There will be some who might turn their nose up at the design, but once you pull them over your ears, you probably won’t care about any of that, because you’ll be lost in your music anyway. We've been lucky enough to slip many of the top noise-cancelling headphones over our ears, and for the longest time, Sony's WH-1000XM4s crowned our brow, so it seems fitting that the improved XM5s will receive that honour to take over from their predecessors. Audiophiles expect true quality from their music, and while there are other brands like Apple and Bang & Olufsen that offer similar stylistic class and verve, there’s just no beating Sony in the audio department. These are industry-leading headphones that continue to break new ground and build on the excellent work of the previous builds.
To anyone who’s been paying attention to the music scene over the last few years, it should come as no surprise that the Sony WH-1000XM5s are as good as we expected. It bumps up to 40 hours with the noise-cancelling turned off, but you're better off leaning into the USB-C quick-charge refuelling when these cans are running low on stamina.
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This also works with voice control so you can switch up tracks without taking your hands out of your pockets.Īs for the one additional headphones spec that everyone really does care about? We got about 30 hours of noise-cancelling listening, which isn’t any longer than the XM4s, but still proved enough to see us through a full week's worth of work days. More useful by far is a speak-to-chat feature for the office that dims the ANC and volume so you can still hear conversations without having to take the cans off.
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Download their app and it will track your location so it will adapt your sound for the optimal experience whether you’re walking down the street, sitting in an airport lounge, or hurtling along the countryside on a train.Īs well as just slightly creepy, this trickery proved a bit wonky in testing turning the transparency mode on when we definitely didn’t want it to. They also come with a few gimmicks to further stand out from the chasing pack. Location tracking weirdnessīeing a pair of highfalutin headphones, the XM5s don't simply promise to look great and play back your favourite tunes in resplendent form. High-hats have a lively trill to them, and bass-heavy tunes like “Cooped Up” from Post Malone's latest album thunder without being overbearing, which is great if you’re currently riding the Kate Bush wave post Stranger Things season 4. We enjoyed the hearty kick drum of Alt-J's “The Actor”, which stayed out the way of the brilliant vocals for an even listen. The sonic performance is expansive and rich, with a clear focus on spreading out the quality throughout the frequency range so you don’t miss anything.