Review: Sony WF-1000XM5

“It is not best that we should all think alike,” according to Mark Twain—and far be it from me to contradict him. But while he obviously had his mind on higher things when he said it, there’s something to be said for unanimity of opinion when it comes to, for instance, true wireless in-ear headphones.

Take Sony’s WF-1000XM4 from 2021. Critical opinion was unanimous: They were high on the list of the best true wireless earbuds you could buy, period. And when critical opinion aligns like that, it takes an awful lot of sweat out of the decisionmaking process for consumers.

It’s that unanimity of opinion that makes the launch of Sony’s WF-1000XM5 so much more interesting than that of any other true wireless in-ear headphones. A new pair of true wireless earbuds is launched every day (or, at least, it very much seems like it), but the chance to find out whether the replacement for the GOAT continues the dynasty doesn’t come around that often. About once every two years, in fact.

Initial impressions are very good indeed. There’s not much in life that people are prepared to pay more for in order to get less of, but the WF-1000XM5 are much smaller and lighter than the earbuds they replace. The WF-1000XM4, for all their many virtues, were on the chunky side. But the WF-1000XM5 tip the scales at just 5.5 grams per earbud and 37 grams or so for their charging case. So already we’re ahead, at least where discretion and comfort are concerned—and the fact that Sony has been good enough to include four sizes of eartip in the packaging (which is, incidentally, made from a combination of bamboo, sugarcane fibers, and post-consumer recycled paper that Sony calls “original blended material”) only increases your chances of finding the WF-1000XM5 comfortable in situ.

Photograph: Sony

The eco-credentials of the WF-1000XM5 extend beyond their packaging. The charging case and earbuds themselves are mostly made from a material composed almost entirely of recycled plastic. For the charging case it’s very slightly textured, while for the earbuds it’s so smooth it makes getting them out of the case trickier than it should be.

Despite a form factor that’s around 25 percent smaller and 20 percent lighter than the model they replace, the WF-1000XM5 manage to hold almost exactly the same amount of battery power. With active noise cancellation on, the earbuds are good for around eight hours; turn ANC off and that figure rises to around 12 hours. There are two additional full charges in the case, too, so anywhere between 24 and 36 hours of listening is available before you’ll need to visit the mains. Adequate, then, is the word best applied to battery life.

Despite the reduction in physical size, though, Sony has found space to squeeze in some of its newest technologies. The bulk of the business is taken care of by the new “integrated processor v2.” Along with amplification and 24-bit audio processing, it also works in conjunction with the “HD noise canceling processor QN2e” to deliver what Sony is boldly claiming to be “the best noise-canceling performance on the market.”

Wireless connectivity is via Bluetooth 5.3, with SBC, AAC, and high-resolution LDAC codec compatibility and multi-point connectivity. Lower-resolution content can be breathed on by Sony’s DSEE Extreme algorithm, which claims to be able to upscale lossy audio files in real time.

The WF-1000XM5 are compatible with Sony’s Dolby Atmos—bothering “360 reality audio,” and features head-tracking technology that adjusts the sound-field to follow your head movement. Augmented reality games can benefit from this same technology, too.

Three mics per earbud, including a pair of feed-forward mics, take care of telephony, voice-assistant interaction, and noise cancellation. Call quality is augmented by bone-conduction sensors, a specific wind-noise reduction structure, and some neural-network-based AI algorithms also trying to keep wind-noise suppressed.

No matter if you’re listening to music or podcasts, playing games, or making or receiving calls, though, sound is delivered by a pair of newly designed drive units. At 8.4 mm each, these new drivers are a fair bit bigger than the 6-mm items the WF-1000XM4 had to make do with—and the name Dynamic Driver X also makes them seem pretty mysterious.

As far as getting all that hardware to do what you want, Sony has—as is the company’s standard operating practice—gone to town. The WF-1000XM5 have more features, more opportunity for customization, and more functionality than any of us have the patience to discuss in full. So by way of a taster, here are some of the highlights:

Control is available via a large, responsive capacitive touch-surface on each earbud. All the most common operations can be performed this way, and the exemplary Sony Headphones control app allows a degree of customization of their functions, too. (And though the app itself was in beta during the course of this test, it was an absolute paradigm of stability and functionality.)

It allows finessing of the “ambient sound” side of active noise cancellation, including the ability to concentrate fully on voices using the “voice passthrough” setting. There’s also “speak to chat,” which pauses playback when your voice is detected by the earbuds. It allows you to prioritize either Bluetooth wireless connection stability or sound quality.

It features a five-band EQ with nine presets and the ability to save a couple of your own. It has an on/off setting for the aforementioned DSEE Extreme (frankly, the difference between the two settings is nothing as pronounced as Sony would have you believe), and it is keen to receive a photograph of each of your ears in order to optimize its 360 Reality Audio function.

It allows you to answer calls with a nod of your head (or, even more importantly, reject them with a shake). And there’s activation for Spotify Tap and for Endel (the latter plays a series of sounds intended to help you relax or drift off to sleep). It lets you switch low latency on or off—having it on is very handy when watching videos or gaming.

There’s more, and will be more still when the app is finalized, but the broad point is already made: The Sony WF-1000XM5 have functionality the like of which no nominal rival can compete with. Oh, and there’s utterly reliable compatibility with your source player’s native voice assistant, too.

Photograph: Sony

And where the most important aspect of performance—the reproduction of music—is concerned, the WF-1000XM5 need no apologies made for them. They may not have the sort of sound that will satisfy the most committed bass-heads, but listeners who value momentum, accuracy, and straightforward fidelity will find very little to take issue with here.

Play a big, high-resolution file of “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish from the Barbie soundtrack, and the Sony almost immediately reveal themselves as a balanced, insightful listen with outstanding soundstaging ability and excellent frequency integration. Tonal consistency is unquestionable, and timing is deeply impressive, too.

Treble sounds on the open, organized soundstage stay the right side of “edgy,” with plenty of substance to balance their brightness. In the midrange, sky-high detail levels mean Eilish’s vocal is absolutely loaded with character as well as information regarding her tone, timbre, and technique.

The WF-1000XM5 do great work with low-level dynamics, making the tonal and harmonic variations (especially apparent in a voice or an instrument when a recording is as spare and quiet as this one) completely obvious—and giving them proper context at the same time.

Switch to the more forthright charms of De La Soul’s “Eye Know” and the bottom of the frequency range does its thing with admirable pace and momentum. Rhythm expression is very good, low-end extension is considerable, and the same sort of harmonic variation apparent higher up the frequency range is evident, too.

There’s not a huge amount of punch or substance to bass sounds, but their rapidity and sky-high detail levels make up for that somewhat. The EQ settings in the control app allow you to ramp up the bass, of course, but that doesn’t make it any more substantial or significantly punchier—it just makes it louder, which spoils the overall tonal balance of the presentation.

The WF-1000XM5 are similarly circumspect where the broader dynamics of volume and “quiet/LOUD” potency are concerned, too. The Sony don’t seem able to breathe deeply enough to give these variations their fullest expression, and consequently recordings can lack a little intensity.

It’s the more peripheral aspects of performance that are of greater concern, though. For instance, the idea that the WF-1000XM5 represent “the best noise-canceling performance on the market” is fanciful at best.

The Sony do a decent job at reducing external interference while maintaining their sonic stance at the same time, but there are any number of alternative designs that do it better. The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II spring immediately to mind—their noise cancellation is of an entirely different order.

And for all the talk about the lengths Sony has gone to in order to maximize call quality here, the WF-1000XM5 are nothing special where telephony is concerned. No matter if you’re using them to make or receive a call, it’s possible to hear the noise-reduction hardware sticking its oar in. It alters the sound of voices arbitrarily, and intelligibility is not all it might be. And it’s not as if the reduction in wind noise is spectacular as it’s doing so, either.

So I go out with more questions than when I came in. Is the Sony WF-1000XM5 a poor product? Not on your life, no: Sound quality is good at worst, and great at best, while extended functionality is class-leading and comfort is improved over the product it replaces.

Is the Sony WF-1000XM5 the same kind of no-brainer recommendation as the outgoing WF-1000XM4? No, it isn’t: It’s more expensive, the level of competition it faces has improved, and it’s not the sort of consummate all-rounder the older product was.

Will the WF-1000XM5 appear near the top of our Best Wireless Earbuds list? Well, that’s going to be the subject of quite a lot of debate, I imagine—because it wouldn’t do for us all to think alike around here, would it?