Sony Announces its WH-1000XM4 Noise Cancelling Headphones

Sony's new WH-1000XM4 premium over-ears replaces the WH-1000XM3 and brings a raft of new skills that enables you to personalise and control your music, improve noise cancellation and adjust ambient sound automatically based on your preferences. Furthermore, the WH-1000XM4 improved call quality and the ability to pair with two devices at the same time.

The new Sony noise-cancellers are armed with the company's latest DSEE Extreme audio processor. Also onboard is Edge-AI, a clever bit of tech that apparently can rebuild audio lost during digital compression for a full-fidelity experience. We are told that it analyses music in real-time and recognises instruments, music genres and individual elements of each song to restore the high range sounds lost in compression. Told you it was clever.    

The Sony XM4 appears to be an intelligent multitasking genius. Not only can it pair with a couple of Bluetooth devices (phone and laptop, for instance) at the same time, it can also tell if you are wearing them and adapts playback accordingly to help save battery power. Using the headphone's proximity sensor and two acceleration sensors, the headphones automatically stop the music when you remove them and resumes playing when you put them on again, saving battery. Play time clocks in at around 30 hours, while the quick-charging feature should return five hours of playback from a 10 minute charge.

Furthermore, it knows if you're speaking to someone. Speak-to-chat, as Sony calls it, recognises if you're ordering a coffee or talking to a colleague, for example, and pauses the music, as well as allowing ambient noise through the cans so you can hear the person's reply. Once done, the music is turned back up after the jibber-jabber has stopped for 15 or 30 seconds.

That's not all, through the XM4's Adaptive Sound Control, your headphones will even recognise frequently visited locations such as your workplace, gym or café, and tailor the sound to suit the situation. Oh, and should you misplace them, the XM4 support Google's Fast Pair feature, meaning you can locate the headphones by ringing them.

Naturally, the most important job the WH-1000XM4 has is cancelling noise. Thankfully, Sony says the XM4 reduces both high and mid-frequency sounds via two microphones on each earcup. Those mics feed into the brand's Dual Noise Sensor technology that captures ambient noise and passes the data to the trusted HD Noise Cancelling Processor QN1. Then a new Bluetooth Audio SoC senses and adjusts to music and noise at over 700 times per second. In short, Sony says this is the best yet.

Sony's also tailored the high-end cans to a better job handling phone calls. New 'Precise Voice Pickup technology' sees a combination of five microphones, and Sony's smart processing chip deliver clearer voice calls.

As well as supporting Sony's LDAC codec for high-quality audio over Bluetooth, the XM4 also rocks 360 Reality Audio, a new immersive audio experience that can be found on Tidal, Nugs and Deezer.

The XM4s are available in black and silver, priced at £350 / €389.

For more information, please visit Sony.