Sony WF-1000XM4 Industry Leading Noise Canceling Truly Wireless Earbud Headphones with Alexa Built-in, Black

Back in 2019, Sony shook up the ear bud market by offering the oddly shaped but highly effective WF-1000XM3's. They offered great sound with, at the time, effective Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), decent phone call quality, and so much more. If you need evidence of how good these are, Google "best wireless ear buds" and you will still find them on most lists some two years later. I used them for about a year before gifting them to my sister. They were ahead of their time in 2019, on par with the best in 2020, but now find themselves with some serious competition in the premium ear bud space. Since 2019 Apple, Bose, Master&Dynamic, Klipsch, Sennheiser, Samsung, Bowers&Wilkins, and so many more are all offering premium buds with serious tech packed inside of them. Sony had their work cut out if they wanted to regain the title. If you want to skip a long review, Sony has accomplished a great deal here. The buds are outstanding. Sound, ANC, battery, and form factor are all significantly improved and this is coming from the aforementioned great foundation of the 1000XM3's. They aren't perfect but they are really good. I usually do bullet points of my pros and cons but there aren't many cons and I think you guys will likely get the most benefit from comparing these to other premium buds in the market. So here we go.-Sound: Sony is featuring a single very well tuned 6mm driver here. They are really good. Natural is what come to mind here. For buds, they have a nice wide sound stage, rich lows, present mids, and nice crisp highs. Sony has their proprietary 360 surround here again which is really cool when it works. Only certain high quality streaming music apps like Deezer, Tidal, QoBuz, Amazon HD, etc can take advantage of it and then only certain tracks are engineered to work with it. Apple and Samsung's Spatial Audio options are better but it sounds very cool when you experience it. Speaking of premium streaming apps, I need to stop and say this now: Sony is only offering one premium Codec with these and that is their very own LDAC. There is no AptX HD/Adaptive here. It is LDAC, AAC, and SBC. In order to really get the most out of these, you need to upgrade to a service like Tidal, for example, that will put out LDAC audio. It is a noticeable improvement even to my old ears. Apple users are stuck with AAC which is okay and certainly an improvement over the SBC default option. Comparing these to the other premium buds available gets tricky. To me, the new Dual Driver Bowers&Wilkins PI7 are in their own class and at $400, they should be. These compare very nicely to the M&D MW08s and the Klipsch Mclarens. In regard to sound, these nudge out the Bose QuietComforts, the latest Sennheisers, and the UE Fits for me but it is close. Sony bests the Airpod Pros, Samsung Buds Pro, and the Jabra 85ts more easily. Overall, most folks should be happy with sound here.-ANC: It is good here. Very good for buds. In my experience, ear buds are hindered by their lack of physical size and the need for a seal in your ear. Over ears are always better for this reason. To me the Bose QuietComfort buds are the kings of ANC and Sony hasn't done enough to dethrone them. Man it is close though! All of the other premium buds I have mentioned fall in line behind Sony here. It pretty much wipes out everything around you only allowing the most jarring sudden noises in. Music, televisions, conversations, fans, presumably airplane engines are nearly 100% erased. The buds can adjust based on the noise around you. It is all just very well done. It feels right to me to have Sony and Bose lead the ear bud category in ANC quality. After all, they own the over ear category. Well done here.-Calls: This was an area the 1000XM3's showed their age to me. The 1000XM4's fix all of that. To me, these are among the very best in the business on call quality. Apple still owns the crown but, after that, no other bud I have used sound as good on either end of a call. I need more time here to be sure but after handling a handful of calls today, I feel comfortable giving high marks here. I always test calls outside to see how bad wind interference is. Sony really nailed it here. I think. More to come, I promise.-Form Factor: Okay so, for me, this is where the pure glow of the review fades a bit. If there is an area that Sony missed here, it is in pure physical design. They definitely stick out of your ear and they aren't the lightest buds around so they don't feel great in ear for me. For the record, ear buds that hang out of your ears like pegs are a pet peeve of mine. These are not as bad as the Melomania buds (the kings of peg design) in that regard but they are noticeable. Quite noticeable. These aren't as big as the Bose QCs but the Bose have a slimmer profile opting for more of an elongated look that is actually more in line with the last gen Sonys. They come with sort of a hybrid finished foam tips. I don't love them. I will have my own silicone tips on here by the weekend. The touch pad buttons work flawlessly, almost never failing to register a tap. Sony finally gave these an waterproof rating. IPX4 is here so they are sweat and dust resistant. Not best in class but I am glad to see them fix the omission of the last gen on these new $279 set of buds. Lastly, I don't know about the gold accents. Totally subjective I know and I get what Sony is trying to do. I think they are trying to add a little bit of class while breaking up the montony of all black or all white buds. It just feels a little too ostentatious to me. Not a deal breaker but it does make me a bit self conscious.-The App: Sonys app is highly customizable. It allows you to control so much including ANC levels, ambient sound levels (by the way ambient sound here is really good), EQ, and more. You can also mange your personal assistant. If you are an Alexa fan, she is built in and works really well. Google and Siri play well here to. Just depends what you prefer. However, in spite of all of this and in spite of using this app for now two years, I still find it to be one of the least intuitive apps out there. I bring this up because to get the most out of these, you need to use this app especially initially. You will want to use the sound app to start here and you will likely have a little more of a learning curve than many other apps you have used. It's all here it is just a little convoluted.- Battery: Sony's eight hours on bud claim shouldn't really be a win but it is. That is with ANC on. Here are some of the competitors battery life roughly with ANC active and mixed use (my experience not the spec):Airpods Pro: Around 4 hours.Bose QC: 5.5 hours.M&D MW08'S: 9 hours (the best)Wilkins PI7'S: 4.5 hours.Samsung Buds Pro: 4.5 hours.Jabra 85t's: 6 hours.Sennheiser Momentum TW 2: 4.5 hours.I have only ran these down once but in mixed use (an hour of video and calls / lots of music) I managed just over 7 hours. Now wait, you are probably wondering why only 7 hours? I know I was. Then I realized that I was streaming LDAC for quite some time. No doubt the higher audio quality stream was to blame. Regardless, when you see how these stack up, battery here is close to class leading. The Case gives you another 2 charges before you need to plug in. Very good stuff here.- The Case: I hated the last gen Sony case. Frankly, I think that case design is very important to a good set of ear buds as that is what we really interact with most. Fortunately, Sony took the case design seriously here. You get charging via USBC or Qi wireless. It is made of a soft matte plastic that feels good in your hand. The magnets are strong in the case and on the hinge. I haven't recharged yet and will update times when I do but, for now, suffice to say that Sony has a good case here.I will update as I get more time with these but, for the moment, I am very pleased with what Sony has done here. They have upgraded these in almost every possible way. Sound, connectivity, battery, ANC, and more. All better. Of all of the premium buds we have discussed, I think these are the ones I would pick for most people. The Wilkins sound better but the ANC isn't quite as good, the battery isn't close, and they cost an astounding $400. The Bose have better ANC but don't sound as good. The price is a push there. The M&Ds are maybe the most well rounded competition for these. They sound a little better maybe. They have even better battery life as well but the ANC is very much inferior to these. I have some nitpicks. I wish AptX was here. I wish they could have slimmed these down. They could have gone with silver accents instead of gold. However, when you add everything Sony has put together here up, I just don't think there is a more well rounded option on the market. I will tweak and update this review as I go but you should buy the WF-1000XM4' s with complete confidence. Well done here Sony!***Update***Okay, so there are a number of additional things. First off, my S21 Ultra will not connect LDAC with these. Working on it. I have been through every step concievable. The irony is that my LDAC capable Soundcore buds, whom license the codec from Sony work fine. Hmm. Not ready to ding a star yet but close. I do allow Sony location access. The buds are capable of remembering how you like your ANC in a particular environment. Say gym versus office. Love that! Speaking of gym, I threw these on for a 30 minute HOT beach run today. Waterproofing is solid so far!! There is more to unpack here for sure. Stay tuned.Also, I think Sony really nailed the voice to pause tech here. Their over ears has this as does the Samsung Buds Pro. Sony's is so much better than the Samsung version. With Samsung's, a cough would often pause my content. Here, only my voice. Say hello to someone and it pauses. Very well done. The sensitivity is adjustable as well of you find it to be to much. So good Sony!***One month update*** So it has been a month. In the last few months I received the afformentioned Master & Dynamic buds, the latest Amazon buds, and the Bowers & Wilkins buds. As someone that has way too many buds, one of my favorite ways to rate my enjoyment of a set of buds is how often I reach for them. I have used these almost every single day since receiving them. I have grabbed the others occasionally but these have been my primary daily drivers. Sony has just nailed so much here. The ANC, sound, and overall functionality is just so well rounded. These are clearly the best all around buds on the market today. There are others that serve different specific purposes better but none that do everything as well as these. Sony has built something pretty special here. The LDAC connectivity is still spotty for me with my phone but, other than that, there is no area these struggle with. I have even grown to appreciate the look. Mostly anyways. Unlike any other set I own, I don't think it matters what phone you use. Folks on iOS should get these over the Airpod Pros because they sound better and the ANC is better. The Pro's still connect and work better with your iPhone but really, who cares? These just perform better in almost every meaningful way. Folks on Android should get these because there isn't a better all around bud that plays as nice in this ecosystem. We don't have Airpods to fall back on. These are the ones! Buy with complete confidence!July 28th Update: So, a couple more things here. First, I received my second software update for these. Considering that they have been out less than two months and were pretty polished out of the box, that is an impressive level of support from Sony. No other buds I own have been this aggressive with updates. Just so good. Lastly, this thought occurred to me a few days ago and I wanted to share it with you guys: In the last six or so weeks, I have been almost exclusively using these buds. I never do that even when I get something new. A few weeks maybe but I don't think I have ever used one set of buds this exclusively. When I get up in the morning to work out I use my Klipsch Mclarens because they have an IPX7 waterproof rating. When I leave to the office, the Sonys are the ones in my pocket. If these aren't the perfect pair of daily drivers, they are very close. Just so good. Buy them.

The Sony WF-1000MX4s are Sony's latest ‘true wireless’ (TWS) earphones meaning that each earpiece is completely separate and not connected by wires. The WF-1000MX4s behave like ‘typical’ TWS earphones and are stored in a charging case between uses which carries enough juice to charge the earphones several times over. Sony's previous TWS earphones were the acclaimed WF-1000MX3s that I really enjoyed so I was really excited when the WF-1000MX4s came out. I’ve spent several weeks listening to and testing the WF-1000MX4s and here are my thoughts.- Sound: I’m pleased to report that the WF-1000MX4s sound excellent, albeit with a caveat. They offer excellent detail and good imaging for a pair of earphones. Instruments come through clear and there’s a good degree of separation. The earphones also support the highest quality codecs available on Android and iOS (LDAC and AAC, respectively), which means that Bluetooth compression should have as little impact on sound quality as is currently feasible. Indeed, in my tests I couldn’t tell the difference in sound quality between the LDAC-connected WF-1000MX4s and a good pair of wired earphones plugged into a LDAC-connected Bluetooth amp. However, despite all the technical aspects of these earphones working so well, the tuning ends up being a bit of a let down. The default tuning on these earphones is very bass-heavy. While some might enjoy this, it’s definitely not a natural or balanced sound and lacks treble. The good news is that the default tuning is a good middle ground for accommodating a variety of media. I found that I could still enjoy listening to music with it and it removed a lot of harshness from some of the less well-produced podcasts I listen to. The lack of treble also made the earphones non-fatiguing and allowed me to listen for hours on end without issue. For most people I think it will be just fine. However, in my case I ended up preferring to use the equalizer included in Sony's headphones app for listening to music for long periods. I found the ‘treble boost' to be the best for me. It should be noted that the EQ setting is remembered by the earphones so it will carry over even if you connect them to a computer or digital audio player that doesn’t have the app. It’s annoying to have to jump through these hoops but I think that ultimately people who care about the tuning will appreciate the customization, while people who don’t won’t be bothered by the overly-bassy default presentation. With this caveat aside, the WF-1000MX4s sound excellent.- Noise Canceling (NC): the active NC on these earphones is class-leading and re-enforced by a couple of tricks that Sony has implemented. The NC can’t match up to the NC on a full size pair of headphones and doesn’t block quite as much as wired Bluetooth earphones (e.g. Sony's own WI-1000MX models). However, it’s not too far off. It’s also noticeably better than the NC that other TWS earphones in the $100-$200 range come equipped with and certainly a step up from what the WF-1000MX3 offered. This level of NC will allow you to comfortably listen to the earphones in an environment where there are high levels of constant background noise (background office chatter, fans whirring, train noise, etc.) In my experience this means that any background noise is still audible with music turned off but becomes unnoticeable when listening to music. What the NC won’t do is block out variable external noise (e.g. someone having a conversation next to you). However, Sony did improve the passive noise isolation with this model by including hybrid foam tips that are noticeably better at blocking out external noise than the tips supplied with previous Sony earphones. Additionally, turning on NC does increase the bass somewhat, which helps mask low frequency sounds. The combination of improved NC, improved passive isolation, and noise masking, makes these earphones excellent at blocking out external noise.- Controls: Sony opts for a simple, but effective control scheme on the WF-1000MX4s. The earpieces are controlled by tapping/pressing the outside of the earphones. The exact function of the taps/presses on each earpiece can be set in Sony's companion app for the earphones. While the functions aren’t completely customizable (you get to assign pre-programmed sets of functions to each earpiece) I had no issue getting the earphones set up with a control scheme that made sense to me. The touch sensor is in the center of the housing at the peak of the subtle mound. It’s also fairly large, which makes it hard to miss. That said, there’s no obvious indicator of where the touch sensitive area begins and ends so I did find that I had to consciously aim for the center of the earpiece to make sure my commands registered. All in all this means that it’s generally easy to control the buds, but there might still be a brief adjustment period.- Ergonomics: these are large earphones that surprised me by being a lot more comfortable than I first thought they would be. While the large size wouldn’t have been surprising a few years ago, the recent trend towards smaller and smaller TWS earphones means the WF-1000MX4s are definitely outliers. They’re smaller than the WF-1000MX3s (though that’s not saying much) but the more compact design makes them feel a lot smaller by comparison than they actually are. When worn, the body of these earphones sits above the concha bowl, held in place by the firm fit of the nozzle in the ear canal. This means that the earphones protrude outwards more than they need to. However, by minimizing the number of points of contact with the outer ear they offer a fit that is incredibly comfortable and is likely to be acceptable to a wide range of ear shapes. So, although the earphones are large and do protrude more than a typical pair of TWS earphones, the design makes the fit incredibly comfortable.- Other features: the ambient sound feature (pass-through of external audio) on Sony earphones is still the best there is. This feature is now relatively common on TWS earphones but Sony's execution is still much better than most of the competition. What sets Sony's implementation apart is that it feels and sounds quite natural. There is no significant background hissing or exaggerated amplification of low level noise. Instead, this is something you can leave on an forget about. I find this really useful for any situation where I need to be aware of my surroundings but still want to listen to music (e.g. while exercising). You can also activate this feature temporarily by pressing and holding one of the earpieces. You can also have this feature activate automatically when talking, but I found that it was either under- or over-sensitive and never quite struck the sweet spot needed for it to be useful. There are other features (e.g. 360 Reality Audio) but I think ambient sound is the one most people will actually use and it is a feature that Sony happens to do better than the competition.- Accessories: The accessories are a little disappointing. While the case is much smaller than the previous WF-1000MX3 case, it is still larger than the typical TWS earphone. Sony also included new foam hybrid tips with this new model that isolate better. However, only 3 sizes of tips are included and the largest are just a touch smaller than I would like. It’s a little disappointing that Sony skimped on accessories here. Fortunately the nozzle is identical to the WF-1000MX3 so the older Sony tips fit just fine, as do a range of replacement options. I personally recommend Comply's TrueGrip Pro for Sony true wireless, which allowed me to get a really firm seal that took the comfort up a level. Overall the case is fine and the lack of tip options is a definite misstep, but one that is readily rectified.- Other: the mic works just fine for calls. Battery life is as advertised. Everything that needs to work does indeed work. While I have seen some reports of intermittent connectivity issues I had no such problems myself.Taking all of these aspects into account, I rate the WF-1000MX4s 5/5 and would argue they are the best TWS earphone on the market. The fact that they are the first TWS earphones to support the LDAC codec means that it shouldn’t be possible for any other TWS earphones to beat them for sound quality on an Android-based operating system. From my listening to them I definitely did find this to be the case. I am disappointed in the default tuning of the earphones and the dearth of included tips, but I don’t think most people will care that much. I think people who do care (like myself) will probably enjoy the included EQ within the app and will already have spare tips they can readily swap out for. Either way, neither of these complaints are enough to drop the WF-1000MX4s down from a 5/5 rating – they are simply the best TWS earphones I’ve ever listened to and one of the best earphones (of all categories) I’ve ever tried.