Sony Unveils Redesigned WH-1000XM5 Headphones With Improved Noise Cancelation

[spinedoc77]

The XM4s were horrible in the comfort dept, after about an hour I'd be uncomfortable enough to label them as mildly painful. The bluetooth was crap also, at least on PC where I had all sorts of issues. But the sound and ANC were incredible, it's a shame. Seems like they upped the comfort on the XM5s at least. I'd be tempted to give them a shot, but the lack of any kind of low latency mode Achilles heels them for PC use IMO. Gaming, YouTube, etc on a PC were terrible on the XM4s due to the bluetooth lag.

 

[lympero]

I'm using airpods max everyday while working for calls and listening to music and they are definitely too heavy for this job so I just pre-ordered the xm5 and hopefully they'll be much more comfortable

 

[CthuluLemon]

I love my XM4's. Probably not worth the upgrade to go for the XM5's, but to me, they are a far better value than Air Pod Max's

That's good to hear! I'm still going to be trying to get another year out of my AirPods Max, but definitely looking for something else when its time to upgrade; Sony's seemed the best option so far.

 

[Halver_Rook]

Everyone's ears are shaped different, no headphones or speakers sound the same to different people. So better to you might mean worse to me. Also as you age your hearing will change, you most likely will lose hearing high frequencies let's say over 13 kHz. I was a Sonar operator in the Navy during my younger years in 1974 and my hearing was tested out to a bit over 19 kHz, but now at 66 I can only hear tones up to 12.5 kHz, too many concerts in my younger years.

AirPods Max are OBJECTIVELY better for ANY ear/head shape/size.

 

[sos47]

You can but I'm not sure for how long without them shutting off.. I do this sometimes when we have too many people staying at our house and I need some peace and quiet But you can simply have them connected to a phone or what have you and just don't play anything.

thanks 🙏. there are situations where i dont have a phone or an ipad, for example in a spa when i want to relax when other people make noise (phones are forbidden).
i generally love pure noice cancelling without any music in public, train airplane etc. so i am interested if the mk5 solve this problem

 

[dampfnudel]

I thought it only came in two colors, black and silver? That “silver” does look more like a creamy white, maybe borderline beige so maybe that explains the confusion. That’s probably the color I’ll get. Looks clean.

 

[Lerloons]

I know people will not like my answer , but i hate headphones with touch controls . that is why i went with air pod max .

it just works . with gloves or without , no miss touching and skipping tracks or messing with volume .

i am really happy with the APM .

 

[sdz]

Fantastic timeless industrial design I must say.

 

[hardwickj]

I like how they look and the technology sounds impressive.

I am waiting to see what AirPods Max 2.0 brings to the table because I really enjoy the seamless connectivity the W1 / H1 allow between my AirPods, AirPods Pro and Beats Studio 3 and all my Apple devices.

Unfortunately the current rumors are that Apple has nothing in the works regarding a "2.0" release. The only update are additional colors expected this fall.

I too want the APM for the iOS/macOS connectivity, but I'm extremely reluctant to buy anything at this point that has a lightening connector on it, especially given that it's almost a certainty that Apple is going to move everything to USB-C in the next year or two.

 

[DStack4282]

These look great - may have to upgrade to these from my XM3s!

 

[kesenwangs]

For that to happen they would need to get away from Bluetooth. Even AirPlay 2 can only play lossless but not hi-res lossless.

Yep, hopefully we see Wifi capabilities baked into the next gen, F Bluetooth ahah

 

[dogface1956]

AirPods Max are OBJECTIVELY better for ANY ear/head shape/size.

OK whatever you say, it's pretty obvious facts don't mean anything to you.

 

[hardwickj]

Had my pair of XM5's since last Friday. Coming from Bose QC35's + Beats Fit Pro's (and a variety of Apple headphones before them).

One thing I took for granted with both the QC35's and BFP's is that they are either auto-on or in the case of the QC35's, immediately on with the flip of a switch. Having to press and hold a tiny button for 3 seconds to turn them on repeatedly throughout the day is really annoying.

If you're already coming from a previous generation of Sony headphones you likely won't notice this at all. That is your "normal" already. But for anyone buying in from the Apple/Beats (and to a lesser degree, Bose) ecosystem, this will likely bother you.

 

[The Game 161]

reviews saying ANC is amazing maybe better than air pods max. That said most I have seen have said air pods max sound better