With so many incredible tunes coming out every week, every celeb and his weird friend having a podcast and George FM providing quality content 24/7, headphones have become essential and baby, my Sony WH-1000XM5s are getting the job DONE.
They're Sony's latest offering as far as headphones go, and I just got my hands on them and ears under them. Not calling my ears a fuckboy or anything but, especially when there’s a bassy tune playing, they love being under them.
The intensity of the ‘B’ in ‘DNB’ is the first thing I noticed about these headphones. Sony seems to have designed the headphones so the bass lines HIT. The SoundGuys review found that the WH-1000XM5s “emphasise bass more than” its competitors - Apple Airpods Max and the Bose 700s.
If bass isn’t your thing, the headphones’ accompanying app allows you to really customise the sound quality. You can find the preset that changes the different sounds ( e.g. more bass, less vocals) to fulfil your musical appetite, customise that yourself, or have it customised to your preferences by choosing which series of musical clips sound the best to you.
The custom equalizer function.
The app also allows the headphones to track my location and even whether I’m sitting, standing, walking and probably running if I did that nonsense.
Invasive, but for a function: the adaptive noise-cancelling (ANC). When you are parked up, the noise-cancelling on the headphones is pumped up. When you’re on the move, the noise-cancelling decreases so you’re more aware of your surroundings.
It can feel quite off-putting to start but you get used to it. It’s not the most important or impressive thing but it does have a purpose and I like that it’s there. It does get all choppy and fucky at times, changing how much outside sound it lets in within seconds, but most of the time that noise is more cancelled than Kanye.
Sony's ANC function.
You can have a silent disco bend through with these bad boys too. The battery lasts for over 30 hours and a quick charge of just three minutes will give you three hours of battery life.
Another little thing that’s sick about them is they pause when you take off your headphones. This use is achieved by taking photos of your ears, which is weird, but so worth it.
When I’m cooking and a flatmate bothers me with the dumbest question ever, I can just flick them down, tell the flattie to “shut up”, and get back to cooking a horrendous spag bol without missing out on whatever content I was listening to.
If you deem both the content and the conversation unmissable, you can cup your hand over the ear of the headphones and activate the ‘speak-to-chat’ function. The headphones will then filter in the person speaking and still allow you to listen to Fred Again's Boiler Room set for the skuxillionth time.
You can also swipe your finger on the ear of the headphones to pause, play, skip, and turn the volume up and down. Convenience baby.
They’re as comfy as your mate's shoulder in the final hours of kickons and can even connect to two devices at once.
I have found an issue with connection at some times, having to restart both the headphones and my device to get ‘em going.
At $600, the price tag can be #hefty but it will guarantee the full DnB experience and a better-than-shit night's sleep in your festie tent, as it will silence all the tomfoolery going on outside.
