Sony wh-1000XM4 Review

This is the new Sony wh-1000XM4, notice cancelling headphones, much anticipated. A lot of people have been waiting for this headphone.

FOR 

Dynamic sound with lots of detail

Sensational timing

Lightweight, comfortable and smart

AGAINST

No apt X support

There is no IP rating

Sony wh-1000XM4 Specs

Design style Over-ear

Bluetooth version 5.0

Noise cancellation Yes

Battery life 30 hours

Voice control support Yes

Touch controls Yes

Weight 254g

Finishes 2

Sony wh-1000XM4 Design

on the outside anyway very little has changed from the mark iii, they still come in the same black and silver colour options, and cost 350 dollars like the mark iii did when it first launched. 

If you look closely there are some subtle alterations that are designed to make the headphones fit more comfortably. 

The ear pads are ever so slightly bigger, you see oval inside it’s a little wider. 

and the padding is also a touch softer and then some of the padding has been shaved off the top of the headband. 

all these little changes are supposed to reduce the pressure on both the top of your head. 

and around your ears i did find them slightly more comfortable to wear over longer listening sessions. they do weigh a gram less than the mark iii. 

there’s no change to the buttons at least in terms of their placement, the button that used to be labeled nc ambient is now labeled custom.

Noise Cancellation

there’s a sensor, that detects when you have the headphones on, and automatically pauses the audio when you take them off. 

it doesn’t seem to affect the battery life which is still rated at 30 hours with wireless,

and noise cancelling on and you get five hours of juice from only 10 minutes of charging via. 

Now the hidden stuff there’s a new Bluetooth system on a chip that has more processing power. 

the headphone still uses Sony’s qn1 chip that’s found in the mark iii,

but Sony tweaked its algorithms for noise cancelling and digital signal processing to slightly improve both the sound. 

and the noise cancelling both were already excellent in the mark iii,

and now they’re a touch better, these aren’t huge upgrades but more subtle improvements. 

Sony wh-1000XM4 App

Sony wh-1000XM4 app you can now program that button to do what it did before, namely toggle between noise cancelling and a transparency mode,

That lets sound in from the outside world. or you can program it to perform another function such as activate Amazon’s alexa or Google’s voice assistant.

Also if you hold it for a few seconds, the headphones go into a calibration mode to detect the shape of your head whether you’re wearing glasses. 

it then optimizes the headphones based on those readings.

the bigger changes are on the inside one you can see inside the left ear cup.

Also you can read: Philips Fidelio L3 Review

Sound

the headphone does a little better job of converting streaming music from services like Spotify to pseudo high resolution according to sony. 

the mark 4 is better at procession highs adding back in a bit of missing detail, when you’re dealing with compressed streaming audio.

The headphones do seem to sound slightly more refined and detailed even though the hardware. 

and by that i mean the drivers are the same, the base is full yet punchy and well defined, they’ve got a nice openness to them with a relatively wide soundstage. 

do they blow away what’s out there from Bose sennheiser and others!, no but they just sound really good while they’re dynamic sounding.

they also have enough warmth to them that you don’t experience listening fatigue over longer listening sessions. 

Bluetooth

features wise there are a few legitimate upgrades the first is multi-point Bluetooth pairing,

That allows you to pair these headphones with two devices at the same time, and switch back and forth between them. 

It’s an important feature for some people particularly those of us who like to simultaneously pair with our phones and computers, maybe it’s your phone and a tablet.

Sony wh-1000XM4 Battery Life

Unfortunately, the Sony WH-1000XM4 headphone did not get an increase in battery life compared to its predecessors,

Except that you get a full 30 hours of battery with noise cancellation on and about 38 hours with noise cancellation turned off, which in my opinion is very cool.

But although the battery was not improved, it appeared to us that the headphones now have speech detection, SoC and a new algorithm, in addition to new sensors as well.

Also, the 1000XM4 extends things to the maximum extent possible thanks to the new Auto On / Off sensor feature.

And also a pause feature inside the ear cup that can know when to remove the headphones.

And you should not worry that 30 hours is not enough to deliver you via multiple international flights

or a few days to the office, as you can charge the headphones within minutes thanks to fast charging.

Whereas, according to Sony, you can get about five hours of charging from 10 minutes of energy and fully charge after about three hours.

Performance

i was using an early version of the software, so the feature wasn’t completely reliable but Sony promises.

that it will be when the headphones officially shipped, and the software is updated. 

The 1000 x’s signature extra feature was a quick attention mode.

if you hold your hand over the right ear cup, it pauses whatever audio you’re listening to. 

so you can quickly have a conversation, then go right back to what you’re listening to just by removing your hand. 

that’s still there but there’s a new mode called speak to chat that’s essentially hands-free quick attention. 

if someone comes up to you and wants to chat, you can simply start talking, and your audio pauses and the headphones go into ambient mode. 

that’s pretty cool the audio then resumes after a set period of time, you can set it from anywhere from 15 seconds to a minute, or you can manually resume it by touching the ear cup. 

After that i did make the mistake of having it on while i was out walking my dog every time I’d say something to him, my music would pause which was irritating.

Since dogs don’t talk back I didn’t need to hear what he was saying. so remember to turn it off if you frequently have conversations with animals.

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