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Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2023
Update 3/9……so first I’m going to say that I bought these with my own money before any reviews were out. Didn’t realize they were a vine product. After a few weeks of use the padding has relaxed enough so that I can feel the drivers poking my ears. I wear my headphones around 4 hours a day on weekdays and 8-10 hours on each weekend day. As stated earlier I have a smaller than average head, and my ears do not stick out. I can usually adjust the cups to be lower, but I don’t like them riding my jawbone.
I would’ve have overlooked that because they do sound good, however they are now randomly disconnecting. I use them for YouTube and I’m literally 18 inches away and they disconnect. I check through the app and it shows a connection failure. If I pause a video, again, they show connected, but the sound comes out of my iPad. When I check the app it tells me there is a connection failure and to restart. While the sound is good I don’t think I care to restart my headphones every 10 minutes.
Maybe they don’t like Apple devices? I’m not sure….
I originally bought the xm5’s. I finally got them last week only to find they were quite oversized for my smaller than average head. The weight of them made matters worse as every time I looked down they flopped forward. I had to return them.
I am not one of those fancy audio people but I know what I like. My previous headphone were the solo pro 3’s and I do enjoy them. What I don’t like is the pain my ears experience after about an hour of having them on.
I wanted over the ear headphones and everything I read and all the videos I watched pointed me to the xm5’s which ended sadly. I searched Amazon and saw these were a new model. Looked up what little I could find online about them and the consensus was these were the cheap version of the xm5’s. Yeah, I’m sold so I got them.
Build:
They are cheaper feeling, not as bad as the 510’s, but nowhere near the xm5’s workmanship. But they are also not breaking the bank (as bad anyways, it still shocks me to see what headphones are going for nowadays). The sliding part is plastic reinforced by metal. I’ll be honest….I am wondering how they will hold up.
Comfort:
Excellent. These are super light. I don’t feel them resting on the crown of my head at all. There is no clamping on or around my ears. But the are secure on my head. The padding around the ear cups is decent and the cups are deep so most will not have their ears touching the speakers.
Bells and whistles: these are old school, they have buttons…no swipe features at all. I like that because in my week of using the xm5’s I discovered quickly that volume adjustment was hit or miss with response time. It might be that my hands are always cold, but in 6 hours of wearing these I have already mastered the buttons. They are very well placed and very responsive.
App: They are part of the Sony Headphone app. You get an equalizer and other customizable features including the ability to connect to two devices at the same time and it works great as I use the headphones for watching music videos on YouTube and Netflix. I use my phone to adjust the equalizer for the music playing on my iPad.
Another feature on the app is you can set the headphones to shut off when not in use. I was excited about the auto shutoff feature. Not so much now. It is not sensor based nor is it based on when you device’s screen shuts down. It is based on when you turn of Bluetooth. This makes it worthless to me and maybe a lot of us who do not ever turn Bluetooth off. I think it could have been done better.
Noise cancelling:
I’m going to call this adequate. With my Beats Solo pro with ANC I can’t hear anything. Not even someone yelling. These will drown out the hum of a fan pretty well, but they let in a lot of ambient noise (like my husband coughing in the next room right now!). Even the xm5’s were not as good as the Beats. But the on ear style of the Beats may have something to do with that. So I’ll stick to the xm5’s comparison. I also want to say that there are supposedly 3 modes…noise cancelling, ambient and off. I have not noticed any difference between ambient and noise cancelling. There is no voice prompt to let you know which setting you are in. I will play some more to see if I’m missing a setting in the app and if something changes I’ll edit my review.
Sound quality: (of course this is subjective to each person) Excellent out of the box and I could not say that about the xm5’s. My first mission was to find the equalizer when I took them out of the box and tried them. Not so with these. The sound was nice. I still tweaked it but if I wasn’t able to change it a bit, I would still be happy.
Other:
They do not come with a case. They do not fold. They come with an aux cord and charging cable, no charging block.
Final thoughts: This is my fourth pair of headphones in a month. I was willing to drop over 300 bucks on a pair. And I didn’t like any of them. Most important to me is fit and sound. Most were severely lacking in sound quality. These are not. And they were cheaper.
I am most disappointed in the build quality. I think they should’ve done better. To me $150 is alot of money to spend on headphones that feel this plasticy. And if they crack after 6 months I’ll be upset. I’m not expecting $350 quality, but better. These are not too much better than the 510’s when they should’ve been a little less than the 910’s. They are far less quality than the 910’s. Maybe I’m asking too much after coming from the Solo 3 pros and xm5’s which both have a superb build.
BUT…..they make up for it in having great sound that you can totally adjust to your liking. They are comparable to the xm5’s in sound. And far superior I feel to the 910’s which just sound overly undefined bass. And the comfort!! It’s spot on.
These are the best out there in terms of sound and app capabilities.
I would’ve have overlooked that because they do sound good, however they are now randomly disconnecting. I use them for YouTube and I’m literally 18 inches away and they disconnect. I check through the app and it shows a connection failure. If I pause a video, again, they show connected, but the sound comes out of my iPad. When I check the app it tells me there is a connection failure and to restart. While the sound is good I don’t think I care to restart my headphones every 10 minutes.
Maybe they don’t like Apple devices? I’m not sure….
I originally bought the xm5’s. I finally got them last week only to find they were quite oversized for my smaller than average head. The weight of them made matters worse as every time I looked down they flopped forward. I had to return them.
I am not one of those fancy audio people but I know what I like. My previous headphone were the solo pro 3’s and I do enjoy them. What I don’t like is the pain my ears experience after about an hour of having them on.
I wanted over the ear headphones and everything I read and all the videos I watched pointed me to the xm5’s which ended sadly. I searched Amazon and saw these were a new model. Looked up what little I could find online about them and the consensus was these were the cheap version of the xm5’s. Yeah, I’m sold so I got them.
Build:
They are cheaper feeling, not as bad as the 510’s, but nowhere near the xm5’s workmanship. But they are also not breaking the bank (as bad anyways, it still shocks me to see what headphones are going for nowadays). The sliding part is plastic reinforced by metal. I’ll be honest….I am wondering how they will hold up.
Comfort:
Excellent. These are super light. I don’t feel them resting on the crown of my head at all. There is no clamping on or around my ears. But the are secure on my head. The padding around the ear cups is decent and the cups are deep so most will not have their ears touching the speakers.
Bells and whistles: these are old school, they have buttons…no swipe features at all. I like that because in my week of using the xm5’s I discovered quickly that volume adjustment was hit or miss with response time. It might be that my hands are always cold, but in 6 hours of wearing these I have already mastered the buttons. They are very well placed and very responsive.
App: They are part of the Sony Headphone app. You get an equalizer and other customizable features including the ability to connect to two devices at the same time and it works great as I use the headphones for watching music videos on YouTube and Netflix. I use my phone to adjust the equalizer for the music playing on my iPad.
Another feature on the app is you can set the headphones to shut off when not in use. I was excited about the auto shutoff feature. Not so much now. It is not sensor based nor is it based on when you device’s screen shuts down. It is based on when you turn of Bluetooth. This makes it worthless to me and maybe a lot of us who do not ever turn Bluetooth off. I think it could have been done better.
Noise cancelling:
I’m going to call this adequate. With my Beats Solo pro with ANC I can’t hear anything. Not even someone yelling. These will drown out the hum of a fan pretty well, but they let in a lot of ambient noise (like my husband coughing in the next room right now!). Even the xm5’s were not as good as the Beats. But the on ear style of the Beats may have something to do with that. So I’ll stick to the xm5’s comparison. I also want to say that there are supposedly 3 modes…noise cancelling, ambient and off. I have not noticed any difference between ambient and noise cancelling. There is no voice prompt to let you know which setting you are in. I will play some more to see if I’m missing a setting in the app and if something changes I’ll edit my review.
Sound quality: (of course this is subjective to each person) Excellent out of the box and I could not say that about the xm5’s. My first mission was to find the equalizer when I took them out of the box and tried them. Not so with these. The sound was nice. I still tweaked it but if I wasn’t able to change it a bit, I would still be happy.
Other:
They do not come with a case. They do not fold. They come with an aux cord and charging cable, no charging block.
Final thoughts: This is my fourth pair of headphones in a month. I was willing to drop over 300 bucks on a pair. And I didn’t like any of them. Most important to me is fit and sound. Most were severely lacking in sound quality. These are not. And they were cheaper.
I am most disappointed in the build quality. I think they should’ve done better. To me $150 is alot of money to spend on headphones that feel this plasticy. And if they crack after 6 months I’ll be upset. I’m not expecting $350 quality, but better. These are not too much better than the 510’s when they should’ve been a little less than the 910’s. They are far less quality than the 910’s. Maybe I’m asking too much after coming from the Solo 3 pros and xm5’s which both have a superb build.
BUT…..they make up for it in having great sound that you can totally adjust to your liking. They are comparable to the xm5’s in sound. And far superior I feel to the 910’s which just sound overly undefined bass. And the comfort!! It’s spot on.
These are the best out there in terms of sound and app capabilities.
