Nearly two years after the liberation of those who remained best wireless noise canceling headphones on the market, Sony releases its successors, the new WH-1000XM5. Unlike the 1000XM4, they have undergone significant changes both in terms of design, construction, components and performance.
They no longer allow the rod to be folded, which makes them difficult to transport when traveling, but on the other hand, the simplification of the design has reduced the weight, which in turn makes them more comfortable to use for long periods of use. . Soft synthetic leather is used, the rest of the elements are recycled plastic from automotive parts. Even the packaging itself has gone plastic-free, using various types of recycled and sustainable materials.
This design change allowed improvements to the structure, such as the inclusion of a total of eight microphones (four of them beamforming), which are in turn driven by a dual Sony HD QN1 processor to provide not only more effective noise reduction, but also filter your voice from all external noise during a phone call through the new algorithms of Precise Voice Pickup technology.
In order to enhance the high performance of the active noise canceling system, Sony has created a new type of 30mm driver that can more effectively cancel noise at mid and high frequencies. To keep sound reproduction as good as the WH-1000XM4 speakers (which were 40mm), Sony used a carbon fiber dome reinforced on the side with a layer of polyurethane.
With this solution, Sony guarantees the ability to reproduce frequencies from 4 Hz to 40 kHz, a frequency that drops to 20 Hz – 40 kHz when using Bluetooth wireless technology. When used with the supplied cable (1.2m), they provide a sensitivity of 102dB (at 1kHz) with headphones on (with Sony V1 processor) or 100dB (1kHz) with headphones off.
In terms of battery life, Sony has kept 30 hours of battery life with noise canceling active, but when it’s turned off, the maximum battery life rises to 40 hours. By enabling the fast charging system, you can fully charge the battery in 3 hours and 30 minutes, just 3 minutes of charging to guarantee 3 hours of music playback.
Sony Portugal has already provided us with several copies, which we will review for the next issue of PCGuia magazine. These Sony WH-1000XM5s are now available to order for 450 euros and are scheduled to hit the national market on May 24th.
