I’ve let a few friends try Sony’s newest flagship active noise-cancelling headphones, and the first thing they comment on is just how eerily quiet the world gets.
Right now, as I write this, there’s a construction crew ripping up the concrete outside my apartment. They’ve been at it for more than a week, and it’s made it difficult to concentrate. With Sony’s ANC on and my window open, the loud commotion is flattened to a light hum. With the window closed, I have trouble telling if they're still at it out there.
No pair of headphones can cancel all sound (you always hear something faint if it’s loud), but the Sony WH1000XM3s got me really close to noise cancelling nirvana.
Quiet Riot
I’ve worn the 1000XM3s on trains, planes, busses, subways, and while walking around many a loud city street. They suppress the ruckus so well I sometimes forget where I am if I shut my eyes. The noise cancelling is on-par with the standard-bearing Bose QC35 II headphones[1]— and even better in some circumstances.
They’re so effective I actually found myself sometimes turning the noise cancelling off if I was walking around because I felt so detached from reality. Sony has a few features to combat this. You can toggle the noise cancelling with a button on the left earcup to toggle ANC, but there’s an even easier way to do it: just cup the right earcup with your palm and you’ll suddenly hear all the ambient sounds around you, amplified so you can hear the next stop announcement or that strange noise down the hall with ease. Panasonic’s wireless headphones[2] had this feature as well, but few others do. It’s creative, and after...