Sony WH-1000XM4 Review: The Final Form!

[Music]

what's up mkbhd here

sony wh-1000xm4

these are those

and you couldn't tell just by looking at

them because they look almost identical

to the mark iii's from the last

generation

but that's totally fine because no one

really had any major complaints with the

mark iii's

at least i didn't i crowned them my

active noise cancellation kings but now

here they are these are the mark fours

they are the same price 349 and sony

smartly took the if it ain't broke don't

fix it approach and basically just

addressed all the small little requests

that people like me had with the last

generation it's like they lined up all

their little nitpicks and knocked them

all down so okay what was left to

improve well number one my biggest

request was multiple device support and

it took them two years but they finally

did it and they've added multiple device

support to the mark iv so the ability to

pair these headphones actively to more

than one device at once it might sound

like kind of a niche thing but it's such

a big deal if you have your headphones

paired to your computer and your phone

at the same time or your tablet and your

phone at the same time you're listening

to music on one thing you get a phone

call on the other and it just seamlessly

automatically switches then you hang up

and go back to music and it switches

back it's just so much better of an

experience than going into bluetooth

settings unpairing then repairing

manually every time so that's number one

and it's actually been improving over

time when i first got these headphones

it didn't really work very well at all

but they've been getting software

updates and through the sony app they've

gotten better so it's fixed itself up

over time and we'll probably continue to

get updates and hopefully keep getting

better in the future so with that by

itself to be honest they probably could

have stopped there and i would have been

happy that's all i really wanted but

number two they also made the noise

cancellation

better than on the mark iii's

now i crown the mark iii as my active

noise cancellation kings because the

noise cancellation and sound quality was

so good on them that i picked them over

better looking better feeling

cooler headphones like the surface

headphones

because of it

and this is better so the mark iv is

again sound incredible super clean and

bright and full with all the same noise

cancellation controls in the sony app

like before all your eq settings but now

the noise cancellation cancels out

slightly more of some higher frequencies

too so it's always been amazing with low

frequency homes stuff like airplanes and

trains and rumbles that you've already

known but now with things like

dishwashers and cars and even people's

voices it cancels more of those out too

now i can't necessarily tell a

difference immediately between the

threes and the fours as far as noise

cancellation it's not like a reason to

buy the force but i did notice that

typing on my mechanical keyboard which

has brown switches the clacking was

generally canceled out really well and

bottom line here is you're not going to

find a better pair of noise cancellation

headphones just as far as pure isolation

and sound quality so if there's a better

one out there i haven't found it yet

it's like being in another dimension

sometimes there's also technically some

very slight physical adjustments to the

dimensions too the cushions are 10

larger so that's technically an

improvement and also if you look inside

the left ear cup you'll see a proximity

sensor and that's for the wear detection

feature that i'll get to in a second but

actually believe it or not this helps me

find which was the left and right ear

cup a little faster but the one that

really matters is the new mics so the

mark iv now has a better mic pattern

with five microphones for better call

quality and better voice recognition so

i've never really thought the microphone

quality of wireless headphones was that

amazing to begin with like as long as

they work you can hear my voice that's

fine but these actually have five

microphones built into them now which is

an improvement and so apparently they

can cancel out background noise is

better you can hear my voice a little

bit more isolated so as long as that's

true then that's also nice if you fire

up the sony app there's again some nice

convenient features in here enabled by

the sensors and mics on the headphones

you may never use these or you may be

like me and use some of them some of the

time but i'll go in order of coolest to

most gimmicky here so wear detection is

unique to the mark fours thanks to the

added sensor in the left ear cup so with

that in the sony headphones app you can

tell it to pause music when you take the

headphones off and turn the headphones

off after they've been off of your head

for a while to save battery which is

smart you can also now while the music

is playing put your hand over the right

ear cup like that and it will drop the

music way down turn noise cancellation

off pass through and amplify voices

so in theory if you want to talk to

someone while keeping the headphones on

you don't want to have to do the whole

on off thing you can just pull one of

these

and you're talking to someone i think

that's maybe useful sometimes on public

transit or on an airplane if we ever get

to do that again

if you just want to talk to someone real

quick but as soon as you take your hand

off the music comes right back and the

noise cancellation is back on and you're

right where you left off so that's all

right and it's fast like i think that

makes a big difference to actually using

the feature if i put my hand there and

you have to wait a second for it to kick

in that would be kind of disappointing

as soon as i put my hand there boom i'm

listening to people but then maybe the

most gimmicky feature is the speak to

chat function

which basically will use the mics and i

guess other sensors in the headphone to

be able to tell when i start speaking

and when i do start speaking it will

pause my music

turn off noise cancellation and amplify

voices

so i'm wearing the headphones listening

to music i start talking it pauses the

music and now i'm having a conversation

through the headphones and i guess

that's

fine it works

it was surprisingly effective at not

accidentally doing it when i wasn't

talking

but you know if someone walks up to me

and starts talking i go what and then

the music pauses and then i'm talking to

them

now the music is paused and i have to

play it again or go back into the

settings to turn the noise cancellation

back on and you can you can tell it in

the settings to turn that automatically

off after 15 seconds 30 seconds or 60

seconds but generally this wasn't a

feature i found myself wanting to use

very much so you can turn it on but i

turned it off overall though these are

basically my ideal headphones you know i

think the design could be cooler if it

had dials on the side like the surface

headphones or maybe some more cool

colors like a matte red or something

like that but generally this same matte

black understated design is totally fine

with me the same touch pad on the side

that's cool the same google assistant or

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