Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsGood sound, good NC...multipoint Bluetooth FAIL!
Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2020
I've owned the Sony 1000XM3, H900N, and the Bose QC35 II. I couldn't wait for the XM4 to come out because of the multipoint Bluetooth (I'll get to that a little later). The sound is great once it's been adjusted, and the noise cancelling in the XM4 is better than both the XM3 and the QC35 II. However, there are quite a few things that are very poorly implemented and basically unusable.
Sound: A-
First off the XM4, XM3, and H900N all have better and brighter sound than the QC35 II. Out of the box, the sound is a little dull and the mids / vocals are a little mushy. With the XM4, I needed to tweak it in the Headphones app using the EQ to get it to the place that I wanted it, but once it was there, it was great. A small but pleasing improvement in the XM4 is that the headphone voice announcements are at a much higher quality. The XM3 announcements are low fidelity and low bandwidth whereas the XM4 headphone voice is very crisp and hi-fi. Sony also replaced the high-pitched beep with a slightly longer but more pleasant sounding bell for feedback. However, I actually prefer the beep because it's faster.
Noise cancelling: A-
When I first put on the XM4 and turned them on, I was surprised by the audible hiss from the noise cancelling. It wasn't present with the XM3. I think this is because they have cranked up the noise cancelling in the XM4. I have air purifiers running in my house, and the XM4 does a better job of cancelling out the noise almost completely. The XM3 still has some leakage. The XM3 is just as good as the Bose in noise cancellation, and the XM4, though a little hissy and is a slightly bit better. The drawback to this is that it can feel like it's creating a slight pressure in my head that increases over time.
Multipoint Bluetooth: F
This was the feature I had been waiting for. The awesome noise cancellation and sound of the XM3, but with the ability to stream two devices at once. FAIL! I had been eagerly anticipating this and checking daily for the release of the XM4. I was so excited to get them...only to be sorely disappointed. Though the device will connect to two devices simultaneously, it actually DISCONNECTS when one of the two devices is activated. So it's not true multipoint Bluetooth. Sony advertises that the multipoint Bluetooth is seamless. This is true if they mean you don't have to press any buttons to disconnect from a device. However, the way it manages connections is very poor. I have to put the XM4 into pairing mode if I've connected to my phone in order for it to play audio from my computer. If I don't do this, it doesn't recognize that my computer is playing sound, and then doesn't stream the sound. Even though it shows on my computer as connected, it doesn't show up in my sound options as a device that I can use for audio. I have to turn them off, put them into pairing mode, and then reconnect in order to get the sound to play. If a call comes in on my phone, the headphones actually disconnect from the computer to switch to the call - and the headphone voice announces that they have disconnected, super annoying and not seamless. With the QC35 II, I could use both at the same time, with the phone being connected at the low-quality voice mode and my computer at the high quality music mode. They had 2 years to get the multipoint Bluetooth right and they totally failed. So it ends up that I have to turn the XM4 off and re-pair them just like I had to with the XM3. I've had to do this a number of times, and I haven't quite figured out all the exact situations where I have to re-pair them. With the XM3, I knew if I wanted to switch devices, I would have to do it. But with the XM4, I haven't put my finger on all of them just yet. At any rate, the switching of devices is very clunky and definitely not worth upgrading for. I have $40 headphones that implement multipoint Bluetooth better than the XM4. I'm stunned and disappointed that Sony hasn't been able to get multipoint Bluetooth to work right.
Comfort: A
Compared to the XM3, the XM4 are slightly softer and a bit more comfortable right when I put them on. The XM3 are still pretty comfortable, but the earpads are definitely firmer and a little tighter.
Controls: B
I totally prefer the actual buttons on the QC35 II to the touch controls. Sometimes if I want to change the volume and I slide my finger at a slightly off-angle, it will skip tracks instead. It's a small annoyance. On the plus side, the physical buttons do make a fairly audible click that travels through the headphone, whereas the touch controls are a little quieter.
In-call: D
One thing the Bose QC35 II does is that when I'm on a call, it knows to automatically turn on ambient sound mode so I can hear myself talking. Neither the XM3 nor the XM4 figured out that this is a useful and great feature, so they don't do it. If I want it, I have to press the button to switch to it, listen to the announcement, and then it comes on. Then when I'm done, I have to press the button and wait for it to go into NC off, ambient sound off, and then press the button again and wait for the announcement that the NC is once again activated. Super slow and awkward and unusable. So instead, I pull one of the earcups off my ear so I can hear myself speak. When I first was using the Sony's for calls, I was finding that my voice was tired and my throat sore at the end of the day. Someone told me that I talked really loud when I was on the phone. I didn't even know this because the headphones do a really great job of keeping outside sound out, so I was talking at a level so I could hear myself when I was wearing them. I asked Sony support about this, and the headphones just don't do this. Fail.
Auto-mute: F
Sony created a feature where the headphones will automatically mute the audio source if it detects that you're talking. Nice in concept - terrible in practice. I just turned it off and left it off. If I'm listening to music and sneeze or make a noise, the headphones will interrupt what I'm listening to and mute it for the amount of time I've specified in the app - 15 seconds is the shortest amount of time. So I have to wait for it to unmute so that I can continue listening. What's even more annoying is when I'm using the auxiliary cable in wired mode - again, this is because the multipoint Bluetooth implementation is such a pain and sucks, if I'm on a video conference and I have the headphones on to use the noise cancelling, if I talk, it mutes the audio stream for 15 seconds so I can't hear what anyone in the conference is saying. So I then have to turn the headphones off in order to interact with the conference in any meaningful way.
Miscellaneous:
I don't understand why Sony doesn't just include a headphone cable with a microphone. With all the video-conferencing I do, and the terrible multipoint Bluetooth implementation, I end up using the auxiliary headphone cable a lot. It's much faster and convenient for me to switch the plug from my computer to my phone rather than dealing with the horrible Bluetooth switching. The auxiliary cable Sony provides doesn't have a microphone, so I have to hold my phone close to my mouth if I'm using the cable. I ended up buying an auxiliary cable with a microphone and some playback controls on it and it works great. Here's another really poorly thought-out thing: upon pairing the new XM4 with the app, it gives me the opportunity to give feedback on the headphones. This is only upon the initial startup of the headphones. How on earth can I give meaningful feedback about the headphones on my first use? It took me to Sony's site to do the survey, and I decided I would complete it later, only to discover that it had timed out, and now I'm not able to provide feedback through that mechanism.
Conclusion:
All the hype about multipoint Bluetooth is a big letdown with the real product. If that's the reason you're thinking about upgrading, don't do it. The rest of it is pretty similar to the XM3. Some nice little features added, but nothing earth shattering. The new features on paper were everything that I wanted that was missing from the XM3. In practice, the XM4 implementation of these things just did not hit the mark. I soooo wanted to love these headphones, so that I could stop looking for headphones. As it stands, they totally weren't worth the upgrade and I will most likely be sending these back. Sadly, they are not as advertised.
