Sony’s new WF-1000XM4 earbuds takes in-ear noise-cancelling to the next level

Sony has officially unveiled their latest noise-cancelling earbuds with the new WF-1000XM4.

“Sony’s 1000X series features the best noise canceling in the industry, and these headphones have raised that bar even higher,” said Daisuke Kawaguchi, Vice President of Home Entertainment & Sound, Sony Electronics Inc. “Sony has been revolutionizing the personal listening experience since pioneering the iconic Walkman® in 1979 and introducing the world’s first in-ear model back in 1982. Our talented team has studied and perfected sound, noise canceling performance and call quality over the last several decades, and the WF-1000XM4 headphones are a direct result of those extensive efforts.”

The new WF-1000XM4 earbuds takes inspiration from their XM4 over-ear headphones counterpart from last year with a black exterior and bronze accents.

The earbuds themselves are 10% smaller and the charging case is 40% smaller. In terms of battery life, you can expect 8 hours from the earbuds and 16 hours from the case.

The charging case has quick charge support to get you an hour of listening time in 5 mins. There’s also wireless charging in the case and the earbuds have a IPX4 water resistance.

The earbuds use a redesigned 6mm driver, which in turn produces 20% more magnet volume. It also comes with a high compliance diaphragm fro better performance in low frenqcies.

There’s also support for High Resolution Audio Wireless, thanks to the LDAC codec and DSEE (Digital Sound Enhancement Engine) Extreme.

The WF-1000XM4 are powered by the Integrated Processor V1, which takes the noise-cancelling performance of the WF-1000XM3‘s QN1e chip and elevates it. The earbuds feature two noise sensing microphones that can detect ambient noise for highly accurate noise cancellation.

Phone calls using the WF-1000XM4 should be better thanks to Precivse Voice Pickup, which uses the mics and a bone-conduction sensor.

Just like the over-ear XM4s, the earbuds support Speak-to-Chat, Adaptive Sound Control and Instant Pause & Play.

Speak-To-Chat pauses your music when the mics detect you talking. Adaptive Sound Control senses where a user is, like walking around or in a coffee shop and adjusts the sound accordingly.

The earbuds support voice control via Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa. There’s also quicker pairing with Google’s Fast Pair on Android and Microsoft Swift Pair on Windows 10.

The Sony WF-1000XM4 earbuds are available today for $399 CAD ($279 USD), Canadian pricing to be confirmed. They come in black and silver colour options.

Source: Sony