Well, sooner or later it was bound to happen: recently I searched long and hard on our website for a review of the Sony WH-1000XM3 and only then remembered that I never wrote it. It is never too late to correct a mistake, especially since the headphones have not become worse over the past couple of years – on the contrary, they are better! After all, the price has decreased, but the device is still in the golden pantheon of great headphones and gadgets in general. Decide to buy – feel free to do it without even reading my review. Well, I’ll tell you about everything in order and try to imagine how it would be possible to improve the flawless “thousandth” model, famous for centuries (in short – no way).

Design

At the time of release, the headphones cost about 30,000 rubles, but over time you can find them even for 20,000 rubles, and I’m not talking about the secondary market. I will give only one piece of advice regarding Sony: given all the nuances associated with the warranty, it is better not to buy a model on the secondary or from obscure sellers, save your nerves, demand the original warranty paper. That is, I suggest not to chase cheapness. This is the first thought.

Second thought: I remember very well the moment of the announcement of the Sony WH-1000XM3, we then worked at the IFA exhibition in Berlin, filmed a video about the headphones, everyone liked them very much.

Now almost two years have passed, and this gadget has not lost its relevance at all, on the contrary, now the time has come for such headphones. Millions of people are sitting in self-isolation with their relatives, they must somehow continue to work, the noise is INSANELY distracting and not everyone has a separate office in their apartments. Of course, you have to improvise – and I advise you to buy noise-canceling headphones in the first place. You can even not turn on the music, just sit and work quietly in the headphones, the noise ceases to be an annoying factor.

Third thought: what a nice thing! Especially for today’s price. I just can’t get enough. Here you have a chic package, a hard case, an audio cable and an adapter for an airplane. Here you have USB Type-C for charging – you take a cable for iPad or MacBook Pro, you charge everything as it should be. Here you have comfort, and a bunch of chips, and good noise reduction, but let’s talk about everything in order.

There are two versions: black and beige. It is strange that Sony has not released headphones in other colors for a year and a half – it would be nice to have white or green ones. I chose beige for the review, but I advise all practical gentlemen to have a black device. Or rather, like this: these are black headphones with inserts resembling bronze. The entire delivery set, mind you, is in one color.

I still don’t understand what the ear pads are made of: it seems to be leather by smell and dressing, but my instinct tells us that we have eco-leather here (or, as they like to write now, vegan leather). In any case, a very pleasant experience. The headband is finished with the same material. The plastic on the outside of the cups is velvety, the rest of the details are ordinary. The assembly is good, nothing rattles, does not creak, the gaps are even, there is no burr. There is quality control and painstaking work of designers and engineers. I think that in three or four years these headphones will be quite relevant – that’s what a good design is worth.

Wearing “thousandths” is a real pleasure. There is enough space for the ear shells, the headband does not press, the headphones themselves are not very large and noticeable, especially when compared with the Blue Satellite and some other models. No ventilation system is provided, but sitting in an apartment with the air conditioner turned off, even after two hours of wearing I don’t feel heat, my ears don’t seem to sweat, everything is ok. I really liked how smoothly the guides come out – the clicks are noticeable, again I want to praise the team of engineers and designers. A simple increase in the headband turns into a ritual, you want to move the bar back and forth, like a Nokia 8800 slider.

The buttons are just as nicely made, the physical ones are on the left cup – turning on, switching modes. The sensor is on the right cup, you need to put your palm here so that the microphones begin to amplify the sounds around. Handy if you need to talk to someone. The same touch panel is responsible for controlling playback, answering a call, and adjusting the volume. You get used to it quickly, everything works well. Probably, in winter there may be problems on the street – write if you notice something. In the warm season, everything is close to ideal. The velvety surface allows you to accurately calculate the effort, over time you begin to set the volume at the right level without errors and deftly move from track to track.

The claimed battery life is 30 hours with noise cancellation turned on (enough to fly to Los Angeles twice), if you turn off the noise cancellation, you can get about 38 hours. You always have the opportunity to take a complete adapter for multimedia on the plane, connect the headphones with a cable and not think about the operating time at all. While charging, the headphones continue to work, a nice opportunity – connected to an external battery or to a long cable to charge your MacBook Pro, continue listening to music. 

The headphones can be folded, a hard case is included, the color matches the color of the model (in my case, beige). There are pockets for accessories, the case is not very large, I recommend using it – take pity on the velvety plastic on the cups. 

Appendix

All the same application as for other models of noise-canceling headphones, it has recently been updated – in my memory this is the first Sony program with such active development, new chips are appearing, firmware updates for headphones are coming out, life is in full swing. This is good. Since the Sony WH-1000XM3 is the top model of the line, there is at least one very interesting feature here: atmospheric pressure optimization. You only need to put on headphones, listen to sounds, in normal conditions (for example, at home or office), the pressure in the cups is optimized to 1.0 atm. In flight, the pressure will be different so that you do not feel discomfort. It is clear that there is a question when the flight will take place now – but in any case, the function is useful.

I’ll tell you more about adaptive sound control. Since there are several microphones, the headphones understand what is happening around – if you walk down the street, then the microphones try to amplify the noise of cars, all for the sake of safety. In the office, if the environment is not very loud, the headphones will turn on noise reduction – in which case put your hand on the cup, answer the question, remove your hand from the cup, continue to sit in blissful silence. Compared to previous models, the function has become more accurate.

Based on the noise around, the headphones themselves change the user profile, the study of frequently visited places is supported, but you can also register frequently visited places so that the profiles turn on automatically. For example, it could be a house, an office, a cafe where you have lunch (okay, the coronavirus will someday end and we will go to cafes, airports and other places). In advanced settings, you can edit the main profiles. I really like to play around with the “Focus on the voice” function, the slider can increase or decrease the volume of voices nearby. That is, the surrounding noise is cut off, the voices remain. Office item! The people around think that I hear nothing – AND I HEAR EVERYTHING!

A lot of the app has to do with sound quality. These are the VPT settings (surround sound), and the equalizer, and sound position control, and the 360 Reality Audio setting. I talked about the last function in detail in the review , in short – play at once and forget. The rest can help you depending on the music playback program, file type. The DSEE HX function is designed to “finish” the musical picture, but, in the case of working with the iPhone and Apple Music, I strongly recommend trying to listen to music with DSEE turned on and off. I like it better without DSEE HX.

The main idea about the application is simple: download immediately after buying headphones, check the software version, play with the settings. Then, most likely, remember about the application in weeks or months, but it makes me happy. Functional, without unnecessary whistles, everything is on point. This is how it should be, because any modern advanced headphones are a software and hardware complex, otherwise it doesn’t happen now.

Noise suppression

He said more than once that for me the best noise-canceling headphones are the Bose NCH 700: as soon as you put it on, you immediately find yourself cut off from the surrounding space, this was especially noticeable during flights. Bowers & Wilkins PX7 has always been in second place – worse noise reduction, better sound quality. Where is the Sony WH-1000XM3? In my opinion, somewhere close to Bose, but not better or worse – the noise reduction here is high-quality, effective, there are no questions. Rather, Sony decided to make noise reduction with a human face – a pressure optimizer avoids discomfort, focusing on voice and controlling ambient sound help you feel more comfortable, not cut off from society. Do you want to sleep on the plane? Just turn on the noise reduction and turn off the “smart” functions. Do you want to sit in the office and hear your colleagues even with headphones? Move the focus slider. Or close the cup with your palm.

In the Bose NCH 700, you can select the level of noise reduction, turn on the amplification of the sound around by holding the button on the left cup – everything is done here firmly, as it should be. But I understand why Sony is more loved and more often chosen in Russia – the price is similar, there are more chips.

It seems to me that in terms of the quality of noise reduction, the models are rather parity. Due to the design of the ear pads, Sony is doing well with passive noise isolation, even when the headphones are turned off, harsh sounds are cut off and you can sit quietly and work. 

Sound

The headphones were paired with the iPhone 11 Pro Max, Apple Music and TIDAL. When connected to an iPhone, the AAC codec is used, and there is also support for SBC, AAC, aptX, aptX HD, LDAC. Such a set is not common, the headphones will work equally well with modern flagships based on Android, and with all new models of Apple technology. Bluetooth 4.2 profile – in general, the model seems to be not new, but everything is fine here. And, let me remind you, these were the first headphones with a proprietary QN1 processor, it is responsible for noise reduction, and for adaptive mode switching, and for sound quality (in general, like the Apple W1 and H1 processors).

The magic 40mm drivers are extremely difficult here, this is an aluminum-coated LCD polymer film, there are also neodymium magnets, and they even indicated the range of reproducible frequencies when connected to Bluetooth: 20–20,000 Hz (sampling frequency 44.1 kHz); 20-40,000 Hz (LDAC, 96 kHz sample rate, 990 kbps).

But the strict description on the company’s website is silent about emotions! And there are more than enough emotions here, I listen to these headphones with pleasure every day. First, a few side notes: thanks to the universal setup and driver capabilities, even frankly poorly prepared tracks in Apple Music sound good. The second thought: I don’t even remember when I saw such a reserve of volume – a little less than half is enough for the eyes, you do it a little higher, and it’s not very comfortable anymore. The third thought: the headphones showed themselves perfectly not only with music, but also with movies on the iPad, and with games on the tablet, smartphone. 

Let’s talk a little more about the music. Chic drivers, coupled with a processor, delight with air, feedback – where other headphones do not show anything, the “thousandths” pull out some small previously invisible details and show them in all their glory. I haven’t been this happy with a sound in a long time! For example, when checking, I advise you to listen to the old Moritz Von Oswald Trio album – Sounding Lines, oh, this is beauty! All the effects are in full view, with positioning, with a pleasant color, and what a bass! Delight. 

And the basses, the basses are not rough, but airy, with a pull (well, of course, it depends on the track, but there is no hard oak meat here). Or take the track Hey Jo, we have The Districts. There is a feeling that the music seems to be playing from the stage in a small bar, the energy, the sound seems to spread around. At the same time, I feel that the track was either not prepared too well, or they specifically wanted to give such an impression – as if the musicians are playing live, and you are sitting nearby at a table, shaking your head to the beat, as if you were in a roadside bar, as at the end of each episode of the third season “Twin Peaks”. In general, The Districts is just top-tier, I advise you to include it in your media library. 

Well, let’s hear something else, shall we? I propose to finish with the wonderful Pink Lotus album, it’s Freddie Dredd, great summer music, it’s nice to sit on the balcony with this – I would like to drive a car, but I can’t. Headphones do an excellent job with transitions from vocals to bass and vice versa, the rhythm here is ragged, but it seems that for the “thousandths” it’s all seeds, the headphones click easily and the nut is stronger. 

Verdict 

In official retail, the headphones cost about 22,990 rubles, do not forget to use our promo code at the end of the article, you will get twenty thousand. Nice price. Let me remind you that this model should not be bought from incomprehensible sellers, it is better for Sony to have an official warranty and everything that is supposed to. Not because of breakdowns or marriage – just not the time to take risks.

Should you buy headphones? Yes, I think, together with the Bose NCH 700, these are the best large noise canceling headphones on the market. I like Bose noise cancellation better, but Sony will definitely be more interesting in terms of sound for most people. To me personally, the sound of the Sony WH-1000XM3 after a few days seemed closer than that of my beloved Bowers & Wilkins PX7. The model is painfully well tuned, the feeling is like from old sneakers – you know for sure that it will be comfortable and as it should be. 

The pluses include adaptive sound control and many settings in the application, convenient control, good battery life, USB Type-C, hard case included, good voice quality, high-quality noise reduction system. Comfortable to wear, nice to use. No obvious cons found. Headphones will be relevant for a long time, you can safely buy, even if you are reading this article in 2022. 

I don’t even know what Sony can offer in the Sony WH-1000XM4 model – the third version is perfect! 

PS You ask: “Well, what kind of ears would you take: Sony WH-1000XM3, Bose NCH 700 or Bowers & Wilkins PX7 ?” It’s simple: I have all three, after the review I bought the thousandths, let them be for the collection. I couldn’t just take them and return them, I want to listen to music more! In the end, Bose and Sony are the best in terms of convenience, Bose and Sony have the best noise cancellation, Sony and Bowers & Wilkins have the best sound quality, Sony has the most additional features, Bowers & Wilkins has the design I like best. If you have any questions – write to [email protected] , I will be happy to answer.

At AvCentre.ru you can get a 7% discount on the entire line of headphones using the WYLSA promotional code, or a 10% discount on theSony WH-1000XM3 , using the WYLSA promotional code.