ISSUE 88 • ANDROID ADVISOR 87Theearpadsaresoftand comfortable.of appliances.
This is an
underappreciated
aspectofthe
experience,and
it’s where cheaper
headphones
typically falter.
Active noise
cancellation filters
out low and mid-
range frequency
noise to a great
degree, but filtering
low-frequency noise
is whereactive
noise-cancellingheadphonesreally
shine– evenif it canbedisorientingfor
peopleexperiencingit for the first time.
Transient(high-amplitude,short-duration)
soundscanstillpenetratethissystem,
andtheseheadphonesdotheirbestto
clampdownonthesignal,butit canbe
jarringif thetransientis veryloud.
I amatleastaspleasedwiththe
WH-1000XM4’sactivenoisecancellation
asI waswiththepreviousgeneration.
Mydailylifehasbeenverydifferentthan
whatit wasatthebeginningoftheyear.
I workoutofmyhomeinsteadofgoing
to the office, and I travel infrequently,but
I stillappreciatehowtheseheadphones
allowmetofocuswhenI needto
getwork done.
My testing included things like
spinning up the fans on my gaming PC,
hanging outside in a park, and using a
fantastic white noise machine to name a
few. The previous model served me well
during many hours of air travel and on
public transit, and I have no reason to
believe that the new model won’t deliver
the same results.
I appreciate the Ambient Sound
Control feature in Sony’s companion app
that lets you tailor noise cancellation to
your situation. These headphones sense
where you’re wearing them and what
you’re doing, and they tailor their noise
cancellation accordingly. If you’re at
home and relatively stationary, you’ll get
full cancellation so you can concentrate