Sony WH-1000XM5 Headphones Review - 6 Months Later

Vemuda Techno - The Sony WH-1000XM5 Wireless Noise Canceling headphones are considered one of the best over-the-ear headphones you can get nowadays and for good reason, they’re well-designed, have great battery life and a good sound.

Source: Sony

But after six months of using them, I don't think they're the perfect set of headphones for everyone out there, myself included. And I'll take you through why that is as well as who I think should pick up a pair.

1. Battery Life and Noise Cancellation

first let's talk about the good stuff and first up is battery life, they’re rated for 30 hours of playback with noise cancellation on and in my experience, their battery life has been excellent as well as their standby battery.

Noise Cancellation is the next thing I really like about these headphones. As you’d come to expect from Sony, they’re excellent, and comparable to my pair of AirPods Max, another pair of noise canceling earbuds I absolutely love.

2. Sony Headphones App

Another thing I like about the Sony XM5s is Sony’s headphones app, minus the weird badge tab. The app is available for both Android and iOS lets you customize the level of noise cancellation you experience as well as the EQ.

Those are the two things I've mainly used it for and the noise cancelation is great in a variety of situations from working in a crowded office to being on an airplane and Sony’s is one of the best, it cancels out pretty much everything.

3. Sound Quality and Profile

Next up sound. Now, while I don't think these headphones are the absolute best sounding pair of headphones i've ever used, Sony did include two features on them that really does help you find the way they sound.

And these features are the equalizer and LDAC support. LDAC is a proprietary Sony codec that allows you to stream higher quality music over Bluetooth and is supported by devices like many Android phones, however there is no support for it on Apple products.

The equalizer which is found in the Sony headphones app gives you full control over the EQ of the headphones. By default, I think the XM5s are a little heavy in the mids and definitely a bit heavy with the base.

So, the EQ feature allows me to adjust them a bit to make them sound a bit more bright, and reduce the base a bit. But of course, how something sounds is a bit subjective.

So if you have experience with a set of headphones, let me know how you think they sound in the comments below.

4. Hardware Design and Weight

Now, the next thing I really like about the XM5s is their overall design, it's actually pretty nice. They look better in my opinion than the XM4 headphones, the matte finnish feels nice and grippy, the touch controls have worked very well for me.

I also like that they included a bump on the left earcup to give you this nice tactile reminder than you’re putting the headphones on the right way, and their weight is great, they’re much lighter headphones compared to some of the competition weighing only 249g.

5. Comfort Issues

Now while they're weight is great overall, the comfort of these headphones for me has actually been a bit of a downside and that's because of the space in each ear cup, it is way less than other sets of headphones, which means there's less room for your ear to kind of spread out when you put on these headphones.

And I find that I'll wear these for about an hour before one of my ears starts getting sore because it is somehow started. Rubbing against these speaker mesh, that is covering the driver on the ear cup.

Also, the ear cousin material and headband material like a lot of other headphones in this price range is made out of a fake leather material and it’s not as breathable as I’d like.

So after about an hour of her in these as well, my ears will feel a bit hot compared to other headphones that have a more breathable mesh around their ear cup.

So, it really just depends on your comfort tolerance and ear shape size how much your ears stick out to whether or not these are going to be a good pair of headphones for you.

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And depending on all of that, there's a chance, these may not actually be a great set of all-day headphones. It really just depends on you and your ears.

6. Adaptive Sound Control

The other thing I don’t like about these headphones is their adaptive sound control feature found in the Sony headphones app.

With this feature the headphones will automatically detect if you’re sitting, walking, running etc, and you can set different levels of noise cancellation Sony WF-1000XM4 earbuds.

They have this feature too and for both devices I start off enabling it but over time just turn it off. If you're mainly going to use these around a home or an office, then switching between sound profiles while it does work.

I actually find for those situations the home and office like this feature can actually be kind of annoying because each time it switches to a sound profile, it kind of disturbs what I'm listening to.

And this is especially true when you first use these headphones because by default, each time they switch to a new sound profile, you get this really annoying ding, which you can turn off.

But its not exactly obvious when you’re wearing the headphones what is causing the ding, unless you’re looking at the app and realize your sound profile just changed.

7. Transparency Mode

And the last thing i don't like about these headphones is their transparency mode which with the press of a button uses their external mics to pump in the ambient sound around you.

But when you're listening to transparency mode on the XM5s, it still kind of sounds like you're underwater a bit and it's by far not the best transparency mode I have ever heard on a set of headphones.

8. Mic Quality and Atheistic

Although, if you are using these for work calls, one thing that is actually pretty good on them is their mic quality.

These are the brand new Sony XM5s, and I know the product name is too long. Also, if you notice when you wear these headphones, they just stick out of your head a bit more than some other pairs of headphones out on the market.

And to me, it just kind of looks ugly, like no headphones ever look great, but these for work calls, they’re a bit much.

9. Recommendation

So, that's where I end up with the Sony XM5s. They've got great battery life, are lightweight, have a full protective case for traveling, multi-point connectivity, and good sound quality.

But because of their fit, they're typically not the headphones I'm picking up to listen to things on. I think both the Airpods Max and Bose 700s are a bit more comfortable for my ears.

So while these are a set of headphones that at the end of the day, yes i would recommend, if you are somebody that has ears like mine, just know that there is a chance these headphones are not going to be a comfortable all day set of headphones for you.

And because of that, I would recommend if you plan to purchase these headphones, make sure you buy them from a retailer with a good return policy. Thanks for reading.

We have also posted Top 5 Best Budget Earbuds 2023.