I've been SPOILED! - Sony WH-1000XM5

Sony is dominating as a 3rd party headphone for your devices, not because they look great, but because they perform just as well as first-party headphones or sometimes better. The new Sony WH-1000XM5 are no exception as they doubled the processor and microphone for better noise canceling while keeping the same battery life. I just wish I didn't try the Sennheiser IE600.

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CHAPTERS
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0:00 - How did it happen?
0:18 - Unboxing
1:38 - Exterior impressions
2:10 - Comfort impressions
3:10 - Specs and microphone locations
4:00 - Headphone buttons and ports
4:34 - Fit adjustment and sound isolation
4:55 - Sponsor - dbrand!
6:45 - Setup and App impressions
8:00 - Ambient mode impressions
9:30 - Speak-to-chat impressions
10:32 - EQ impressions
11:07 - Audio impressions
11:28 - Price thoughts and comparison
11:40 - Audio thoughts
12:52 - Final thoughts

[ShortCircuit]

Note: It looks like we didn't try out the touch controls enough or actually use them correctly. Maybe we'll give this a more in-depth look at LTT. Reply back on precisely what questions you have about them, and like this comment, so we can make the case to the powers to be!

[jordanmartinetti]

I've had the XM4s for a while now and noticed right away a couple problems in this video. The "Quick Attention Mode" needs physical contact, not just hovering your hand over the right earcup. That's why it wasn't activiating. Also, play/pause is a double tap. The stuttering at the end was probably the QAM mode activating because it was the closest action to what Linus was doing.

[BrumBrumBryn]

7:38 - If anyone seeing this already has XM3's or above, when swiping up/down for volume control you can swipe and hold and it will continue increasing/decreasing the volume. I learned this a week ago after owning the 3's for 3 years 😂

[NagisaShiota]

Linus, I feel like you would have enjoyed these headphones more if you'd read the instructions in the app that tell you how to pause, how to play, and how to use quick attention mode. It did say, and you did not do what it said

[tiagofonseca]

Huge fan of LTT over the years but this is probably one of the worst videos they have done, I have the XM4s and Linus didn't know how to use many of the headphones features (it's totally normal for someone that is testing this headphones for the first time but someone should have warn him or teach him how to use quick atention, double tap, hovering your hand on the right side etc etc...). Sorry if I am being somewhat rude, just wanted Linus to experience all the features properly and know his opinion!

[snichy]

You can tell tech has moved on so much that it took until the last 2 mins of the video to test the actual primary reason for this gadget: the sound quality!

[okaydetar]

I really appreciate how not professional dbrands relationship with ltt is, they may still be a souless corporation deep down, but they are at least an entertaining one.

[dqdr]

For what it's worth I would ditch this video and do it again. It's a really poor - and surprising - effort from the whole team.

It's ridiculously unfair to Sony - with whom I have no dog in the fight - to piss about with controls that you simply haven't taken proper time to read about, thus making them look substandard, then seemingly not having any proper music lined up to use, leaving you with random Disney songs and a meme.

Then Linus compares them with Sennheisers which cost literally double the Sonys. LTT wouldn't be so disparaging about a graphics card with a similar price discrepancy.

And finally I'm not sure what Linus was doing in this video. I know SS's are meant to be more bite-size/early impressions but this smacked of not caring about the video, the product and that he was late for a meeting.

A bit shit, all things considered.

[Aceton_]

Using Sony wh1000xm3 I have to kinda defend Sony the ambience mode needs a physical touch to activate not hovering over it and I have to say it is amazing how it can differentiate between a pillow and a hand works like a dream. The playback pause/play needs a double tap not a single tab and I don't know what settings u used but seeing that u could use the eq I think it was the stable connection mode which sounds way worse than the high sound quality mode.

[damienrobertson]

In regards to the sound going off when you talk, why would you want it to come back to quickly? If someone else is talking or moreso 2 or more people start talking then it would need time to let them say their piece before you speak again. Otherwise, you'd just end up having to take the thing off because it would interrupt so much.

[RedHardware]

I have the XM4s and I can tell you most of the problems that Linus had are not actually problems, let me explain:

Speak to chat can be activated or deactivated by holding 2 fingers on the touch pad. The deactivation time and sensitivity are also adjustable.

For quick attention mode, you need to hold your hand over the touchpad and touch it not just holding it near it.

Play and pause are double tap not single tap.

The custom EQs are there so you can customize the eq presets and have them saved. The manual one is for making your own eq from start, at the end, you have 3 customized EQs that are saved in the app.

For volume, you can touch and hold to go up or just swipe fast. I think it was the iphone that had problems with registering the adjustments since that works fine on my XM4 on Android.

There is also a pop up pair thing like air pods and google assistant on Android as well.

Also fiy: There is a specific noise canceling mode for wind, just move the slider in the app one step to the right. You can also switch the ambient mode to focus on voices

[HamerReviews]

At this point DBrand has just gone past trolling Linus to ‘how can we really screw with him… like REALLY REALLY f**k with him’.

[CynicallySarcasticReserves]

To enable the quick ambient mode, you have to *touch* the earcup. Just FYI Linus. :)

Would have to give them a listen first, but yeah. I think I'll stay with my XM4 if the improvements are so marginal. 1/4 price increase where I live over XM4.. is quite a bit.

[Hal-kjmc]

Iv tried the 4s and 5s together and went for the 4s. I appreciate the 5s are newer with better tech but to me the larger 40mm drivers on the 4s against the 30mm drivers on the 5s just sounded better . For me it's more about the sound.than anc or call quality etc.

[mndlessdrwer]

Yeah, it's challenging to compare IEMs to over-ear headphones at any time, particularly since Sennheiser finally fixed some of the glaring flaws in the tuning of their IExxx line of IEMs. Pair immensely comfortable and compact shells with a competent driver and more conventional tuning and you get a good outcome. Sony is really playing to their normie base with their tuning, because they know their target demographic's preferences. It's a premium variant on a Beats headphone with a lot of good features and enough built-in EQ options to remediate most of the tuning qualms. Obviously they're still not audiophile headphones, and that's fine. There are plenty of other manufacturers that make "audiophile" headphones, even a handful that make bluetooth versions. Audio is a really subjective thing, so try to find a store that has enough of a selection so you can demo the ones you're interested in. Bowers and Wilkins has the PX7, Sennheiser has the Momentum 3 Wireless, etc. Just remember that money rapidly becomes no object in the face of chasing diminishing returns in the audiophile space, so be prepared for some severe sticker-shock if you tread too deeply in the search of audiophile nirvana.

[Neoxon]

A shame that these don’t fold for easier storage like the XM4s do (though at least the case still makes sense, unlike the AirPods Max), but they definitely still look great. That aside, it feels weird that it’s been a good long while since the XM4s came out.

[vinnytucks]

As a user of the software some of the issues can be customized in the software.

The speech detect can be turned off or lowered to 5 seconds

[glowingmarshmellowpo]

I've had XM4s for about 6 months now. They're my daily drivers for everything. School, leisure listening, the gym, and on transit. The touch controls are sick and the noise cancellation is solid. One of the best deals for the price imo.

[cristiansmochina]

It amazes me how no review-er test audio lag in games and how are they when using teams or slack.

[sam]

I've had the XM3 for something like 3 years now and I can say they've been my best tech purchase ever. I've been using them daily and the battery still lasts very long, the noise cancellation is top and the materials haven't worn out (I cleaned them only 1 or 2 times). I'd instantly buy them again. I don't like the look of those XM5 tho, it looks like they are wider and more bulky