The high-end noise-canceling headphone market is more crowded than, say, Times Square during New Year’s Eve celebrations. Apple, Bose, Sonos, Sennheiser, and Sony are all fighting for your attention, each claiming their model is the best. Here’s the reality: over the past five years, the improvements in high-end ANC headphones have been incremental at best. A few tweaks here, minor updates there, but nothing revolutionary.
That means buying the latest model doesn’t make sense, especially when a slightly older flagship delivers nearly identical performance at a fraction of the cost. Right now, Sony’s WH-1000XM4 is on sale for $228, down from $348, during Prime Big Deal Day. To put that in perspective, these headphones cost almost three times less than Apple’s AirPods Max while delivering similar performance.
The Sony 1000XM4 incorporates Sony’s Dual Noise Sensor tech which employs microphones both externally and internally in each earcup to absorb ambient noise. The earcups then create an inverse sound wave to eliminate the noise before it hits your eardrums. Unlike less expensive alternatives, this dual-sensor method is the distinguishing characteristic of high-end ANC. And Adaptive Sound Control takes it one better and adjusts the level of noise cancellation according to your activity and location.
Battery life is also where the WH-1000XM4 is way better than many competitors: You’re talking up to 30 hours of playback with the ANC in use so you could use these ‘phones for an entire week at the workplace and never have to recharge them. There’s quick charge too, and that’s the real convenience aspect: charge for 10 minutes and you’re getting five hours of playback. And that’s all through USB Type-C cable, included in the packaging.
The right earcup’s touch controls do it all without having to pull out your phone: You swipe up or down to volume-control, swipe forward or back to skip songs, tap once to pause or start, and tap twice to answer calls. You get used to it in a day or two. The Speak-to-Chat is actually brilliant: when you initiate speaking, the headphones automatically pause your tunes and admit background noise so you may converse. When you cease speaking, your tunes start again after a brief pause. You never have to take your headphones off when asked a question, for instance.
Call quality is improved with five in-built microphones and fantastic audio signal processing technology. With cooperative operation, the microphones block background noise and capture your own voice, causing calls to ring out even in background-noisy locations like crowded city intersections or bustling airports.
Sony revised the physical appearance to minimize pressure points which is important for long listening sessions. Earcups employ foam, pressure-distributed padding that sits evenly around your ears in place of resting on them directly. The headband does the same along your forehead. These design elements translate to wearing the WH-1000XM4 for hours without pain, and that is critical for long-haul flights or all-day work commutes.
At $228 for Prime Day, these Sony earphones provide flagship performance in an affordable package.
