[Music]
hey what's up i'm kbhd here okay so for
the past few years sony's flagship noise
canceling headphones have been the king
of the hill of course they've made some
minor adjustments and feature additions
over the past few so by the time they
got to the mark iii with their comfort
and noise cancelling and usb type c they
were the top of the market and then the
mark iv added multi-device support but
they've essentially looked the same
sounded excellent and they've been an
easy recommendation as a result but
these new mark 5 on the other hand are a
real departure from that formula a lot
of the changes i do really like but
there is one big one that i definitely
don't so the first thing you might be
wondering is is there actually a sound
improvement but i actually wanted to
start with the new design because you
can see that they have this new shape
that is this pretty minimal
sharp and clean look there is still a
dark and a light this light is a sort of
a cream colored version and there's a
lot of good things about this design the
ear cups are slightly bigger and wider
the new vegan leather material is so
much softer it is it's kind of amazing
it combines that with the super light
weight of the whole headphones to make
this entire pair
more comfortable to wear for long
periods of time honestly i'm just going
to say this is the most comfortable pair
of noise cancelling headphones i've ever
tried you still have a touch sensitive
panel on the right side ear cup for
skipping pausing etc they actually still
have on off head detection despite not
having a plastic cutout in the ear cup
like the last one and there's now twice
as many slots for microphones around the
outside it goes from four total to four
on each side eight total microphones and
i'll get into what that does for noise
cancellation and voice quality in a
second but you can see they're fairly
minimal and hidden well in this new
design but overall overall
i actually still feel like this
design
is a downgrade for one main reason so
what do you get noise canceling
headphones for right
travel you're getting them to travel and
so these old versions were the king of
the hill because they were obviously
super comfortable had great noise
cancellation and lots of features and
good sound quality but they also fold it
up like this and fit into uh their
little case
just like that toss that in a bag and
you're good to go
this new version with this new design
does not fold at all so with this new
sliding headband design which is kind of
like the bose 700s and the airpods max
and so many others that's the only way
of adjusting the size of the headphones
so they no longer fold down into a
smaller size and so as a result the case
you carry them around in is quite a bit
bigger it's kind of a cool case it looks
like a modern backpack without the
straps it's got some angular origami
type seams and folds along the sides and
once you get inside there's a magnetic
door over a compartment that holds your
charging cable and an audio cable if you
need one is a great case it's basically
exactly like the bose 700s but yeah now
it's just huge with bose though we saw
them do this new design with the 700s
but they at least kept around the quiet
comfort series so the qc45s still fold
down like they always did
and the airpods max are notoriously
annoying to travel with even though i
still try to make it work but these are
wh-1000 mark 5 which on paper makes it
the sequel to the mark iv so that's a
little bit dangerous but i do know that
they're keeping around the mark fours
these new mark fives are going to retail
for 400
and they're going to keep around the
mark fours for 350 although you can
already find them for like 329 or 300
so
these are starting to look kind of like
a deal but let's just get past that
design flaw they're still premium
lightweight comfortable noise-canceling
headphones and they have yet again
bumped up the noise cancellation
capabilities pretty significantly so
i've been saying for years they're the
king of the hill for travel because as
far as white noise is concerned like
airplane engines road noise all that
sort of stuff they do an a plus job at
canceling that right when i put these on
i immediately noticed it's even stronger
it still crushes that droning low end
but now some of the more higher
frequencies are better canceled out too
appliances whinier stuff human voices
too so yeah the last sony's did have
world-class noise cancellation but these
get even better and we can thank the
extra microphones and processor for that
now with any noise cancelling headphones
and all those mics you also have a
transparency mode these have it again
and they have 20 levels of adjustment in
the app of how much transparency gets
through
they're really good they are definitely
better than the bose but the airpods max
are still on a completely different
level
as far as transparency mode those are
the best i've ever heard in any
headphones it sounds like you're not
wearing headphones you just hear
everyone's voices and everything
perfectly clearly
and these just don't get that good like
these just sound like a somewhat
muffled version of reality uh especially
with voices and the higher frequency
stuff even though there is actually a
specific enhanced voices toggle it just
doesn't quite reach the airpods level as
far as hearing your own voice but then
for actual musical sound quality they
are very similar to last year which is
to say excellent and they do have a new
30 millimeter carbon fiber driver and
there is still l back support if you
have the right combination of smartphone
and music source but i think i can
safely say if i have an android phone
these to me are among the absolute best
sounding noise cancelling wireless
headphones available again they don't
sound as good they're not as full and
crisp and balanced as airpods max paired
with an iphone
but obviously that's just for iphone
users that have 550 dollars to burn but
yeah there's just something about really
good noise-canceling headphones that
feels like magic like i can be in a
crowded area where my eyes tell me this
is a loud area but to hear absolute
silence behind a perfectly isolated bass
line and hear every detail of a vocal of
some song like i'm in a live recording
session is so sick that's what makes
these headphones so good there were some
rumors about the battery life getting
bumped from 30 to 40 hours which would
have been crazy but that's not what
happened they are rated for the same 30
hours of battery life as the mark fours
and
from my experience so far they've right
about matched it uh so 40 like would
have been nice and
amazing but i still think 30 and the use
i've gotten out of these is still very
good the one improvement though uh is
the charging faster charging so you can
plug these in for three minutes and get
three hours of listening out of it so if
you just need to plug in real quick
before you go head off to some trip
somewhere that's very convenient again
it's a travel feature but that's what
that's what i want to break this all
back down to at the end of the day these
are travel headphones
and they no longer fold which means they
are everything about them is bigger and
and more difficult to travel with than
the last ones oh and also this this
might be minor but i do have to mention
it so if you're wearing a mark fours
like this and you didn't want to like do
the hold to speak or listen to people
and you just want to take them off real
quick you can do that and then fold them
down so they're just facing down and you
can do other stuff and they'll just sit
here the mark fives
if you wear them correctly which is
right side left side
they don't
fold down flat they actually only fold
up
and that's i'm definitely nitpicking
like that's a small thing but for 400
that's another thing that's not in the
new headphones that was nicer about the
old ones so if you're actually thinking
about getting these headphones this is
here this is a pretty nuanced
recommendation but if you are using an
android phone
and your bag is big enough and you plan
on using these for travel listening to
music phone calls if you're working with
these all that sort of thing these are
going to be amazing you get the sony app
you've got all the customization in the
world you want to do ldac listening even
they sound like very good headphones and
they work really well so comfortable
love these headphones but if you're
really anyone else
i'm gonna bring back the mark fours
again for this i really think you should
consider
the mark fours of course right because
number one they're gonna cost much less
they number two actually fold down so if
you want them to take up less space in
your bag but they're also like 90 of
these headphones they sound just about
as good um they might not be as trendy
or
premium looking as the new design but
like you're gonna get the same comfort
the same battery life really the only
thing you're missing out on is
the slightly faster charging
and what those extra mics and processor
get you for noise cancellation
oh wait
there's extra mics so maybe
voice quality too
all right so this is an audio test of
the sony wh-1000xm4s
still a bad name uh sony uh water
bottles available at mkbhd.com just so
you know also there's some voices in the
background there's some various noises
but this is it it's okay
it's okay for a mic so now this is the
audio quality for the wh 1000 x m5
i think it sounds better it definitely
isolates the voice a little bit better
against the same level of background
noise
but again the bar was pretty low for
wireless headphones this is just
generally good for calls for work for
stuff where you need a mic built into
the headphones
alright so my theory is sony saw what
bose did with the 700 headphones with
this new sliding design the magnet in
the case and they said all right we can
do that too and we'll do our own version
of it and so they did an even bigger
version of the same thing sliding design
magnet in the case and everything
and i'm slightly annoyed by the much
bigger footprint here but i mean let's
be real these are really good really
comfortable premium noise canceling
headphones for 400 bucks with a terrible
name
as we'd expect from sony but
that's about what we'd expect it's good
all right that's been it thanks for
watching catch you guys the next one
peace