Review: Sony WH-1000XM4 Wireless Noise-Canceling Headphones

ZulWebNovember 4, 2020

43 5 minutes read

Hello friend how are you? I hope you are all well and fine. We’re going to talk about the new Noise Cancelling Headphones WH-1000XM4 from Sony. If you want to buy the best wireless earbuds so check out this article. This new version replaces the previous XM3 and it comes with additional features and some improvements. Without any further delay, let’s start viewing the design and comfort of these headphones.

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Sony WH-1000XM4 Review

Let’s Talk About Design and Color

The look is almost the same as the XM3 and it only receives some slight changes. Give review and compare boAt Airdopes 281 vs boAt Airdopes 171 if you want to buy earbuds so check this article. They’re available in two different colors: in black and in silver. The accessories included are a carrying case, a USB-C charging cable, a two-pin airplane adapter, and a jack 3,5 mm cable. At first glance, the built quality is quite good, and they seem to be pretty resistant. They can be easily folded, to keep it in the carrying case.

The new Sony WH-1000XM4, are now a little bit more comfortable, due to the new design of the ear pads in foamed urethane, that is softer and 10% bigger. Now the adjustment has been improved, and there’s less pressure. The headband has been slightly modified, and now is a little bit thinner and provides a more comfortable fit, that is better contoured to your head.

Talk About More Features and Specification

They’re really comfortable to use in long sessions and you’ll barely notice you’re wearing them. On the right earcup, we find the USB-C charging port, and on the left, there is an auxiliary input, the power button, and the Custom button. This button, by default, enables the voice assistant, but it can be customized, to control other functions like the noise-canceling within the Sony Headphones app.

To play and pause the music, you just have to double-tap on the sensor of the right ear cup, to skip track swipe right, to go to the previous track, swipe left, and to increase and decrease the volume, swipe up and swipe down respectively. Let’s see now, some of the new features, of this new Sony WH-1000XM4. One of these new features, that comes really in handy, is the multi-device connection that allows you to have the XM4s paired to your smartphone and another device like your laptop, simultaneously.

You can easily switch from one to another and when you receive a phone call, it will automatically switch to your phone so that you can answer the call. And then, when the call ends, it will connect back to your laptop. Another one of these new features is the implementation of a new sensor inside the left ear cup.

Thanks to this, when you remove the headphones from your ears the music will pause automatically and when you put them back on, the music will play again. The Quick Attention feature, also stops the music if you place your hand over the right earcup, and The Speak-To-Chat feature uses the built-in mics and signals processing to recognize your voice and pause music when you speak.

If you don’t find these features interesting, you can disable them within the app. Let’s look at the battery life of the XM4. In this area, there haven’t been any changes, and the battery life can last up to 30 hours with noise canceling turned on, and up to 38 hours if it’s turned off. These figures are quite good and are better comparing with some of their competitors like the Bose 700. And with the quick charging function, you can use them for about 5 hours with only 10 minutes of charge.

Now, It’s Time to See How Well is the Noise Canceling

On the Sony WH-1000XM4. The previous XM3 was really good in this area, but the new XM4 is even better. Now they can reduce more noise, especially in the low and medium-low frequencies. It’s remarkable how much they can decrease the external noise, and the sounds that come from traffic, when you go on the subway, etc are almost completely dimmed. And when it comes to the voices, which are always more difficult to dim, the Sony WH-1000XM4 does an extraordinary job.

Simply by putting on the headphones, without enabling the active noise canceling, you can notice that the passive noise canceling is great. The new design of the ear pads helps to achieve this, and as we say, the passive noise canceling for itself can reduce a lot, the external noises. And when you enable the active noise canceling, the two microphones located on each ear cup, capture the ambient noise and passes the data to the Noise Cancelling Processor QN1.

This processor has received an update and now uses more intelligent algorithms to process all the information faster and more accurately. As a result, you can barely hear anything and this allows you to focus on your favorite music without distractions. You can adjust the intensity of the noise-canceling through the app.

Now, we leave you with a sound test in a street with high traffic, so that you can have a general idea of the noise-canceling performance in this WH1000XM4 from Sony. Regarding sound quality, this new version has improved and now has an overall better sound. The audio is very crisp, with a lot of detail, and with no distortion at all.

The sound is more neutral, although they have a bass-heavy default sound profile. People that love punchy bass and listen to styles of music like trap, drum, and bass, dance, and other similar genres, will love these headphones. If you aren’t a big fan of heavy bass and like a more natural sound, you can select among different sound presets and even make an equalization by frequency ranges within the app.

The WH-1000XM4 uses two drivers of 40 mm with liquid crystal polymer diaphragms, and with neodymium magnets. The frequency response goes from 4 Hz to 40,000 Hz if you listen to them via cable, and if you use them by Bluetooth, the frequency response is from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. They support the 360 Reality Audio format, which provides 3D audio and gives a more immersive experience.

Sadly, there isn’t much content at the moment, and you can only enjoy a limited number of songs in Amazon Music HD, Tidal, and Deezer. For voice calls, 5 microphones are built-in for clearer voice capture. It’s not a top-tier quality, and here Sony has room for improvement, but in comparison with the previous version, is a little bit better.

Conclusion

So in short, the Sony WH-1000XM4 continues the good performance of the XM3, but with some improvements that make it difficult to beat.

The noise-canceling is superb, they are now more comfortable thanks to a new design of the ear pads, the battery life is great and the sound is crisp with no distortion and with punchy bass.

You can still buy the previous XM3 at a lower price and although they lack the new features, they’re an excellent choice too.

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