[REVIEW] Sony WH-1000XM2/B

[SenKa]

I have had my Sony WH-1000XM2/B headphones since April 4th 2019. Yes, at this point the updated XM3’s had already come out and I was looking for those at the time, but I chose against it simply because I could afford XM2’s.

 

I purchased my unit for $132.95, a pretty good deal as I remember. Every day since April 4th, these have been my sole headphones for school, work, and my personal life. This is across, Android, iOS, Windows, and macOS. I will admit I am not an audiophile; I am very much a “casul” in the space of high end audio equipment and purchased these solely on Linus’ praise of the XM series headphones in a video of his some time ago. But, I think I have learned enough of these headphones to give a decent review of my experience using them on all 4 major platforms.

 

Hardware Experience:

First off, the hardware itself. The XM2’s are a very comfortable set of over-ears for my large head, I have absolutely 0 issues keeping them on my head and the ear cups are near-perfect. I have been wearing them since I woke up today and have not been uncomfortable. I get multiple days of all-day use out of these without thinking to charge them. These are my favorite over-ears I have ever owned, amongst other big names such as Sennheiser and Bose. The touch-gesture based interface is phenomenal, I prefer it over buttons ten-fold, and I have never had issues with the touch not registering even with wet hands.

 

So, I mentioned charging. This is probably my largest issue with the XM2’s, and that is Micro USB charging. This is addressed in the updated XM3’s, but those are not the subject of this review. Micro B sucks, it always has and will suck. Thankfully, the port is not worn out my unit and has held up surprisingly well actually. Sony sourced a very high-quality Micro B port, for whatever that is worth. In fact, I only have 2 issues with the hardware itself and the other is very subjective. The stock ear-cups do tend to get a little warm, but this is easily fixable with a new set if it bugs you that much.

 

Sound quality is fantastic, well balanced highs, mids, and lows. All adjustable via the EQ in the app should you not like how it sounds now. I listen to a wide range of Pop, Rock, EDM, Rap, and other music. I have yet to find a genera or even a song these headphones do not compliment beautifully. 

 

Ranking: 9/10

 

Software Experience:

iOS: I will have the most to say here, as it is the current mobile OS I am using. The partner app works perfectly fine, occasionally when waking the phone from sleep it requires a restart to connect with the headphones. I highly recommend installing the app, as it issues a whole host of configurability that is not available otherwise. I question why the headphones ship defaulted to SBC, which is a lower quality connection. Enabling “Prioritize sound quality” in the app makes an audible difference in sound quality. I do not remember if DSEE HX was enabled by default, but if it is not be sure to enable that as well. I do wish the Assistant button had Siri integration, as it supports the Google Assistant and Alexa. One other very tiny annoyance, and this probably isn’t Sony’s fault, but the build of the Headphones app Apple hosts for iOS 9 is bugged and does not connect to my headphones. I am not taking off points for this, but I found it worth noting.

 

Android: I tested mostly on Oreo with my Galaxy Note 8, where more or less what I said above is mirrored here. The app is a bit more stable on Android than iOS, and I wish the Assistant button had Bixby integration. Thankfully the button is reprogrammable on Android and iOS to toggle the noise cancelling.

 

Windows: The Windows experience really, really sucks. This is no fault of Sony, but pardon my little rant. If you only care for the review, skip this and continue at the macOS heading. Windows Bluetooth audio drivers absolutely suck the big one. There are two sound options for Bluetooth audio in Windows, “Headset” and “Headphones”. Let me explain the difference. Headphones works semi-normally, with a high quality and low latency connection for listening to apps. The gesture controls on the headphones sometimes work-ish. Other times they are completely ignored, and this does not change while using a browser, or the Spotify desktop app. While using the “Headphones” preset any background noise will take full priority over your music to play, like Discord notifications. I have to close all apps that send auditory notifications just to listen to music uninterrupted. So, what is “Headset”? Let me tell you… The connection quality is so low I feel like the headphone drivers were ripped out of the worlds first phonograph, and the latency is so abhorrent my win rate in For Honor goes down by several percent simply because the audio is so far behind the video and it fucks with my timings of inputs. There is one benefit though! You can have more than one audio source playing at once, meaning I can leave Discords ram whoring desktop client open while I scream at my monitor while I get shafted by horrid latency! Seriously, M$ needs to fix their Bluetooth audio drivers yesterday. I tested this across 4 different current-gen motherboards plus every Bluetooth enabled windows laptop I own. The driver also randomly crashes and halts your system, so that’s fun. It does not get better.

 

macOS: Simply flawless. I only wish Sony’s headphones app had a macOS client so I could configure my headphones without connecting to a phone. I do not need to do this often, but on the off chance I do it’s a minor inconvenience. macOS Bluetooth audio is a flawless experience, gestures work 100% of the time. This experience mirrors that of Android and iOS in quality.

 

Rating (excluding Windows): 9.5/10

Rating (with Windows): 3/10. Seriously. Do not attempt Bluetooth Audio on Windows. Fuck you Bill Gates

 

Noise Cancelling/Ambient Noise

This is a very mixed bag. I have a house consisting of 3 dogs, a bird, one very loud father, and a soft-spoken mother. Due to unfortunate circumstances surrounding an auto accident my Father had, I am the able-bodied male of the household. I actually crank ambient noise up to 20 in the app, and prioritize voices while I use these headphones if I am not in the same room as my parents or I am doing such as washing the dishes where my back is to them and I would not see an attempt to get my attention. I am partially deaf, and do not have hearing aids due to being just above the threshold of being considered an able-hearing person and thus I would need to buy them myself. I lack the money, and really do not notice it outside of scenarios where hearing aids wouldn’t help much anyways.

 

I will say, with the ambient noise settings I have I can actually hear things better even with music playing, which is nice. The issues begin here, however, as many things are pitched up quite a bit for some reason. This includes my very loud macaw, which can be uncomfortably pitched at times. This carries over, and is worsened, with my dogs. Two of them are hounds, and the third learned how to howl because of them. The third dog is a Komondor, who howls at a surprisingly high pitch. Should he do this while the headphones are set to transmit ambient noise, the Komondors’ howl seems to confuse the headphones algorithm due to its pitch and modularity to the point of the sound becoming incredibly loud and broken-sounding. It sounds like a very shrill PC speaker being blown out. My other two dogs do not have this issue with my headphones, as they howl much deeper. I would like to see Sony issue a firmware update to address the ambient noise algorithms shortcomings when dealing with modular frequencies.

 

Noise Cancelling is flawless, should I so desire I can shut myself out from even rather loud noises. It is very calming at times, but I don’t play with this too often. My two settings are Ambient Noise 20 + Prioritize Voices and a medium level of noise cancelling.

 

Rating: 7.5/10.

 

Summary:

Would I buy these headphones again? In a heartbeat. Would I tell all of you reading to buy them in a heartbeat? Yes. They are a fantastic pair of headphones, though not without their flaws. Overall rating from me is an 8/10 recommendation.