Sony WF-1000XM4 Industry Leading Noise Canceling Truly Wireless Earbud Headphones with Alexa Built-in, Silver

These were expensive but when it comes to sound quality and noise cancelling, I don’t want to cheap out and these didn’t disappoint (I think I bought these at full price too at something like 300$). The noise cancelling honestly feels like magic when I turn it on. It still gives me goosebumps. I've used these earbuds nearly every day for like the last year and a half and have had zero regrets in buying them.Pros: Fantastic sound quality, comfortable fit (I've forgotten I was wearing them on occasion), magic noise cancelling, long battery life, durable earbuds, easy touch controls, outside noise isn't blocked at all when ANC is off so others are still easily heard and understood, sound profiles with the app are pretty easy to play around with and offer some good customization.Cons: Foam ear-tips can get really nasty if used at the gym or for extended periods without taking the time to clean them thoroughly, charging case build quality isn't great (creeky plastic and has some give where others are much more solid feeling), possible bluetooth interference from time to time, simultaneous dual device connection isn't really a thing despite the marketing, no tracking method on the case is a bit of a bummer for earbuds this expensive.I’ll jump into the aspects I disliked since they’re easier to write about.I’d tried beats before these and while I also liked those (and at their price points, they are quite competitive) I found these to have superior noise cancelling and were a bit more comfortable to wear for extended periods.I don’t think they’re the most comfortable earbuds I’ve ever used and frankly, if they were any less comfortable I would have returned them and repurchased the beat fit pro’s I’d originally bought and saved a hundred dollars. I did find the Sony pair to be the more comfortable of the two hence why I stuck with them. I think the issue I have with them is that they’re just a bit large and it can be difficult to feel exactly how they’re supposed to sit in your ear. The way you see them pictured isn’t very comfortable for me so I don’t feel like I’m necessarily wearing them “correctly” but they don’t fall out during my gym time and they don’t look like I’m wearing them the wrong way so it’s really just a nitpick. They don’t sit as flush with my ear as I’d have liked. They look fine though in the mirror. I don’t feel self conscious while wearing them in public which I’d worried about when seeing how large they were.*That could make the difference for you if you like to wear earbuds to get some peace and quiet and get a nap in since they’ll be pushing against your pillow and that’ll get uncomfortable very quickly.The ear tip pieces are not the typical silicon material you find on nearly every other set of earbuds, they’re like a type of memory foam. I assume they chose this material to help with the noise cancellation and I’m sure it does provide a better seal between your ear and the outside world but in I’m opinion, silicon would have been better. Reason being that they’re very difficult to clean off the earwax inevitably gets on them. I clean my ears often and you’d think I never did if you caught a glimpse of my earbuds. For whatever reason, the wax really sticks to the foam and it’s difficult to remove. I damaged one of the tips trying to clean it, they aren’t the most durable things.I ended up removing the silicon ear tips from an older pair of earbuds and using them to replace the memory foam tips. I found them to be more comfortable to wear, easier to get a good fit in the ear, and faaaar easier to clean. The degradation of the noise cancellation wasn’t *that* significant. I did flip between the two types of tips a few times to see the difference and it wasn’t much. It’s a personal preference really, I don’t think the tiny loss in noise cancellation outweighs the easier cleaning. **Edit from future me* Good god, please use silicon ear tips. I made the mistake of squeezing a foam ear tip and I discovered that they act just like little sponges where they absorb all the sweat and ear wax that gets near enough. Wiping them down isn't good enough with foam tips.. you have to literally wring them out and wow was that disgusting. That's with *any* foam ear tips though, not specific to these earbuds.I haven’t really messed around with the equalizer settings all that much. I found a suggested setting on YouTube and tried it out and have since increased the bass some but have left the other settings as they were. It’s pretty easy to change them if you’re into that.Battery life seems great. They haven’t died on me yet and I’ve used them for several hours in a session before when I’d listen to podcasts or use them at home to game with.My advice, try the beats pro fit before jumping up to these. Those had great sound quality and noise cancellation but the little silicon but that holds it in your ear became really uncomfortable for me after half an hour or so. If that doesn’t bother you, then you can probably save yourself the hundred dollars and get those instead. I don’t think the improvements in sound quality and noise suppression on the Sony’s is worth another hundred dollars.But again, these are great earbuds and if you’re willing to spend the money, you’ll get fantastic sound, noise cancellation, and a tolerably comfortable fit. Whether or not that’s worth 50% more for over the competition that has almost the same sound quality is up to you.***Update*** 1 year and some months laterI still recommend these headphones. A year on and they're still fanastic for me but there are a few small issues that have cropped up that I'm not sure existed earlier on in my use with them. The most annoying of which is that I will periodically just lose the sound while gaming for a period of 10 seconds or so. It sounds a bit like that trope where someone's pretending they're going through a tunnel and losing the signal so I wonder if I'm getting some kind of bluetooth interference from another piece of tech in my apartment building. It's not an issue that ruins the product or anything but on occasion I have gotten frustrated with it enough that I took them out and used my wired headset for the remainder of my game session.I think another thing to note with these earbuds is that they're easy to drop and the way they fit into the case often means you'll have to pick them back up because you tried to put them in the wrong side. I'm a cluts so naturally have dropped them dozens of times and on hard surfaces but despite that they still work (nearly) flawlessly.The other issue I have with them is that they're marketed as being capable of being connected to two devices simultaneously when in reality, they're really not. You have to jump through too many hoops for this feature to actually work like it's advertised to. It's not a deal breaker but it does mean that if you use them with multiple devices you'll have an extra step to go through to connect them since they'll often end up paired with the wrong one. Disappointing and inconvenient but again, not a deal breaker. They're still great earbuds.

These earbuds were worth every penny. If you read the reviews you'll see the salient features -- impressive sound quality, long battery life, great noise canceling, etc. It's all very much true. The noise canceling for example is nothing short of amazing. It's basically as good as my WH-1000XM4s. I couldn't believe it when I first experienced it. So, you can trust the reviews on those points. I want to point out a few things that I've noticed from about a month of daily use. For context, these are my first Sony earbuds; I've used a lot of the Samsung buds but I've never tried the Apple buds. My impression of earbuds is that there's a lot more of a personalized experience - the fit, the sound, etc. depends so much on each person. So, here's my experience.First, the software (on Android) has a feature that will let you test which of the earbud sizes best fits your ear. This feature alone fundamentally changed my experience with these earbuds - I discovered that my ears take different sizes! I have no idea how common that is, but it's just one of those things I would never have realized on my own. I just knew earbuds never fit! Following the software's recommendation on which size to use for which ear, these buds fit and they never fall out. It's the first time in my life I've been able to trust the earbuds sitting in my ear. Without the overall excellence of the earbuds on top of this feature, I think it would be a bit of a gimmick. But for me it made all the difference in how usable these were. Chewing, speaking, etc. don't dislodge them. Every so often I'll give a twist to secure them. But it's night-and-day different from any earbuds I've ever used before.Second, the material on the earbuds is like a memory foam -- squishy and malleable -- as opposed to the silicone I've encountered on other similar products. I much prefer the memory foam! It seems to adapt and stay better to my ear, at least. I do think it puts a bit of stress on the skin and that can lead to a bit of discomfort after long periods of time using them. I also think they're a little more difficult to clean. They may need to be replaced more often as the material breaks down. But, for me these have been minor issues in comparison to how they fit and stay in the ear. I've worn them hours at a time without trouble.Third, in the negative column, there are some interesting/weird artifacts in the sound stage sometimes. In some cases there's a weird edge on voices like we're sitting inside a tin can or something. I've also noticed a short "whooshing" sound just before sound starts or ends. Both are subtle but noticeable and I did not experience anything like it in the WH products I've owned (the over-ear Sony headphones). They may be specific to settings that I haven't figured out yet. In both cases, I noticed it but it hasn't really bothered me. I do wish I had known about it before buying!Last, I wish it were easier to switch between devices. It's not that it's terribly difficult; you long-press both earbuds for 5 seconds, and they go into pairing mode. But, I think the target audience for these earbuds probably switches pretty often between phone and laptop (and in my case, add a few more devices) -- so the tediousness of that otherwise pretty simple process gets amplified from repetition. (To illustrate the perceptual distortion, when I was typing this out I originally put 10 seconds because it feels like "forever". But, I decided I should just look it up and found that it was only 5 seconds!)In practice, the issues I described haven't stopped me from reaching for the WFs over the WHs more and more consistently over the last month. These are hands down the best earbuds I've ever owned or used, and approaching the best portable personal audio solution in general for the price point. I paid full price and I have zero regrets. It's a truly impressive product.