Sony WH-1000XM5 Review: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back!

Of course, theyve made some minor adjustments and feature additions over the past few. So, by the time they got to the mark iii with their comfort and noise cancelling and usb type c, they were the top of the market and then the mark iv added multi device support but theyve essentially looked the same. Sounded excellent and theyve been an easy recommendation as a result, but these new mark 5, on the other hand, are a real departure from that formula. A lot of the changes i do really like, but there is one big one that i definitely dont. So the first thing you might be wondering is: is there actually a sound improvement, but i actually wanted to start with the new design, because you can see that they have this new shape. That is this pretty minimal, sharp and clean look. There is still a dark and a light. This light is a sort of a cream colored version and theres a lot of good things about this design. The ear cups are slightly bigger and wider. The new vegan leather material is so much softer. It is its kind of amazing it combines that, with the super light weight of the whole headphones to make this entire pair more comfortable to wear for long periods of time. Honestly, im just going to say this is the most comfortable pair of noise, cancelling headphones ive. Ever tried, you still have a touch sensitive panel on the right side, ear cup for skipping pausing, etc.

They actually still have on off head detection, despite not having a plastic cutout in the ear cup, like the last one and theres now twice as many slots for microphones around the outside. It goes from four total to four on each side. Eight total microphones and ill get into what that does for noise cancellation and voice quality in a second, but you can see theyre, fairly minimal and hidden well in this new design. But overall overall, i actually still feel like this. Design is a downgrade for one main reason. So what do you get? Noise canceling headphones for, right, travel, youre, getting them to travel, and so these old versions were the king of the hill because they were obviously super comfortable. Had great noise cancellation and lots of features and good sound quality, but they also fold it up like this and fit into uh their little case, just like that, toss that in a bag and youre good to go this new version with this new design does not Fold at all, so with this new sliding headband design, which is kind of like the bose 700s and the airpods max, and so many others thats the only way of adjusting the size of the headphones. So they no longer fold down into a smaller size. And so, as a result, the case you carry them around in is quite a bit bigger its kind of a cool case. It looks like a modern backpack without the straps, its got some angular origami type seams and folds along the sides, and once you get inside theres a magnetic door over a compartment that holds your charging cable and an audio cable.

If you need one is a great case, its basically exactly like the bose 700s, but yeah now its just huge with bose, though we saw them do this new design with the 700s, but they at least kept around the quiet comfort series. So the qc45s still fold down like they always did and the airpods max are notoriously annoying to travel with, even though i still try to make it work. But these are wh 1000 mark 5, which on paper, makes it the sequel to the mark iv. So thats a little bit dangerous, but i do know that theyre keeping around the mark fours these new mark fives, are going to retail for 400 and theyre going to keep around the mark fours for 350, although you can already find them for like 329 or 300. So these are starting to look kind of like a deal, but lets just get past. That design flaw, theyre still premium lightweight, comfortable noise, canceling headphones and they have yet again bumped up the noise cancellation capabilities. Pretty significantly so ive been saying for years, theyre the king of the hill for travel, because as far as white noise is concerned, like airplane engines, road noise, all that sort of stuff, they do an a plus job at canceling. That right. When i put these on, i immediately noticed its even stronger it still crushes that droning low end, but now some of the more higher frequencies are better canceled out too appliances, whinier stuff human voices too so yeah, the last sonys did have world class noise cancellation.

But these get even better and we can thank the extra microphones and processor for that now, with any noise cancelling headphones and all those mics. You also have a transparency mode. These have it again and they have 20 levels of adjustment in the app of how much transparency gets through theyre really good. They are definitely better than the bose, but the airpods max are still on a completely different level as far as transparency mode. Those are the best ive ever heard in any headphones. It sounds like youre not wearing headphones. You just hear everyones voices and everything perfectly clearly, and these just dont get that good, like these. Just sound like a somewhat muffled version of reality, uh, especially with voices and the higher frequency stuff, even though there is actually a specific enhanced voices toggle, it just doesnt quite reach the airpods level as far as hearing your own voice, but then for actual musical sound Quality, they are very similar to last year, which is to say excellent and they do have a new 30 millimeter carbon fiber driver, and there is still l back support if you have the right combination of smartphone and music source. But i think i can safely say if i have an android phone. These to me are among the absolute best sounding noise cancelling wireless headphones available. Again, they dont sound as good theyre, not as full and crisp and balanced as airpods max paired, with an iphone but obviously thats, just for iphone users that have 550 dollars to burn, but yeah theres, just something about really good noise canceling headphones.

That feels like magic. Like i can be in a crowded area where my eyes tell me, this is a loud area, but to hear absolute silence behind a perfectly isolated bass line and hear every detail of a vocal of some song like im in a live recording session is so sick. Thats, what makes these headphones so good? There were some rumors about the battery life getting bumped from 30 to 40 hours, which would have been crazy but thats not what happened. They are rated for the same 30 hours of battery life as the mark fours and from my experience so far, theyve right about matched it uh, so 40, like would have been nice and amazing, but i still think 30 and the use ive gotten out of these Is still very good, the one improvement, though uh, is the charging faster charging, so you can plug these in for three minutes and get three hours of listening out of it. So if you just need to plug in real quick before you go head off to some trip somewhere, thats very convenient again its a travel feature but thats what thats? What i want to break this all back down to at the end of the day. These are travel headphones and they no longer fold, which means they are. Everything about them is bigger and and more difficult to travel with than the last ones. Oh, and also this, this might be minor, but i do have to mention it so if youre wearing a mark, fours like this and you didnt want to like do the hold to speak or listen to people, and you just want to take them off real quick.

You can do that and then fold them down so theyre just facing down, and you can do other stuff and theyll just sit here. The mark fives, if you wear them correctly, which is right, side left side, they dont fold down flat. They actually only fold up and thats im, definitely nitpicking like thats a small thing, but for 400 thats another thing thats, not in the new headphones that was nicer about the old ones. So, if youre, actually thinking about getting these headphones, this is here. This is a pretty nuanced recommendation, but if you are using an android phone and your bag is big enough and you plan on using these for travel listening to music phone calls, if youre working with these all that sort of thing, these are going to be amazing. You get the sony app youve got all the customization in the world. You want to do ldac listening, even they sound like very good headphones and they work really well so comfortable love these headphones, but if youre really anyone else, im gon na bring back the mark. Fours again for this, i really think you should consider the mark fours, of course, right because number one theyre gon na cost, much less. They number two actually fold down. So if you want them to take up less space in your bag, but theyre also like 90 of these headphones, they sound just about as good um. They might not be as trendy or premium looking as the new design, but like youre gon na get the same comfort the same battery life.

Really, the only thing youre missing out on is the slightly faster charging and what those extra mics and processor get you for. Noise cancellation, oh wait, theres extra mics, so maybe voice quality too all right. So this is an audio test of the sony. Wh 1000xm4s still a bad name. Uh sony, uh water bottles available at mkbhd.com. Just so you know also theres some voices in the background theres. Some various noises, but this is it its okay, its okay for a mic. So now this is the audio quality for the wh 1000 x m5. I think it sounds better. It definitely isolates the voice a little bit better against the same level of background noise, but again the bar was pretty low for wireless headphones. This is just generally good for calls for work for stuff where you need a mic built into the headphones. Alright, so my theory is, sony saw what bose did with the 700 headphones with this new sliding design, the magnet in the case, and they said all right. We can do that too, and well do our own version of it, and so they did an even bigger version of the same thing: sliding design magnet in the case and everything and im slightly annoyed by the much bigger footprint here, but i mean lets be real.

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