ISSUE 88 • ANDROID ADVISOR 89WithoutDSEE Extremeprocessing,I found the WH-1000XM4exhibited
a moreaccuratesignalcomparedtotheWH-1000XM3.
Thedeviceyouuseforplaybackwill
alsoneedtosupportyourcodecof
choice,ofcourse,soI reliedmostlyona
OnePlus8 Prosmartphoneforthetask,
asit’soneoffewthatdo.LDACsupport
is morecommonlyfoundonhigh-res
digitalaudioplayers.
I streamedtracksmostlyfrom
YouTubeMusic,conductingmultiple
criticallisteningsessionsin a variety
ofplaybacksituationswitha longlist
ofsongsthatI’mveryfamiliarwith
tocomparetheWH-1000XM4tothe
WH-1000XM3 I reviewed in late 2018.
Both sets of noise cancelling
headphones
sound great
for the price. If
you’re looking
for studio-grade
equipment with
minimal signal
colouration, you
shouldn’t be
looking at ANC
headphones
anyway. But that
doesn’t mean
listening to
music with ANC
is a diminished
experience.
From a sonic
standpoint, I
discovered very few differences between
the two new and older cans; in other
words, there’s not much of a reason to
upgrade if you already own the XM3.
That said, I do enjoy really pushing my
listening abilities, so here are some
examples of differences I found.
I’ve already mentioned Sony’s DSEE
Extreme audio technology, which is
anupgradeovertheDSEEHXtech
presentin theolderWH-1000XM3. Sony
hypes this hard, so I was surprised to
discover that for me, enabling it had
the opposite of the promised effect:
subtle details in the music – particularly