Sony WH-1000XM5 Wireless Industry Leading Active Noise Cancelling Headphones, 8 Mics for Clear Calling, 40Hr Battery, 3 Min Quick Charge = 3 Hours…

The XM5s were in my wishlist for so long, and I was hyped on finally getting them. But people buying them in India should be wary about a few points:

PROS:
1. Excellent sound quality, once you tweak the EQ. Look up the ideal EQ settings online, should be easy to find. I tried the flat profile (which still sneaks some lower frequencies in though, be mindful).
2. Call quality is surprisingly good. Works really well with Teams / Zoom as well.
3. Noise cancellation is supreme. I have not tried out the Airpods Max / Bose QCxx series so cannot compare with those though.
4. Sony Headphones Connect app makes it easy to setup and upgrade firmware (which you should do immediately after switching them on for the first time)
5. Multi Device Connect works flawlessly. Its disabled in the app by default though.

CONS:
1. Ear pressure : Sometimes the headphones cause quite a bit of ear pressure. It eventually got better after a day, but check it out on your own.
2. In the hot Delhi summers, wearing these without an AC in the vicinity can cause some serious amounts of sweat to build up. Not the fault of the headphones, our weather can be toasty 🙂
3. People with spectacles can have varying amounts of comfort. I have thick acetate specs and I took a bit of time to make sure the headphones dont dig in too much.

That being said, I’m happy with these headphones, would recommend.

Quick take aways:
Without an EQ, the headphones have a very very dark sound signature (I was not a fan)
Sound very good for Bluetooth headphones with EQ, sound okay when wired
ANC seems to be decent, lot of customisability in the app
ANC works well in standalone mode (without pairing)
Battery life is good
No form of sweat/water resistance is a minus but can be worked around
High noise floor (if you care about that sort of thing)
Optional pause with take off and resume with put on feature is amazing!

As a preface, the Sony WH-1000XM5 are my first set of ANC headphones. I would consider myself a mild audiophile (I have a DAC, AMP, and too many headphones). With that said, everyone’s ears are different so take this with an extra pinch of salt.

Out of the box experience:
The packaging was quite nice. It included a hard-shell carrying case, USB-C to USB-A charging cable, 1.2m long 3.5mm cable, and the headphones. The connection process for new devices is wonky and leaves a bit to be desired. The initial pairing did not work until I installed the Sony Headphones Connect app from the appstore. After this, you have to power off the device then power on and hold the power button for 5 seconds to enter pairing mode (confirmed by a vocal “pairing” from the headphones).

The sound signature left a lot to be desired. For a bit of background, my favourite type of headphone is flat/neutral with a balanced sound signature. I enjoy heavy bass in electronic music and am sensitive to loud highs/mids (I get listener fatigue quite fast from it). I enjoy a lot of variety when listening to music an will try most things out. In particular I regularly listen to Classical, Avant-garde, Experimental, Easy listening, Electronic, Contemporary folk, Latin, Jazz, Rock, and some Traditional folk. I don’t tend to listen to much Blues, Rap, or Hip Hop. I occasionally listen to mainstream-Pop and Country.
Without EQ, the sound signature is very very dark. The bass is very punchy and present, the mids are recessed, and the highs have their edge taken off. I was not a fan of it for anything but electronic tracks with no vocals and heavy bass. Even then, it wasn’t particularly amazing. Anything with vocals will sound horrendous (again, with no EQ) as the bass frequencies in voices will be very pronounced.
The ANC worked well for me out of the box. For the open mode, I set it to let near voices through and ambient noise out. I use them with eyeglasses but the ANC still seems to work well. They do a particularly good job of filtering out A/C noises, the electronic whine that appliances generate (not all people can hear this), and running water. The ANC tends to struggle with erratic high pitched noises (as I understand it, most ANC systems do). However, it will dull the noise a tad through both the closed back headphone and ANC component.

Adaptations
Since I was not a fan of the sound profile out of the box, I set up an EQ profile with these headphones. The Sony Headphones Connect app includes an EQ but I found it to be extremely limited in terms of customisability (I did not like any of the presets that were offered) and not very user friendly. Due to this, I set up my own external EQ using AutoEq (on github) as a starting point. After fine tuning it to my preferences, using the headphones became a much much better experience.
They sound very good for Bluetooth headphones. For genres where I like more bass, I strongly prefer the Sony headphones over my Sennheiser and prefer the Sony to my Bose.
In wired mode, the headphones definitely sound better but no where near as good as my other wired headphones. If I’m attached to a wire, I would rather just switch to another pair of headphones. With that said, they do sound better if you leave the headphones on while connected with a cable.
The ANC works well for me. If I use them for noise canceling without music, it can get unsettlingly quiet in the mornings (which is a great thing). Around others, particularly in the kitchen, the headphones do a very good job of dulling and eliminating noises. The pass through function works well in the event of conversation. I am a very quiet eater but these headphones did a great job canceling out all noises while I ate. I don’t use these headphones outside, so I do not know how well they perform with nature’s noises.
The gesture controls included are useful but a bit too involved to be my go to. If I have physical access to my device, I prefer to use that to control the music. However, the pause on take off feature is amazing! It consistently pauses my media any time I have to take my headphones off and resumes right where it left off and soon as I put it on. Simply magic is the only way I have to explain it (the function can be turned off if you don’t like/want it).

Everything is good on the product. sound, build quality, connectivity, software updates, Sony headphones app. It has very good noise cancellation also but noise cancellation is done automatically which means the headset has the control to the level of noise cancellation. Sometimes when you put headset it feels like it doesn’t have any noise cancellation, It will take some time to noise cancellation to kick in. I also had one M3 TWS where we can set the noise cancellation levels with the app. Here we don’t have that option. Overall very happy with the product

Please excuse the long review!!
This is a review from someone who never used headphones.
I assumed that it’s going to be absolutely silent once I put on the headphones with ANC on.
It’s not absolutely silent, but it’s a lot better than direct noises from vehicles, horns and general noise outside.

When we try to play videos on laptop or mobile speakers, if there is noise from outside, we can’t make out the video sound. That issue is resolved with this. You can always hear the video sounds even with considerable amount of drilling and other noises in the background.

I never used headphones before. So I cannot compare them with anything or comment about the weight. However they are comfortable to wear. I never felt the urge to remove them. When I wore them for hours together, after removing them I felt a little tingling and numbness around the area the first day. But it’s probably because I never wore headphones.
Then I also noticed that after long hours of wearing, my ears started to hurt on the inside. I decided to limit the usage however comfortable they feel.

The first time I had some trouble connecting to laptop and mobile, but we can figure it out. It’s working seamlessly now and I know where and what to click if it doesn’t connect automatically.

I didn’t like the ambient sound. It feels strange with that on. I turned it off. Also I deactivated auto motion detection. For someone like me, speak to chat is also not suitable. Sometimes while watching an anime, when you say something out of excitement, it pauses the video. Ha ha… Very well built. These are all personal preferences though.

Additional observations:
All these below points are without playing in the headphones.
You can hear the voices from TV with them. Voices won’t be cancelled out.
You can hear the person talking who is next to you.
It doesn’t cancel out hand blender noise. You can constantly hear it.
It doesn’t cancel the dogs barking from a distance. This is the most irritating thing.
It cannot nullify drilling noises completely. It reduces the intensity.
The day to day simple noises are almost nullified. This gives better call quality during teams calls.
I was told my voice quality improved a lot when I switched from laptop mic to xm5 mic.

With the drilling noise in the back, I tried to record my voice in a normal tone. The background noise is almost gone. However my voice itself sounded muffled. It wasn’t clear and a bit difficult to even make out the words.
On the other hand, when I recorded it using iPhone, the voice was clear but there was background noise too.

Overall the iPhone mic is the best. The audio sounds crystal clear when recorded on iPhone but of course background noise is heard.

When you turn on some other audio in headphones, like music at 40% sound, most of the outside is gone including drilling, horns, people talking in proximity. That is wonderful. 😄
I’m saying most because, drilling noise is quiet difficult to nullify.

Overall I like them. I’m going to use them a lot but for limited durations at a time.

Update after few weeks:
Sometimes the connection to laptop is seamless. Sometimes it troubles a lot. Yesterday it never connected at all. I didn’t know what to do. It could be a problem from laptop too.
Another things I noticed, when noise cancellation is on, and there is a certain amount of noise around you, it creates a pressure within the earcups. It is very evident if observed without music playing. This pressure is a bit less in ambient mode as this mode doesn’t cancel out everything. I realised that this is the reason why my ears hurt on the inside when I wear these. It could be probably because of the negative noise waves that are generated to cancel out the actual noise. The phenomenon is probably same for all active ANC devices. But xm5s are the first I’m trying.
When ANC is off and say the headphones themselves are off and you are wearing them, then there is is continuous sound that is generated like wind howling. So these cannot be used like this.

These devices cannot provide the natural peace we get when present in an actual place. I was hoping it’d be possible to some extent. But nope!

Para lo que fueron diseñados están perfectos, la supresión de ruido es muy buena, pero aquí hay que recalcar algo muy importante, en cuanto se está en modo ambiente, es decir, que los micrófonos te permiten escuchar el entorno que te rodea, ocurre lo siguiente:

-Si tienes el modo ambiente activado, si haces sonar unas llaves cerca de tí, “charlea” o “chicharronea” los microfonos y el sonido transmitido a los transductores/bocina/diafragma es similar a un “crack-crack” que es desagradable al escucharlo e interrumpe la escucha de la musica. Sólo pasa esto cuando se activa el modo ambiente. Ocurre lo mismo si dejas caer un utensilio de cocina ya sea a una mesa o al suelo, y he estudiado su patrón de eventos que esto se puede aplicar a cualquier objeto metálico que haga colisión con otro similar o que éste objeto caiga desde una altura superior al medio metro de altura.

Sonido
De una vez por todas, no es lo esperado por lo pagado. Su sonido es muy simple, seco y encasillado, y la interpretación de los graves es muy pobre que “truenan” los parlantes si tu le agregas algo de bajo. Esto teniendo en cuenta al precio que se pagan por ellos. Unos sony WH-xb910n, incluso unos antiguos Panasonic RP-DJS400, o también los Pioneer HDJ500, y los ATH-M50x, suenan a la altura de estos que integran el parlante hecho de “fibra de carbono” y cuestán mucho mas baratos. No los regresé puesto que los acompaño con una aplicación para mejorar el sonido de manera notable: “Viper4Android” si tienen la oportunidad de instalarlo, háganlo, sino, los ecualizadores que hay en las tiendas y el que trae por defecto en los telefonos y aplicación de los audífonos, no serán suficiente para justificar el gasto en estos cascos (a menos que los hayas elegido por la supresión de ruido) y con esa app ya le aplico un corrector de audio a estos audífonos y ya suenan mas o menos decente. Repito, no es lo que esperaba para por su precio es “meh” soportable.

Uso en exteriores
Si vives en un clima que no pase los 20 grados, son idóneos, ya que en climas donde resido que suelen estar arriba de los 38 grados, ya es un inconveniente ya que tienes que estar quitándotelos a cada rato por el sudor y no, no son certificables a nigun grado IPX, incluso saliendo de la caja hay un volante con una ilustración indicando que no lo puedes manipular ni con las manos sudadas, así que ahí habrán que tener cuidado.

Uso en actividades físicas
Como en el anterior apartado, hay que tomar serias precauciones, los usé en una cadena de gimnasios que suelen usar aire acondicionado e incluso así, se me dejaron de escuchar de un lado, pero fue temporal, hasta que los destapé y vi que el sudor abarcó toda el area del parlante y por ese material parecido al cartón del que están hechos los parlantes, se humedecieron y no tuvieron la potencia que solían hacer hasta que solito se compusieron hasta pasadas 3 semanas…

Trabajo remoto
Usarlo para Microsoft Teams/Webex/Google Meets/etc es un martirio, si no es el sonido es el micrófono… que sí, marcandos otros dispositivos primero y luego seleccionar estos audífonos en las opciones de Windows/Mac/Linux se arregla, pero esa anomalía no la tenían su anterior generación (WH-1000xm4) que también tuve. Salió una actualización recien para estos que permite LDAC multipunto y una que otra función agregada, seguiré validando si este comportamiento sigue.

Llamadas de voz
En este apartado si han mejorado sustancialmente respecto a la generacion anterior, uso estos cascos para las llamadas principalmente, en general son mas cómodos e incluso los uso en entornos de espacio abierto… Pero no usar en zonas cercanas a una construcción, manifestación o conciertos puesto que tampoco es que haga milagros, pero una caminata al parque o al centro de la ciudad si te logran escuchar aun.

Supresión de ruido
En este apartado si es muy bueno, la verdad en este apartado si lo piensan comprar por este motivo, no se arrepentirían ya que este es su lado “fuerte” de este modelo. Como dato, si le das un golpecito con el dedo índice a cualquiera de los dos cascos, se reinicia por fracciones de segundo su supresion de ruido y vuelve de nuevo al nivel que tenía, esa función de optimización en tiempo real hace eso, pero si puede llegar a ser molesto para algunos por eso hago el comentario.

Autonomía
incorpora una batería de 1200mah (ya los desarmé) que permite esas horas que promete el fabricante, pero usando su codec de alta calidad “LDAC” estas horas que dice ofrecer (30 horas) pueden verse mermadas por la naturaleza de este codificador y en el uso diario pues no te deja tirado al final del día, yo los tengo que cargar diario ya que al final del día me quedan 40% de uso por un uso de 13 horas continuas (los uso para el trabajo como bien comenté y para escuchar música)

En conclusión, son unos audífonos que deberías esperar una oferta para comprarlos, no valen su precio normal, o en su debido caso, buscar otros con menor precio ya que como mencioné, hay otros que he usado y suenan a la par e incluso superior (su driver de 30mm es una limitante aunque el fabricante no lo quiera ver)

NOTA: hay nula diferencia en usarlo con cable para “mayor calidad” del audio, ya que tiene un DAC integrado y la calidad que ofrece de manera inalámbrica es la misma que usarla cableada, y si lo usas con la unidad apagada, la calidad se deteriora estrepitosamente, y mejor optas por no usarlos de manera cableada.