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00:00Hey what's up, MKBHD here.
00:04OK, so for the past few years, Sony's flagship noise-canceling headphones have been the king
00:09of the hill.
00:10Of course, they've made some minor adjustments and feature additions over the past few.
00:14So by the time they got to the Mark III with their comfort and noise-canceling and USB
00:17Type-C, they were at the top of the market, and then the Mark IV added multi-device support,
00:23but they've essentially looked the same, sounded excellent, and they've been an easy recommendation
00:27as a result.
00:28These new Mark V, on the other hand, are a real departure from that formula.
00:33A lot of the changes I do really like, but there is one big one that I definitely don't.
00:39So the first thing you might be wondering is, is there actually a sound improvement?
00:43But I actually wanted to start with the new design, because you can see that they have
00:46this new shape that is this pretty minimal, sharp, and clean look.
00:51There is still a dark and a light.
00:53This light is a sort of a cream-colored version, and there's a lot of good things about this
00:57design.
00:58The ear cups are slightly bigger and wider.
01:00The new vegan leather material is so much softer.
01:04It is, it's kind of amazing.
01:05It combines that with the super lightweight of the whole headphones to make this entire
01:09pair more comfortable to wear for long periods of time.
01:12Honestly, I'm just going to say this is the most comfortable pair of noise-canceling
01:16headphones I've ever tried.
01:18You still have a touch-sensitive panel on the right side ear cup for skipping, pausing,
01:21etc.
01:22And they actually still have on-off head detection despite not having a plastic cutout in the
01:27ear cup like the last one.
01:29And there's now twice as many slots for microphones around the outside.
01:32It goes from four total to four on each side, eight total microphones.
01:37And I'll get into what that does for noise cancellation and voice quality in a second.
01:41But you can see, they're fairly minimal and hidden well in this new design.
01:45But overall, overall, I actually still feel like this design is a downgrade for one main
01:53reason.
01:54So what do you get noise-canceling headphones for, right?
01:57Travel.
01:58You're getting them to travel.
01:59And so these old versions were the king of the hill because they were obviously super
02:02comfortable, had great noise cancellation and lots of features and good sound quality.
02:06But they also fold it up like this and fit into their little case, just like that.
02:13Toss that in a bag and you're good to go.
02:15This new version with this new design does not fold at all.
02:21So with this new sliding headband design, which is kind of like the Bose 700s and the
02:25AirPods Max and so many others, that's the only way of adjusting the size of the headphones.
02:30So they no longer fold down into a smaller size.
02:33And so as a result, the case you carry them around in is quite a bit bigger.
02:38It's kind of a cool case.
02:39It looks like a modern backpack without the straps.
02:41It's got some angular origami type seams and folds along the sides.
02:46And once you get inside, there's a magnetic door over a compartment that holds your charging
02:50cable and an audio cable if you need one.
02:52It's a great case.
02:53It's basically exactly like the Bose 700s, but yeah, now it's just huge.
02:59With Bose though, we saw them do this new design with the 700s, but they at least kept
03:02around the quiet comfort series.
03:04So the QC45s still fold down like they always did.
03:09And the AirPods Max are notoriously annoying to travel with, even though I still try to
03:13make it work.
03:14So these are WH1000 Mark V, which on paper makes it the sequel to the Mark IV.
03:21So that's a little bit dangerous, but I do know that they're keeping around the Mark
03:26IVs.
03:27These new Mark Vs are going to retail for $400, and they're going to keep around the
03:32Mark IVs for $350, although you can already find them for like $329 or $300.
03:39So these are starting to look kind of like a deal.
03:41But let's just get past that design flaw.
03:43They're still premium, lightweight, comfortable noise canceling headphones.
03:48And they have yet again, bumped up the noise cancellation capabilities pretty significantly.
03:53So I've been saying for years, they're the king of the hill for travel, because as far
03:57as white noise is concerned, like airplane engines, road noise, all that sort of stuff,
04:02they do an A plus job at canceling that.
04:05Right when I put these on, I immediately noticed it's even stronger.
04:09It still crushes that droning low end, but now some of the more higher frequencies are
04:14better canceled out too, appliances, whinier stuff, human voices too.
04:19So yeah, the last Sonys did have world-class noise cancellation, but these get even better,
04:24and we can thank the extra microphones and processor for that.
04:26Now with any noise canceling headphones and all those mics, you also have a transparency
04:30mode.
04:31These have it again.
04:32And they have 20 levels of adjustment in the app of how much transparency gets through.
04:38They're really good.
04:39They are definitely better than the Bose, but the AirPods Max are still on a completely
04:45different level as far as transparency mode.
04:48Those are the best I've ever heard in any headphones.
04:50It sounds like you're not wearing headphones.
04:51You just hear everyone's voices and everything perfectly clearly.
04:55And these just don't get that good.
04:56Like these just sound like a somewhat muffled version of reality, especially with voices
05:02and the higher frequency stuff.
05:04Even though there is actually a specific enhanced voices toggle, it just doesn't quite reach
05:08the AirPods level as far as hearing your own voice.
05:11But then for actual musical sound quality, they are very similar to last year, which
05:16is to say excellent.
05:18And they do have a new 30 millimeter carbon fiber driver, and there is still LDAC support
05:23if you have the right combination of smartphone and music source.
05:26But I think I can safely say if I have an Android phone, these to me are among the absolute
05:31best sounding noise canceling wireless headphones available.
05:35Again, they don't sound as good.
05:38They're not as full and crisp and balanced as AirPods Max paired with an iPhone.
05:44But obviously that's just for iPhone users that have $550 to burn.
05:48But yeah, there's just something about really good noise canceling headphones that feels
05:52like magic.
05:53Like I can be in a crowded area where my eyes tell me this is a loud area, but to hear absolute
05:59silence behind a perfectly isolated baseline and hear every detail of a vocal of some song
06:06like I'm in a live recording session is so sick.
06:09That's what makes these headphones so good.
06:10There were some rumors about the battery life getting bumped from 30 to 40 hours, which
06:15would have been crazy, but that's not what happened.
06:18They are rated for the same 30 hours of battery life as the Mark 4s.
06:22And from my experience so far, they've right about matched it.
06:26So 40 like would have been nice and amazing, but I still think 30 and the use I've gotten
06:32out of these is still very good.
06:33The one improvement though is the charging, faster charging.
06:37So you can plug these in for three minutes and get three hours of listening out of it.
06:42So if you just need to plug in real quick before you go head off to some trip somewhere,
06:45that's very convenient.
06:46Again, it's a travel feature, but that's what I want to break this all back down to.
06:50At the end of the day, these are travel headphones and they no longer fold, which means everything
06:57about them is bigger and more difficult to travel with than the last ones.
07:01Oh, and also this, this might be minor, but I do have to mention it.
07:04So if you're wearing the Mark 4s like this and you didn't want to like do the hold to
07:07speak or listen to people and you just want to take them off real quick, you can do that
07:11and then fold them down.
07:12So they're just facing down and you can do other stuff and they'll just sit here.
07:16The Mark 5s, if you wear them correctly, which is right side, left side, they don't fold
07:22down flat.
07:23They actually only fold up and that's, I'm definitely nitpicking.
07:29Like that's a small thing, but for $400, that's another thing that's not in the new
07:35headphones that was nicer about the old ones.
07:37So if you're actually thinking about getting these headphones, this is here, this is a
07:40pretty nuanced recommendation.
07:41But if you are using an Android phone and your bag is big enough and you plan on using
07:47these for travel, listening to music, phone calls, if you're working with these, all that
07:51sort of thing, these are going to be amazing.
07:54You get the Sony app, you've got all the customization in the world, you want to do LDAC listening
07:58even.
07:59They sound like very good headphones and they work really well.
08:02So comfortable.
08:03Love these headphones.
08:04But if you're really anyone else, I'm going to bring back the Mark 4s again for this.
08:09I really think you should consider the Mark 4s, of course, right?
08:13Because number one, they're going to cost much less.
08:15They number two, actually fold down.
08:17So if you want them to take up less space in your bag, but they're also like 90% of
08:21these headphones.
08:22They sound just about as good.
08:24They might not be as trendy or premium looking as the new design, but you're going to get
08:29the same comfort, the same battery life.
08:32Really the only thing you're missing out on is the slightly faster charging and what
08:37those extra mics and processor get you for noise cancellation.
08:41Oh wait, there's extra mics.
08:44So maybe voice quality too?
08:46All right.
08:47So this is an audio test of the Sony WH-1000XM4s, still a bad name, Sony.
08:55Water bottles available at MKBHD.com, just so you know.
08:58Also there's some voices in the background, there's some various noises, but this is it.
09:02It's okay.
09:03It's okay for a mic.
09:04And so now this is the audio quality for the WH-1000XM5s.
09:10I think it sounds better.
09:11It definitely isolates the voice a little bit better against the same level of background
09:15noise.
09:16But again, the bar was pretty low for wireless headphones.
09:19This is just generally good for calls, for work, for stuff where you need a mic built
09:25into the headphones.
09:26All right.
09:27So my theory is Sony saw what Bose did with the 700 headphones with this new sliding design,
09:33the magnet in the case, and they said, all right, we can do that too and we'll do our
09:37own version of it.
09:38And so they did an even bigger version of the same thing, sliding design, magnet in
09:43the case and everything.
09:45I'm slightly annoyed by the much bigger footprint here, but I mean, let's be real.
09:49These are really good, really comfortable, premium noise cancelling headphones for 400
09:55bucks with a terrible name, as we'd expect from Sony.
09:59But that's about what we'd expect.
10:01It's good.
10:02All right.
10:03That's been it.
10:04Thanks for watching.
10:05Catch you guys in the next one.
10:07Peace.