The Bluetooth ANC headphones were really geared towards the non-audiophile market. Sound was meant to be inoffensive and pretty pleasing to general listeners, while comfort was really emphasized so people would really be able to use them for long plane rides - the Bose was even named quiet ‘comfort’.
I think between the two, people usually give the edge to Bose for comfort out of the box and I tend to agree, but since I swapped the pads out of my Sony’s for dekonis and I’d say comfort is equal now.
Sound wise the Sony’s are definitely the darker pair, but can be easily eq’ed. Generally everything else is pretty similar I’d say, but that’s going off having Sony’s and home and listening to the Bose outside at stores etc (no real ab testing)
I had a pair of the first generation 1000X’s and liked them. ANC was terrific even on the first generation. However, after about two and a half years battery life fell off a cliff and the price to replace the battery was a bit high so I bought a pair of Etymotic ER4 SR IEMs instead. The fit is not for everyone but noise isolation is outstanding and better than ANC for shutting out conversations, crying babies etc. Sound quality is superb too, accurate and neutral and very well done.
If you want ANC check out the Panasonic 605, it flies below most radars but there are some great offers on it and the ANC is almost as good as Sony and Bose. A colleague has it and it is pretty much as good as the QC35 or 1000XM3 but he paid £100 less.
The other option to consider is to go for the lower cost alternatives like Taotronics. If you want noise cancelling headphones for the purposes of flying, commuting etc then the main attraction is the ANC. If you are flying for example the benefits of ANC far outweight the SQ compromises of most ANC headphones. And now some of the cheaper models from brands such as Taotronics have very good ANC and in some cases have better features such as USB-C charging and really long battery life.
I work in a role where I fly a lot and have a lot of colleagues and friends who fly a lot. At one time everyone I knew bought Bose or Sony ANC headphones as they were considered the best. Now I see more and more Taotronics, MPOW(?) as many people seem to find the ANC more than good enough, sound is good enough and the lower cost means its not quite as bad if they get damaged from rough handling, get lost on travels etc (it happens).
Different tips may fit better for your ears than others. That’s why there are so many tips you can try. I would see if you can find a mixed size package from some brand like Dekoni or Comply.
Am i missing something on the Sony’s? I’ve listened to them about 15x at Best Buy and while the noise cancelling is amazing, the sound is horrible. Very dark and muddy no real detail in the music. I’ve played around with the app and can’t get much better out of them. I have a pair of Klipsch Reference over ears that i bought a few years ago and they blow the these Sony’s out of the water and i don’t even think they are all that great.
I tried out my friend’s xm2 a few months back (when I wasn’t into the hobby yet), and personally was pretty disappointed with them considering their price. Im guessing they sound identical to the xm3
If Sony XM3s are like the XM2s (which I suspect they are) then not very good for the price, honestly.
I’ll argue to the death that you’re better off just playing some rain and using closed-ear headphones than paying for the ANC.
With Sony and Bose, here’s what you’re paying for on a $300 purchase:
$20 - headphone quality.
$1 - bluetooth adapter - often you can’t even connect to multiple devices at once. Garbage for a “premium” product on Sony’s end. Maybe Bose has it, but not sure.
$9 - mediocre software for EQ, etc.
$30 - for the good ANC. This stuff is useful for some people. I live in a city with crap infrastructure and a loud shaky train, and I never hear it when using my IEMs and V-Moda headphones. Also, if you have the ANC on and you’re not playing something. I’ve had Bose QC25s and Sony XM2s and this is my conclusion from using them for years. Personally, I have never been able to really block noise without also playing some type of audio on my headphones. I’ve always needed to add music, background rain sound (mynoise.net or the app) in order to really use it. As a reference, I do some Japanese studying (already around a high fluency level) on the train in the mornings, and I’m pretty anal about making sure I’m able to focus during reading or studying things, especially this moonrune language.
If I had to roughly break it down in terms of what matters and contributes to the noise blocking and focus…
Closed-Ear Headphones - 25%
ANC - 20%
Playing Rain/Audio - 55%. It depends on what type of noise you’re using, but I’ll recommend mynoise.net until I die. It’s the only natural sounding randomly generated rain that doesn’t distract me. Japanese Garden is especially lovely on there.
You can get earbuds or headphones that are full-featured and sound much better, just as portable, higher durability for under $100. I have the V-Moda M100s which are decent, much better than the Sony/Bose but not incredible, and they ran me $80 + $20 for the good new earpads from Amazon. My Chi-fi IEMs were $45 and sound better as well.
If you can score some XM2s for like $50-60 or something they’d be worth it for some bluetooth headphones to take on the train if you don’t have convenient to use IEMs or headphones already, but I wouldn’t pay anything more for them. Maybe if Sony and Bose can step their audio quality dramatically, add in some better quality bass and clarity, and then have it do a constant polling of audio at 10,000 times per second (0.0001ms polling) in order to truly cancel out outdoor sounds in real-time, that’d be very cool.
This might be a stupid question but would it work to use a pair of anc headphones for just the anc and have iems underneath? Not a great commuter solution but maybe for a long flight situation
That’s exactly what I do already lol. I have some qc 35’s that I use on planes, but I put iems underneath and just have the bose for noise cancelling. It’s not really needed or anything but it does work well at times lol. If you have a good iem that seals well that does most of the job already
Ok wasn’t sure if that worked. I was also looking at anc headphones like the sony and bose but the more I look I feel like id prefer to invest that money in some higher end iems. Brads suggestion of the cheaper anc models gave me the thought of combining the two for anc with better fidelity
I mean you can, but it’s a clunky solution. Just get some iems that isolate well and you are set tbh. I only do that if it’s really loud, but most of the time the iem alone takes care of the noise issues