Sony WF-1000XM4
Meet the new boss of the true wireless earbud set Your onestop shop for controlling the earbuds is Sony’s fully featured Headphones Connect app
£250 FROM Sony, sony.co.uk FEATURES True wireless headphones, active noise cancellation, Hi-Res Audio compatible, Bluetooth 5.2, USB-C port; up to 8 hours battery life (headphones)/16 hours (charging case); IPX4 rating
The latest model in Sony’s WF-1000 line of true wireless earbuds are smaller, lighter and greener than ever – oh, and the XM4 also sound even more articulate and immediate than the model they replace.
Compared to their predecessors, the XM3, the new earbuds offer enough features to make them worth upgrading to, even if they are slightly more expensive. A more compact design means they’re more comfortable and easier to carry around, while the app makes it simple to adjust controls and EQ settings. Features taken from the over-ear WH1000XM4 – including Speak-To-Chat, DSEE Extreme audio upscaling, and adaptive noise cancellation – mean you’ll be hard-pressed to find a more comprehensively-specced pair.
Small but fully featured
The outgoing XM3 were big, and so was their charging case, and Sony has reduced some of this bulk in the new model. The charging case is 40% smaller (and is entirely paper-based, recyclable and eco-friendly), while the earbuds are 10% smaller.
As mentioned, the WF-1000XM4 incorporate some features first showcased on last year’s XM4 over-ears: active noisecancellation that can ascertain what you’re doing and where you’re doing it in order to adapt; and ‘speak to chat’, which simply requires you to make a noise in order to pause your music so that you can have a brief chat. Noise cancelling is augmented by new polyurethane eartips (small, medium and large provided) designed to provide improved passive noise reduction.
Your one-stop-shop for controlling the earbuds is Sony’s fully featured, fully stable Headphones Connect app. Here you can fiddle with all the features that are partially duplicated on the capacitive touch surface of each earbud. In the app, you can decide what you’d like the left and right earbuds to control: volume up/down, play/pause/skip forwards/ skip backwards/summon voice assistant, active noise-cancelling on/off/adaptive.
There’s also EQ adjustment (the numerous presets include one racily titled ‘Excited’), with space for custom presses, and the option to turn auto-pause and DSEE Extreme on or off. You can also submit pics of your ears to help Sony optimise those music streaming apps that offer 360 Reality Audio or Dolby Atmos, and you can decide whether you’d like the Bluetooth connection to prioritise sound quality or connection stability.
Control is also available via the big three voice assistants – Siri, Google Assistant, and
Alexa – which can be summoned via their established ‘wake’ words. No matter your assistant of choice, the WF-1000XM4 prove sharp-eared and alert to instructions, even in unpromisingly noisy environments.
There are three mics in each earbud, taking care of active noise-cancelling, call quality, and interaction with voice assistants. A combination of feed-forward and feed-back mics capture the wearer’s voice directionally (from the mouth), though the feed-forward mics will mute when adverse conditions (wind noise, most likely) are detected. Sony has also included a bone conduction sensor, which picks up voice vibration, but doesn’t register it as ambient sound.
We found the earbuds a little fiddly to insert, and felt they should fit more deeply in the ear than is the case – but once done you can set up the touch controls, the EQ levels and the myriad other options.
Audio range
In terms of audio ability, the WF-1000XM4 impressed. They don’t give any area of the frequency range undue prominence, they don’t let any details go unnoticed, and they don’t let rhythms or tempos hang around. There’s vigour and enthusiasm to their presentation, but this is also tempered by unarguable control.
At the bottom end, the earbuds freight bass sounds with substance, texture, and an absolute stack of detail. There’s drive and momentum to spare here, but there’s an equal amount of poise to go along with it. Entry into and exit from bass notes is clean and welldefined, which helps prevent the bottom end smearing up into the midrange.
The midrange itself is equally info-rich. ‘Communicative’ may seem an odd word when discussing a person’s singing voice, but here it’s appropriate: if they’re anything, the WF1000XM4 are communicative.
The handover from midrange to top end is smooth and naturalistic, and treble sounds themselves have plenty of shine and bite without ever getting shouty about it. Dynamically, too, there’s little to criticise. The earbuds are capable of switching from ‘ear-splitting’ to ‘almost silent’ and back again in an instant.
While the WF-1000XM4 can’t quite pull off an ability to utterly reject external sounds, the active noise cancellation certainly minimises the impact of ambient noise.
Battery life and connectivity
Even within the new and reduced physical dimensions, there’s much more going on than before. Connectivity is now via Bluetooth 5.2, which means simultaneous transmission to the left and right earbuds, and (when using Sony’s bespoke LDAC codec) Hi-Res Audio Wireless certification. Bluetooth 5.2 should, in theory, mean better battery life, too – but the best-case real-world scenario of 24 hours (eight to 12 in the earbuds, depending on whether active noise cancellation is on or off, plus another couple of charges in the case) is really nothing special. Still, at least the XM4 are Qi charging pad-compatible.
As well as LDAC, the WF-1000XM4 are compatible with SBC and AAC codecs – but there’s no sign of aptX in any of its guises. They also incorporate Sony’s DSEE Extreme technology, although we’ve never been entirely convinced by it. Simon Lucas