Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones review – fresh new look and brilliant sound

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• VERDICT

The Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones are still at the top of the line when it comes to premium noise cancelling headphones – they deliver stunning audio quality and excellent noise cancellation to make them one of the best headphones you can buy.

Sony has continued the tradition with its iconic noise cancelling headphones – the latest model – the WH-1000XM5 has not only improved its audio quality but has a fresh new look as well.

For years the Sony headphones have always sounded great – but they looked the same.

This time the WH-1000XM5 has a fresh new design with more curved and soft touch surfaces.

It appears to be all plastic – no metal to be seen – another move towards a softer look and feel.

And it’s not actually plastic – its ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) that’s made from recycled materials.

You can still feel the quality of the headphones despite the lack of premium materials.

There is luxuriously soft memory foam on the earcups and on the headband so you can comfortably wear them for hours on end.

The Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones still fold flat and come in a wedge-shaped case that’s easy to slide into a backpack or bag.

Customers will buy these headphones because they sound good.

And the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones sound even better.

They have reached another level of clarity and sound a little more expansive.

Whether you’re listening to hip hop or classical music, the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones can handle the mids and highs with ease and relay everything with buttery smoothness.

Bass is also brilliantly handled without being too over the top.

The DSEE Extreme engine can upscale music to higher almost hi-res quality.

On the noise cancellation front, the Sony WH-1000XM5 also come into their own and are among the best you’ll find in a pair of headphones at this price.

The Processor V1 does all the heavy lifting with the help of some additional microphones – there are now eight – which do a better job detecting the ambient sound and blocking it out.

We wore the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones on our recent flight to and from the US which is the ideal way to test the ANC which easily erased the drome of the engines so we could focus on the content we were watching on our tablet and the music on our phone.

But there is also an Ambient mode so you can shut off ANC with a press of a button to let the outside world in.

Speak to Chat will also pause everything and switch to Ambient mode when it hears you talking so you can talk to a colleague or go and order a coffee.

Another handy feature is Wear Detection so the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones detect when you take off the headphones – even when you take off one ear cup – and pause your music or movie.

When a flight attendant wanted to know what we wanted to drink, we removed one ear cup and our movie was paused automatically.

And when we placed the headphones back on again, the movie resumed without us having to lift a finger.

The Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones also allow users to connect to two devices via Bluetooth at the same time so you can be watching a movie on your tablet and still answer a call on your phone.

Call quality is also impressive and that’s due to Sony’s Voice Pickup Technology that has beamforming mics and AI-controlled noise suppression.

On the battery side, the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones offer up 30 hours of playback with noise cancelling turned on and 40 hours without it.

That means we could have travelled to US and back and had noise cancellation activated without the need to charge the headphones.

The Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones are available black and silver (silver actually looks beige) and are priced at $549.

VERDICT

The Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones are still at the top of the line when it comes to premium noise cancelling headphones – they deliver stunning audio quality and excellent noise cancellation to make them one of the best headphones you can buy.