Sony WH-1000XM4 Review (noise cancelling headphone)

[123456789]

I have Sony WH-1000XM2. And I am very satisfied! Due to the fact that I understand their purpose and I know what to expect from them. They are headphones for airplanes, killing time on the airport, traveling, and similar. And that is all. They have good battery, good bluetooth range and noise cancelation works ok.
Any normal "hifi" headphones in range of 100 euros will wipe floor with them. Active or passive - does not matter. With EQ or without - it does not matter. Comparing them against mid-low to mid range headphones like AKG7xx, HD6xx, DT880, ATH AD900.... is just too unrealistic. Apple to orange comparison.

WH-1000MX2 should be compared against other noise cancelation headphones because noise cancelation is their main and the most important purpose (people buy them because of that). Someone whos primary goal is to use them as "hifi", is throwing money through window.

Should buy anything for 100-150 eur and spend rest of the money on amplifier.

 

[MayaTlab]

people like the bassy bits of sony's headphones

Harman's research actually tends to point to the contrary if I understand it well enough. Only a minority of people had a preference for a higher bass elevation than the target.

 

[outerspace]

people like the bassy bits of sony's headphones. they target a different preference curve based on their sales, not on harman's research.

Olive and Co. shows that trained and untrained listeners actually have same preferences. Generally, people don't like bassy shit.

 

[MayaTlab]

I don't get one thing. Why Sony still making such bassy shit even after all Harman's researches? There is more or less consensus about optimal headphone's FR. AKG with K361 and K371 realize this. Sennheiser with HD560S too. What's wrong with Sony? With DSP they could have made any FR. Will they continue to make shit even in this price range?..

This question could apply to most BT on or over-ears headphones honestly. Most of them are tuned like crap, even tough they have no good reason to given the on board DSP.
In the case of the XM4 it's quite tragic as IMO the electronics are a significant step up over the XM3 in terms of sound quality - and quite a few of its competitors I think. With the latter for example, playing tonalities at higher frequencies resulted in the occurrence of artefacts / spurious tones, regardless of codec or source (it's a phenomenon that I've most often encountered lately with headphones using Qualcomm's chips). Not so with the XM4 (well at least if you disable DSEE). I find the noise floor with ANC turned off difficult if not impossible to discern and the ANC hiss well contained. Contrary to the Bose 700 so far I haven't managed to make them produce weird artefacts when playing very low tonalities (below what they can realistically output). In these regards they felt "solid" and well executed to me. Not quite AirPods Max levels of "well executed electronics", but not far off (in terms of sound, not in terms of operational qualities, mind you).
That being said after playing with the EQ settings in the app in a fairly counter-intuitive way, while I still don't really like them, I already prefer them to quite a few other over-ears ANC BT headphones I've listened to in 2020.

 

[wolf_walker]

Think what you will about the sound(and you should, as we all hear things differently), they sell the everloving crap out of these, and they are well reviewed and received by "normal" folks, even those with enough sense to know Beats are lame. I'd be willing to bet that if every single buyer of them that even remotely considered themselves and "audiophile" had not bought them, nobody would have noticed.
These are a consumer product, and just about every single non dedicated audio reviewer (and a lot of them that do in fact do a lot of audio stuff) rave about em. They sell just as they are.
Sony even went so far as to include a bass adjustment and some basic EQ functionality in their app for people that can't be bothered to find a better solution. The name of the game is pleasing everyone-enough with mass market consumer parts like this, not specializing for niche markets like us.

Despite the price, these are not our kind of headphones.

I run mine with the autoEQ profile via wavelet on android, with the bass turned back up a hair, and they sound just fine.
If I've been listening to something nicer and put these on immediately after, they sound a little fat and boomy and all that, but it
lasts about two minutes until my ears are "burned in" and they don't do enough things offensively beyond that to bother me.
Granted, I'm not sitting there actively trying to dissect the sound and performance (that isn't what the target market for
these does either), I'm up and moving, hence the no cable thing. For that, I really think they are just fine after some simple
adjustments. I'm not a crazy audiophile, I have an asgard 3, a d10s, some K550's, 599's and few other odds and ends, and I just
returned a set of 4xx after a week, fwiw. I'm not stuck solely in consumer land, but I'm not buying thousand dollar cans either.


Regarding the cable thing, the only reason that is there is for if your battery dies while on the plane.
These, just like the new Apple ones, and like many that are to come, are intended from the jump to run with
their own DSP on and correcting things. Most people buying these, that target market again, are buying them
specifically to NOT plug them in. Simple as that. They absolutely sound lame without DSP correction, and it's
by design. Be it for packaging or construction cost savings, I bet it's cheaper to slap em together and send em off
to have a DSP profile made up since all the hardware is already there to do it with the ANC and such.
Seems pretty obvious to me, but I come from a pretty heavy tech background vs audio.
If there's a way to electronically control a thing vs physically, we're gonna do it lol


The question is, who's going to take an already good set of headphones, and invest in the talent and
equipment to build a DSP profile, or a number of them, in house and release it for the audiophile community?
I'm certain we'll reach a point before long where you can take a relatively generic headphone and punch up the
HD600 profile, and have HD600's, or M40x profile, and have M40x's, etc, etc, etc.
The music creation crowd has been doing stuff like that for a while to emulate certain amp and speaker combos
for guitars for example, it works. Not everyone will be happy about or with it, but it's coming.


As for reviewing these kinda things, I totally find value in specs from a non-amped standpoint, I like tech and data, but you really need to
look at how they were intended to use as well, that being with DSP on, and at that, the sound is only about half the
story with these. They have a lot more going on to justify the price and most people, again that target market, are
just as interested in the ANC and interface and looks and comfort and all that other stuff as they are in sound.
It's a system, not just a headphone.


I still think retail is overpriced, but they are a nice set of what they are for $200-$250.

 

[outerspace]

That being said after playing with the EQ settings in the app in a fairly counter-intuitive way, while I still don't really like them, I already prefer them to quite a few other over-ears ANC BT headphones I've listened to in 2020.

FR problem would be more acceptable if Sony's app have decent equalizer with at least 10 bands. But it have only 5 that is not enough to fix all FR flaws. And I have another question to Sony about this. Why only 5? I don't get it too.

 

[Harmonie]

Yes and no.

You can get "better" passive headphones for $300 or less. But for many passive headphones you will need a decent amp to get the best out of them. Also for many of them you'll need a way to do EQ which is not always a convenient option depending on one's setup.

By comparison, active headphones can sound really good with no extra fuss since the amp and the EQ are built in and, as we know, EQ can accomplish some things that are difficult to do with physical driver design.

Also, while you don't *need* noise cancellation in a home environment... it maybe helps more than you think. Remember that even a "quiet" room has like a 40dB noise floor. The result is that you can play your noise canceling headphones at a lower output level which is probably good for your hearing in the long run.

I've got decent passive headphones from Beyerdynamic, HifiMan, Grado, and Audio-Technica. I still reach for my Bose QC25 about half of the time, or at least I did before my wife commandeered them. All of those passive options slay the Bose QC25 in terms of detail and are overall "better." But the QC25 are smooth as hell. Definitely the least fatiguing headphones I've ever owned and the NC can be great when I'm trying to concentrate on work and filter out distractions.

Edit: I should note that the QC25 are wired only. I absolutely do not enjoy the sound of Bluetooth headphones I've tried, though I should note that (1) I've not heard the LDAP protocol in action (2) I've not tried many BT headphones nor any released in the last few years

You are making a point.
As a matter of fact, my NC HP are the same BOSE QC25 you stated (almost 300€ then).
So far, I use them since years, only in the plane and sometimes in the train too.
One thing I really dislike though is this very oppressive feeling. Not they I'm claustrophobic, but you feel better once you take these off.
It's a habit, but that impression always remains. So in a plane it's surely a better choice, but I surely wouldn't use these at home.

 

[amirm]

I don't get one thing. Why Sony still making such bassy shit even after all Harman's researches?

Top reason is that Harman through its headphone brands (and other products) is a major competitor. In some way it would "shameful" for them to follow Harman. And at any rate, the results of Harman research is not bought into in many companies.

When I worked for Sony, it would take us 100 meetings to convince the engineers there to change their ways. They were exceptionally proud of their way of doing things and it was exceedingly hard to convince them to change even though their methods were obsolete. Their management was powerless as well as the best engineers could just move departments if they didn't like their boss.

 

[amirm]

Adaptative filtering and phase inversion are not mutually exclusive concepts, neither the original poster nor oratory thread said anything about it being done in the analog domain, in fact he mention the "recorded" signal of the microphone. What you say is indeed correct, but basic phase inversion is still at the root of many if not most of the modern anc algorythms, combined with what you say.

You are missing the plot there. His argument was that because the system is a simple phase inversion, it doesn't care what the noise profile is. That is completely wrong as I explained when adaptive filtering is used which is the case in these high-end ANC headphones. Both poster and Oratory claimed that this adaption and prediction were "myths." The only myth here is what they explained as far as the operation of the system.

 

[wolf_walker]

FR problem would be more acceptable if Sony's app have decent equalizer with at least 10 bands. But it have only 5 that is not enough to fix all FR flaws. And I have another question to Sony about this. Why only 5? I don't get it too.

My first guess, honestly, would be that more than that is getting to be too fiddly for average users.
It's a moot point to me, as using the EQ kicks it off the LDAC codec and even if I can't hear a difference,
it's the principle of the matter. So I EQ elsewhere

But for jane or john doe that wants a little more sparkle or more or less bass, I imagine the built in EQ is great.
And in fact you can find many, many, many reviews and evaluations saying just that.
You know, from the top audiophile sources, like the new york times lol...

Speaking of which, this is a good normal tech savvy non-audiophile review of a non-audiophile product.
This kid knows his mobile tech, and these headphones are indeed mobile tech and I'd bet a finger 98% of them
are paired to a phone streaming spotify their entire working lives. 3 million views, this video. Million.

 

[mkawa]

to add to the list of things that will kick the XM4s off of LDAC, multipoint disables LDAC as well.

 

[threni]

we are a review of headphones with guidelines 2021

Seems a bit weak.
"Are wired headphones better than Bluetooth headphones?
Ans. It’s all down to one’s preference. If one likes listening to music and making calls, then wireless headphones are a great choice, but they come with a downside. They are battery-powered, and their use is limited to a minimum of 8 hours per charge. And the Bluetooth technology causes sound delay while gaming. So if you are a gamer or a steamer, then wired headphones are definitely what you need."

Surely the ans [sic] should point out that main difference; wired sounds better as it's not lossy.

 

[mkawa]

Olive and Co. shows that trained and untrained listeners actually have same preferences. Generally, people don't like bassy shit.

View attachment 109294

tell that all my relatives and almost everyone else i know (people who went to frickin music school!). part of it is music preferences and the mixing/mastering for the distorted curves, but i think a lot of it is that people just get used to it and then a neutral preference curve sounds "wrong" to them.

anyway, i'm really liking the wireless eq settings; they turn the "boom tiss" (what i call the bassy tinny character of most speaker systems and headphones). i just wish wavelet worked with amazon music. are you listening amazon music team? all you have to do is announce your audio to the global daemon like you're supposed to. aaaa

 

[wolf_walker]

Wavelet works with Amazon music on my pixel 3xl

 

[mkawa]

No luck on my pixel 4xl in either legacy or standard global session mode
Android 11 build rq1a.2101

 

[wolf_walker]

I'm on whatever the current release version is. I do have to force bluetooth every single time to max quality instead of adaptive.
I've heard a lot of pixels with weird bluetooth audio issues.

 

[111a111sk]

The first reviewer to measure the inner earpad dimensions. Thank you for all people with big ears.

 

[Robbo99999]

Catching up late on this review, only just read it......gonna say uninteresting....not a headphone worthy of it's workarounds.

 

[A Surfer]

I will say again, the XM3 which I own, and I suspect the XM4 would also, responds very well to equalization and can sound quite good. I generally leave the ANC defeated although when it is turned on I find it sounds good. I have owned some pretty nice headphones in my day so I am not just a Bluetooth kid without much of a frame of reference. I use Onkyo HF Player on my phone to stream to the XM3 and it has a nice FIR equalizer.

I am not suggesting that the XM3 will be truly astonishing, but with my equalization efforts the total package was worth every penny bought at full retail. The XM3 can: sound very engaging; it is non-fatiguing; comfortable as hell' for my usage style has mountains of battery capacity; it seems quite well built; has a decent stylish look if a little plain; it full of original tech; gets more than loud enough.

I am pretty sure that many who denigrate the sound signature as crap have only listened to the stock tuning, which does indeed sound like crap.

 

[MayaTlab]

For what it's worth, after having tried a small dozen BT over / on ears headphones in 2020 I found it easier to use the XM4's app EQ to bring it closer to my own personal preferences (which is basically something akin to the HD650 with Harman-ish bass) than most others I tried. I believe that it's just sheer luck that the EQ bands sort of correspond to the areas where you can pull the FR curve one way or another to make them less awful rather than anything intentional from Sony.
The default tuning, with ANC on, is unlistenable to me and would rank them at the bottom of the pile, but I can EQ them via the app to the point where they'd go near the top.
They don't sound great this way, mind you, but I find them just about listenable. It's simply rather that the competition is non-existent (it's such a weird thing that it's the headphones that should have it the easiest to have FR curves that aren't ******, ie the ones with an ANC circuit + DSP, that measure the shittiest, and most don't have anywhere near as nice an app EQ as the XM4).
And I find the electronics pretty good as far as pop / cracks / noise floor / ANC hiss / audio over bluetooth implementation (artefacts when playing high frequencies regardless of codecs or sources) are concerned. Not AirPods Max level of good, but significantly better than the average BT ANC over-ear HP.