After about 9 years, my Sony MDR-ZX770BN broke, of course, not because they were bad, but because I was a moron and pulled them the wrong way. I’m actually sad about this, because they were solid headphones, with great range and still a great battery life, even after all this time, giving me more than 15 hours of playback with ANC on a single charge.

So I had to get some replacements as soon as possible. However, the big issue was that this model is out of production and I’m kinda scared to get some old stock that just slowly rot away in a shady warehouse in Bulgaria, so I had to look for a similarly-priced similarly-featured headset.

I like Sony and their headphones, so I decided to go the same route, so after some comparisons and looked at price/features comparisons, I set up for an older model, the Sony WH-1000XM4.

Of course, I could have gone for the XM6 or the XM5 models, which are newer and have some (irrelevant) extra features, but the price gap was just too big, as the XM6 were roughly 400 Euros, while the XM4s were only half that. It’s actually a no-brainer.

I’m writing this after 3 months of usage to point out some good and bad points of these.

The bad

• I fucking hate the touch controls. If you want to change the volume, slide your finger on the right earphone up and down. Left-right for seek and double tap to play/pause. I really miss the two simple buttons that the ZX770BNs had.\

  

• Sony bullshit SoundConnect ®™ whatever app. I just want some fucking headphones, I don’t need them to connect to the Internet, nor have a bazillion fucking settings. Give me some plain EQ and that’s it. I don’t need 500 AI-enabled functions or whatever the software thinks I want.
  
  

  

  

  

  

  
• The insistence of Sony of using a semi-proprietary cable to connect the headphones via wire to a device (like my Bumblebee iPod). While the connector is a normal 3.5mm jack, they insist on putting a plastic thin recess on the headphones, so only their cables can properly fit in there. You could also buy some slim profile cables from Amazon or Temu, but they are usually badly made and they start having issues only after a few weeks of usage.
  

  

The good

• They sound nice. They sound really really nice. The sound is full and the immersion is great, maybe the bass is a bit more compressed, but it’s also clear. Absolutely nothing to complain from this point of view, they’re headphones you love to keep listening to.
• They’re comfy. Like really really comfy. I use them for hours at a time and they seem light enough to be comfortable and they’re not very tight, making my ears feel fine after a couple of hours of uninterrupted listening. Also don’t be like me, take a break every now and then.
• The Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) is very good, muting the surrounding sounds in normal situations, including while walking on the street and the battery impact is not noticeable. I’ve never had to turn off the ANC just to get extra 10 minutes of juice, but to be fair, I didn’t have to do that on the ZX770BNs.
• Has dual bluetooth support, which means I can keep it connected to both my laptop and my phone at the same time and switch whenever I needed. While not a critical feature, it’s surely a good thing to have. Bluetooth range is also good, if they’re connected to my laptop, they still work while I’m on the toilet, so that’s a win.
• The carrying case is a good extra, and while a bit bulky, it serves well as a carrying case for a small iPhone charger and cable, to have around just in case.

All in all, despite the small cons, the biggest upside of these headphones is the price. Considering that these dropped by almost half to their launch price, at about 180-200 Euros they are a solid purchase. On par with some similarly-priced Bose, JBL, or Sennheiser headphones, the Sony WH-1000XM4 are still a strong contender and definitely a purchase worth making and I’m very happy with the purchase I made. I just hope these will last as well as the previous ones.

PS: I’m not taking Beats into discussion, those are not headphones, they’re just moneygrabs for kids who pay 800 Euros for a pair of Nike shoes just because it says “Travis Scott” on the box.