Only music. Nothing else.
Product review: Sony WF1000XM3 headphones.
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As you all know, I am a true lover of noise-canceling headphones and I have been using these kinds of headphones for many many years now and they are a great way to escape the everyday noises.
Sony has been launching state of the art noise-canceling headphones in the past regularly. Most of the novelties were over-ear headphones. But with the new WF-1000XM3 they have entered the wireless in-ear noise-canceling market. But be aware, these are not the every-day headphones you can buy nowadays. The WF-1000XM3 provide industry-leading noise cancellation and they have been awarded with “the best true wireless headphones” award by the renowned What HiFi Magazine. Even though they have been on the market for some time now, they are still regarded as some of the best noise-canceling earphones available.
I was very lucky to get the chance to test Sony’s most popular truly wireless in-ear noise cancelling headphones. So let’s get this party started and see exactly what these award-winning headphones can do.
As for all of us, corona changed everything. Before I was taking the train/bus almost every day. With the award-winning noise cancelling functionalities, I managed to escape the daily noises while commuting. What a relief! Before corona, as you know from my travel posts – we went on weekend city trips very regularly. Especially during flights – acoustically the Sony headphones provided me the best experience I could get on an airplane. And honestly, I simply cannot imagine taking a flight without noise cancelling headphones anymore. It makes the whole trip so much more enjoyable.
Yeeh, but then corona came to Switzerland – during the lockdown, I spent most of the time in the mountains to enjoy the peaceful nature and calm. After having finished remote work – I often took my touring skis and climbed the surrounding mountains. Sometimes with friends, sometimes with family, and sometimes by myself. I must say, I have difficulty with the idea of utilizing headphones that may remotely diminish my ability to hear while skiing (especially with the noise-cancelling mode) – that’s why I never use headphones while downhill skiing. But while touring up the mountains – it’s more like a hike and therefore I really liked using them for listening to my favorite podcasts and Spotify playlists – because these wireless buds put together all the ingredients required to create a wonderful acoustic experience.
The Sony Headphones App
And with the Sony Headphones app, I was given a little more control over some of the functions – when listening to Podcasts, I could change the settings to “focus on voice” and when listening to music I could change to different “presets”. And sometimes when I didn’t feel like changing the settings on the app, I could also simply use the touch controls on the ear buds. With my finger I could tap on each earpiece to turn noise cancelling on/off and enjoy the ambient sound mode which lets the outside noise in (which is especially useful when riding a bicycle or while walking on the streets)
The Sound
The headphones are packed with advanced audio technology and offer breathtaking sound quality.
Although the earbuds only support two Bluetooth codecs, SBC and AAC, the sound quality and clarity are impressive. I did not know about this before, but while exploring the Sony Headphones Connect App – I found out about the DSEE HX processing function, which can be turned on with one click only. The function upscales the compressed sound source data to almost as high a quality as that of High-Resolution Audio and reproduces the clear, high-range sound that is often lost. So regardless of musical genre (or even vocal pieces like Podcasts) separation is audible and the recreation of three-dimensional space is accurate.
And of course, the head phones generously provide the bass I needed. But apparently, the Sony over-ear headphones are more suitable if you’re a bass lover who’s used to much deeper bass.
The Battery Life
With the WF-1000XM3 headphones, the music just keeps on playing. Sony has made a big advancement in terms of battery life. According to Sony’s website, you get up to 24 hours of listening. On a full charge, the headphones (in noise cancelling mode) offer 6 hours of power and the handy charging case provides a further 3x charges to keep you going throughout the day. And obviously, without noise cancelling it’s even longer – around 8 hours on a full charge, and therefore together with the charging case up to 32 hours are possible. It’s insane, isn’t it? Also compared to other noise cancelling products that I used and tested, the Sony earphones top the list in terms of battery life.
The charging case
(Photo Credit: Sony)
Conclusion
Even though, the WF-1000XM3 headphones have been on the market for quite some time – they are still an extremely impressive pair of wireless earphones. They offer best in class active noise-canceling and it really improves my everyday life – whether at work, while commuting, traveling or doing sports. The sound quality is also very good for in-ear headphones and the headphones are super easy to control with the app or with finger-tapping. The battery life is in my opinion fantastic – because I can listen to music/podcasts all day long. It’s definitely a “must have” in my opinion.
