ear irritating around hour number 6-7. They stay in the ear very well once you get the correct eartip. It does have two different styles, and to help you all out, the hybrid silicone eartips allow a more deeper insertion into the ear as the eartips are a bit longer, providing a better noise isolation when you have the ANC and Ambient Sound modes off. The foam ones that also come with this pair, theyre rather shorter and do conform to your ear a little bit better but they do not provide as good of sound isolation as the silicone tips but provide some better comfort.

The sound that these produce right out of the box, its not too bad, but with the app, you can make them sound even better. These can get super bass heavy, and the app provides a fully adjustable EQ with presets and whats called “Clear Bass”, which adds quite some thump to any music. Take your time to tune the EQ and the Clear Bass, as some tracks I listened to had way too much bass, and others had too little. It takes some time but its well worth it in the end. Sony definitely put some work into the speakers and design and I say they did great.

The ANC, and Ambient Sound Modes… well the ANC is off the charts. I did not find it over powering, but at times it made me feel like I was in a vacuum chamber so to speak. It worked very well there is no doubt, but sometimes I felt like it may be too harsh for others. The Ambien Sound mode, is a great a feature that earbuds are coming out with. I love the idea of it, but on these, Sony missed something. Whenever I had the Ambient Sound mode on, it sounded like I was listening to the world with solo cups over my ears or even my hands. It had this weird hissing sound that made everything sound odd.. its hard to explain without saying put your hands over your ears and listen to everything around you. I mainly kept these earbuds in Off mode because they did such a good job isolating sound passively, without needing ANC, but remember the eartips will make that difference.

Battery life was on par with Sonys specs. I had them on for about 10-11 hours one day during work, and they did not even come close to having a low battery. I tested this with a mix of talking, music, watching videos, with all sound modes throughout the day.

Comfort…. well the eartips get them right and they are comfortable as I mentioned earlier but again, around hour 6-7 they started to hurt my ears and i had to take them out for a break. The neck band… ehh.. if you can stand having it around your neck all day long, or even at the gym, or whatever you may do, I would not hesitate to recommend these. But for me, the neckband got to me after a few days of wearing them. It wasnt that it was bothersome, its just when you do need to charge them, you have no case, so you have to physically set them down near a charging outlet, or put them back in the case, zip it up and leave the charging card attached and hanging out the case. It wasnt a huge deal for me, but not having a charging case, that will get to some of you who are like me, and keep them on hand everyday, as mine are always in my lunch box. The other thing that may get you is that the length of wires from the neckband to the earbuds its enough length, but it may cause them to snagged on things and yanked out of your ears.

The controls, they are friendly for the user, but I found myself having to double check which button I need to press due to they are super close to each other. Sometimes when I wanted to skip a song, Id hit the pause button. You cant see the controls by looking down so its always gonna be a constant feel for the right button.

Last but not least, call quality. The biggest downfall with these or at least in my case, i never heard my ringer go off in my earbuds, so I never knew if someone was calling me until I looked at my phone, and I unfortunately missed a few calls in the days I was using these earbuds. the sound quality was very good, very clean, crisp and clear. Everyone could hear me very well, as the microphones are inline from the earbuds to the neckband. No one had any issues being able to hear me in quiet or loud environments.

Overall, if you like the neckband style, and you want good sound/call quality, good comfort and good battery life these are for you.. But if youre someone like me, who would rather have completely wireless earbuds and a charging case to charge the earbuds on the go, but still have the same level of sound/call quality, comfort and battery life, I would recommend the Sony WF-1000XM4 over these for sure.