Sony WH1000XM3's: A Review After 3 Months

handymanshandle · June 3, 2019

I know there's a lot of Video and even Written reviews from more well qualified reviewers who have already reviewed these headphones but I kinda feel whatever conclusion they made is different than mine and well yeah.

Also, I should probably disclaim, I did receive this at a bit of a discount because I am an employee of Best Buy and get a discount on lots of things all I can publicly disclose is that our discount is 5% Above Cost (it means I pay whatever Best Buy Pays plus 5%)

I'm not an audiophile, I just appreciate decent audio and it seems for a bluetooth headphone these are really good.

I listen to a lot of stuff so I think I've gotten a good feel of what the range of these headphones are and what kind of music they are best for and really the standard configuration is really balanced that it's great for everything really. I haven't played too much with tweaking them

In short:

Sound Quality: Very Good
Battery Life: Excellent [Average 1 hour of use a day, tend to be able to get about a week and a half for more heavier use]

Touch Controls: Fiddly but the palm to turn off Noise cancelling and lower volume is great

App: Pretty ok on both Android and iOS

Portability: Not great but not awful

Noise Cancelling: Seems to work well at least on a bus and at home with fans and what not

10/10 Would Buy Again or Would Buy at Full Price if I Wasn't a Best Buy Employee or Eligible for Employee Discount

Not In Short:

What I like about the Sound Quality? Well for one it's very balanced to where your highs aren't sacrificed for the or mids and the bass isn't so overpowering that all it does is vibrate your head. Instead it seems to be able to allow you to hear your music but also sorta feel it too. From some audiophiles I've heard that they dislike bluetooth headphones because of additional compression but for most people I really don't think they're gonna hear it. Like using these headphones wirelessly and wired with the built in DAC and amp on I truly can't notice a difference and I doubt it'd be compressing the audio if its wired lol

What I don't like about the sound quality? Honestly I don't know if I have any real complaints for it, or at least I can't at the top of my head think of one.

What I like about the battery life? Well as said above, I can usually get about a full week to if not two weeks of around an hour of listening a day with noise cancelling on.

What I don't like about the battery life? I sorta wished that when it got under 20% it'd do something to remind you that the battery is getting low. Because in Android I don't believe there was really a spot to show the battery life remaining only in the app I believe.

In iOS, it shows in the control center.

What I like about the touch controls? If you get them right they're great and the holding the palm to the right ear cup to quiet down the music and turn down Noise Cancelling is great, perfect for when I'm boarding the metro bus and want to audibly verify the card was read and if the driver wanted to inform me of anything.

What I don't like about the touch controls. There's no physical feed back other than a beep confirming that *something* was done, the trick is to apparently start from center but finding center isn't always easy

The Headphone's Apps from Sony, What are they like? Well I'd say they got a lot of stuff you can mess around with, especially in the Android App. There's plenty to mess around with in the iOS app too. The interface is pretty straight forward and looks modern enough that it doesn't look like it was made like 8 years ago and forgotten about.

Portability... Well that one depends on what you need. The case is pretty nice. Though for what I need I kinda think headphones might be a bit bulky and because these aren't weather sealed or water resistant that's one thing.

Noise Cancelling in short is great, it gets rid of most background noises that music just can't cover up and kinda get you really isolated in the music. It's not perfect but well it's not supposed to double as hearing protection lol

So yeah, if you're looking for good wireless headphones with good battery life and noise cancelling and sound. These will be perfect.

WereCat · June 3, 2019

I have them about as long as you do.

I really like them as well. I still haven't tried them with jack on my DAC/AMP so can't comment about that.

Only annoying thing is that they don't come with a charger and they refuse to charge with my OnePlus 6T charger so I have to use USB on my PC which is slow for charging.

The mic sound quality on these is also kinda bad but it's usable.