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

[Music]

hey what's up mbhd here okay so for the

past few years Sony's Flagship noise

cancelling headphones have been the King

of the Hill of course they've made some

minor adjustments and feature additions

over the past few so by the time they

got to The Mark iiiii with their comfort

and noise cancelling and USB type-c they

were the top of the market and then the

markv added Multi-Device support but

they've essentially looked the same

sounded excellent and they've 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

don't so the first thing you might be

wondering is is there actually a sound

Improvement but I actually want to just

start with the new design cuz 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 there's 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

it's kind of amazing it combines that

with the super lightweight of the whole

headphones to make this entire pair more

comfortable to wear for long periods of

time honestly I'm just going to say this

is the most comfortable pair of noise

cancelling headphones I've ever tried

you still have a touch sensitive panel

on the right side ear cup for skipping

pausing Etc they actually still have

onoff head detection despite not having

a plastic cutout in the ear cup like the

last one and there's now twice as many

many slots for microphones around the

outside it goes from four total to four

on each side eight total microphones and

I'll get into what that does for noise

cancellation and voice quality in a

second but you can see they're 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 cancelling headphones for

right travel you're 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

folded up like this and fit into uh

their little case just like that toss

that in a bag and you're 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 700's and the airpods Max and

so many others that's 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 uh it's kind of a cool case it

looks like a modern backpack without the

straps and it's got some angular origami

type seams and folds along the sides and

once you get inside there's a magnetic

door over a compartment that holds your

charging cable and an audio cable if you

need one this is a great case it's

basically exactly like the Bose 700's

but yeah now it's just huge with bow

though we saw them do this new design

with the 700s but they at least kept

around the quiet Comfort Series so the

QC 45s still fold down like they always

did and the airpods Mac are notoriously

annoying to travel with even though I

still try to make it work but these are

wh1000 Mark 5 which on paper makes it

the sequel to The markv so that's a

little bit dangerous but I do know that

they're keeping around the marvs these

new Mark 5ivs are going to retail for

$400 and they're going to keep around

the marvs for $ 350 although you can

already find them for like $ 329

or300 so these are starting to look kind

of like a deal but let's just get past

that design flaw they're still premium

lightweight comfortable noise cancelling

headphones and they have yet again

bumped up the noise cancellation

capabilities pretty significantly so

I've been saying for years they're the

King of the Hill for travel because as

far as white noise is concerned like

airplane engine

road noise all that sort of stuff they

do an A+ job at canceling that right

when I put these on I immediately

noticed it's even stronger it still

crushes that droning low end but now

some of the more higher frequencies are

better canel out too appliances Wier

stuff human voices too so yeah the last

Sony's did have worldclass 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 transparent

mode these have it again and they have

20 levels of adjustment in the app of

how much transparency gets through

they're really good they are definitely

better than the bows but the airpods max

are still on a completely different

level as far as transparency mode those

are the best I've ever heard in any

headphones it sounds like you're not

wearing headphones you just hear

everyone's voices and everything

perfectly clearly and these just don't

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 doesn't 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 30mm carbon fiber driver

and there is still ldac 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

the these to me are among the absolute

best sounding noise cancelling wireless

headphones available again they don't

sound as good they're not as full and

crisp and balanced as airpods Max paired

with an iPhone but obviously that's just

for iPhone users that have $550 to burn

but yeah there's just something about

really good noise cancelling 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 absolutely

silence behind a perfectly isolated

Baseline and he every detail of a vocal

of some song like I'm in a live

recording session is so sick that's 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 that's not

what happened they are rated for the

same 30 hours of battery life as the

mark 4S and from my experience so far

they've right about matched it uh so 40

like would have been nice and amazing

but I still think 30 and the use I've

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 3 minutes and get 3 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 that's

very convenient again it's a travel

feature but that's what that's 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 you're wearing the mark

4S like this and you didn't 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 they're just facing down and you

can do other stuff and they'll just sit

here the Mark fivs if you wear them

correctly which is right side left side