Sony WH-1000XM5 review: Forget the odd redesign, these are the best-sounding headphones around

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Sony could sit on its hands with its untouchable WH-1000XM4 noise-cancelling headphones for a few more years and they would still be the headphones that every manufacturer is trying to beat. But this is Sony, it’s release cycle season and the company doesn’t want to hand over its crown.

Since launching in 2020, the WH-1000XM4s have consistently topped our list of the best wireless headphones for three years on the trot, so it’s not an exaggeration to say that the new Sony WH-1000XM5s have some big boots to fill. But by Kenichiro Yoshida, has Sony done it.

Having been the industry leader in consumer audio for years, batting off the likes of Bose and Sennheiser as if they were a couple of annoying flies, Sony has promised to take the listening experience up a notch with the WH-1000XM5s. It’s added a host of new drivers, processors and more microphones for better active noise cancellation (ANC), and there is a leaner, trimmed-down redesign that might have a touch of marmite to it.

And so here we are, ready to put Sony’s latest flagship headphones to the test.

Will Sony remain the king of consumer audio with the WH-1000XM5? Will they live up to the two-year hype? Are these our new favourite headphones?

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The first thing we looked at was the design and how it felt to wear them. We wanted to know what scenarios these headphones would be suitable for – work, on the train or at the gym? And how sturdy were they? Did they feel comfortable to wear?

We also had a good play with the headphones’ controls and features, diving through the app to tinker with the settings, 360 reality audio, the location-based features and more. On top of that, we tested the improved ANC capabilities and call quality outdoors and in. Obviously, the sound was another big factor. These had to sound good, and we wanted to be blown away, just like we were with the Sony WH-1000XM4.

Of all the things different between the new Sony WH-1000XM5 and the 2020 XM4 headphones is the complete ground-up redesign that some people might love, and others hate. Sony has ditched the hinges, niggles, folds and grooves in favour of a more streamlined set of cans. It’s a bit curvier, a bit sleeker, and the headband looks like it’s all part of one uniform unit.

There’s a trade-off there. Because it has that no-hinging design, it no longer collapses or folds up into a neat little ball, instead each ear cup pulls out of the headband independent of each other and swivels flat to fit inside the case, much like Bose’s 700NC headphones or Apple’s AirPods max.

This new design should help combat any interference from the wind, even if it might make them more cumbersome to carry around. If you’ve ever walked between two tall buildings where the wind gets trapped, you’ll know how the strong forces of mother nature can wreak havoc on ANC. The WH-1000XM5s stood their ground on a particularly windy day, but more on the actual performance of the ANC below.

They weigh slightly less than the XM4’s 254g, and they are just as comfortable as the previous model, feeling pretty light on the ears with their plush synthetic leather memory foam ear cups and section of padded headband, with no hard clamping force. Our ears did get a little sweaty and warm after a couple of hours of use, however, so we didn’t find them to be great at regulating body heat. The headphones seemed to soak it all in.

The XM5s chassis is mostly made from a recyclable polymer called acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), which Sony has been going heavy on in recent months. The material is made from chopped-up and melted car parts from Japan and the US, so expect more of Sony’s headphones to be made from similarly recyclable ABS going forward. It’s smooth, a little rubbery and quite nice to touch. The packaging these headphones come in is also plastic-free, and it’s pretty evident that the company is trying to cut down on its plastic use.

Like the XM4, there’s no water-resistance rating, so we’d keep these out of the gym and off your head during sweaty workouts, which they wouldn’t be good for in either case, but are marvellous to use while working in the office, travelling or on a commute.

There are only two colours: black and silver, just like the XM4s at launch. The headphones aren’t too fancy or premium-looking either. You won’t be able to identify them as more than a black pair of headphones at just a glance, and we preferred the overall look of their predecessors.

All Sony’s WH-1000 series headphones have always been super smart and feature-rich, and the same goes for the new XMs. You’ve got that fabulous quick attention feature, which lowers the volume and turns on transparency mode when you cup the right ear, speak to chat, which turns on transparency mode when you start talking, and support for Alexa voice commands.

We’re still not massive fans of the speak-to-chat feature. It activates when you’re singing along to your favourite tunes, and the notification sound can get annoying. You can turn off the notification sound, but this will also turn off every other alert/verbal feedback, which we didn’t want. As with the XM4s, we just ended up turning off speak to chat altogether, but for some, it might be useful.

Inside the headphones, you’ll find the proximity sensor, used to detect when the wearer has taken the headphones off. This automatically pauses your music and turns them off after a period of time has passed. This sensor is now hidden behind the actual mesh of the ear cup – it used to be visible on the XM4s. We adore this feature, and it’s not one you generally see on over-ear wireless headphones.

There are the same neat gesture controls on the capacitive touch pad as the WH-1000XM4s and just two buttons on the headphones – one for toggling between ANC and ambient modes and a button for powering on, pairing and finding out how much battery you’ve got left. It’s pretty simple to use.

Some of the neater features can only be accessed by downloading the Sony Connect app. There’s the quick access feature, which lets you access a certain service by double or triple-clicking the ANC button – for now, this only works with Spotify Tap. You’ve also got 360 reality audio, which works with Deezer and Tidal, and requires you to take a picture of your ears for analysis (yes, a little creepy), a Bluetooth toggle, letting you prioritise either sound quality or connection stability, and of course the equaliser.

You’ve also got the optional DSEE Extreme feature, which uses AI to reproduce the lossless version of a track. This one is turned off by default but works pretty well. There’s also that nice multipoint connectivity feature, allowing us to connect two devices and switch between them seamlessly.

Sony had perfected ANC when it came to the low frequencies on the XM4 headphones, but mid- and high-frequency sounds would often sneak through. The brand has clearly worked hard to improve ANC for high frequencies, and it’s noticeable with the XM5s. The noise cancellation is pretty phenomenal and leaps and bounds better than the XM4s (which already had excellent ANC).

With ANC turned on, we couldn’t hear the sound of our own doorbell ringing, but it seemed to struggle with sharp, quick noises, like passing freight trains when testing outdoors. It appears that because the ANC adapts to your environment, it decides how much sound to block out, rather than leaving the decision up to you – you can’t boost the ANC if you want to use it at its maximum.

That said, the ANC is super smart because you can have it activate when you’re walking or performing an action or in a particular location. All of this can be set up in the app, though it needs access to your location services. Both of these work wonderfully. Whenever we got up from our chair and started walking, ambient mode turned on straight away. When we got to our local tube station, noise cancellation turned on. It’s a real joy to use.

The ANC is excellent on the whole, and we could hear barely anything when using them in a solitary position in the park with consistent background noise around us, particularly with those high-frequency sounds.

In terms of battery life, you get 30 hours with ANC turned on and about 40 hours with ANC turned off. That’s pretty standard for a pair of wireless headphones today and the same as the WH-1000XM4. Charging them for 10 minutes will give you an extra five hours of use, but if you’ve got a USB-PD compatible AC adapter, you’ll be able to fast charge to three hours in just three minutes. Charging from empty to full will take about 3.5 hours, however.

Here’s where the Sony WH-1000XM5 really shine. We’ve been able to nitpick on the way these headphones look and handle adaptive noise cancellation, but we’re super impressed with the sound quality on these cans, even more than we were with the WH-1000XM4s.

The WH-1000XM5s feature a new 30mm driver unit and a carbon fibre dome, said to improve the high-frequency sensitivity and provide the listener with a “more natural sound quality”. And from the bat, that’s exactly how our tracks sounded. Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring sounds incredible on these headphones, rich and melodious, full of warmth and colour, delicately switching between strings and woodwind instruments as if it were born to pump this song out of its ear cups.

They don’t miss a beat when it comes to more high-tempo tracks like Tame Impala’s Be Above It, with the track maintaining its sense of musicality. The drums on LCD Soundsystem’s How Do You Sleep had a significant, heart-pumping punch, punctured by the electronic bass line and James Murphy’s vocals. You won’t hear a better-sounding pair of headphones than these, and they blow the XM4s out of the water.

Call quality is outstanding, and that’s likely thanks to four beam-forming microphones and Sony’s AI noise reduction structure, which isolates voices above background noise. We sounded crisp and clear when we spoke to our family on the phone and just as clear when recording voice notes on WhatsApp. It’s just a brilliant experience, and we don’t see that very often when it comes to headphones, which usually make us sound awful when taking calls.

These are a superlative pair of headphones. The mind-blowing sound quality that handles every song with ease, the heightened level of active noise cancellation you get in the higher frequencies, and the smart features are all next-generation upgrades for a modern-day pair of headphones.

The design might be a little controversial and could be somewhat impractical now that they can’t fold, and we still would like to be able to control our own level of ANC, but they’re little niggles we can live with. The big one might be that they still sit pretty warm on our ears.

They do cost slightly more than the XM4s did at launch (£349 vs £379 for the XM5s), plus the older model can be picked up for a fairly reasonable price right now (£276.95, Amazon.co.uk) – a steal considering they remain some of the best headphones around. Should you get the newer model? If you value sound quality and smart features, absolutely.