
The WH-1000XM4 is the latest in Sony’s popular series of flagship noise-canceling wireless headphones. The 1000XM4 arrive two years after the launch of their predecessor, which received universal acclaim. With the 1000XM4, Sony has chosen to, once again, not reinvent the wheel but just bring minor improvements across the board and further refine what was already a good product.
The improvements on the 1000XM4 focus largely on the software side, with the inclusion of things like a new noise-canceling algorithm, multi-device pairing, a ‘speak to chat’ feature, DSEE Extreme, improved voice pickup, and Google’s Fast Pair feature, with some new hardware features like an optical sensor for wear detection and Bluetooth 5.1. Things that have remained the same include the design and battery life. But then some things are missing this time around, such as the lack of aptX and aptX HD codecs.
We will be discussing all that and more in this review so make sure to read through till the end before you make your purchase decision. Visually, the 1000XM4 are identical to their predecessor. They even come in the same two colors, so there’s no way to tell them apart when you spot someone wearing them. The only difference is on the inside of the left earcup, which is where the optical sensor for the wear detection sits.