Review on 🎧 Sony WH-1000XM4: Premium Black Wireless Noise Canceling Overhead Headphones with Mic, Phone-Call & Alexa Voice Control by Kasey Storrs

The WF-1000XM4 is Sony's most effective noise-cancelling headphone, with many customizable and automatic features. This is purely my personal opinion, as there were experts who did not appreciate this headphone model. To date, the WF-1000XM4 headphones cost approximately 24,000 rubles. But, like all new products, the price is too high, so for lovers of excellent sound quality, it is better to wait a bit, when the price drops a little. Sony's WF-1000XM4 wireless headphones offer best-in-class sound quality and noise cancellation, above-average battery life on a single charge, a compact, pocket-sized charging case, and a control app that offers a wealth of operational features and customization options. On top of that, the headphones have Sony 360 Reality Audio capability for enveloping audio from select subscription music streaming services. Easy to take out and replace in case. I was disappointed to find that Sony only offers small, medium and large silicone foam tips. After I put the Sony headphones in my ear, I felt like they put plugs in my ears. Not uncomfortable, but my ears felt relieved when I removed them after a few hours of listening to music. Although the 1000XM4 headphones are not waterproof, they are IPX4 water-resistant, so sweat or light rain won't damage them. They provide 8 hours of listening time with noise cancellation and 12 hours with noise cancellation off. All of these specs are above average for true wireless earbuds. The Sony headphone app offers an incredible amount of noise cancellation settings. Adaptive sound control, for example, is designed to detect, learn, and automatically switch between sound modes based on activity or location. But when I tried to pause music with noise canceling turned on to turn off the engine hum in the aircraft cabin to get complete silence for sleep - a common use of noise canceling headphones - the 1000XM4 thought I had paused the music to hear the announcement, automatically switching to "Ambient Mode". sound." In this regard, I concluded that this function is not so well thought out. The ambient volume is adjusted on a sliding scale from 1 to 20, but the difference between minimum and maximum is not as great as this numerical range suggests. The "Focus on Voice" option enhances the sound of people speaking. The 1000XM4 also provides voice prompts for battery level status, although they are barely audible. Speak-to-Chat automatically pauses my music when I start talking, so I don't have to take my headphones out to talk to someone. Music playback resumes automatically, but only after I've been silent for 15 seconds, which can feel like an eternity. Each earbud can be assigned different sets of touch and touch combinations for ambient sound/noise reduction, playback, and volume control. In the settings, I can choose from eight equalizer presets, and a handy five-band equalizer allows me to manually adjust and save two of my own presets. Nearly all of the 1000XM4's customizable options and features are only available through the Sony app for iOS or Android. Obviously, these headphones are designed specifically for pairing with a smartphone and are not meant to be used with a standalone digital audio player. They may not even connect via Bluetooth to a standalone player, even made by Sony, but I have not tried this connection method. Sony continues to raise the bar on ambient sound filtering, with the 1000XM4 cutting out more outside noise than nearly every other noise canceling headphone I've tried. But the 1000XM4 has the same drawback I've come across with all noise canceling headphones - wind noise. I heard some whistling through external microphones if I was walking through gusts of wind, or especially when cycling or running outside. Sony Ambient Sound Control lets you turn noise cancellation on and off and switch between normal noise cancellation and automatic wind noise response, but I couldn't detect any difference between the two. With its long battery life, compact form factor and charging case, wide range of customizable settings and EQ options, and 360 Reality Audio, the Sony WF-1000XM4 could very well be the best headphone choice to come out in 2022.