Sony WF-1000XM3 Industry Leading Noise Canceling Truly Wireless Earbuds Headset/Headphones with AlexaVoice Control And Mic For Phone Call, Black

UNBOXING:The first thing to do is to find the correct fit. This, like it has always been for in-ear buds, is a trial and error process. Out of the box, Sony provides you with six pair of tips - 3 pairs of silicone ones and 3 pairs of memory foam ones. I have large ears with almighty ear canals, and based on my past experience with other in-ear buds, I went for the large memory foam tips. These turned out to be too big, and the earphones dangled precariously off my ears. So I swapped them with the medium foam tips; this gave me the perfect and the most comfortable tip. The next thing I did was pop the earphones back into the case, and the case to a power supply so that both the case and the buds charged to 100%. I already had the companion Sony Headphones app on my phone, but if you don't, you can download it.Once they were charged, I launched the Sony Headphones app, went through the connection wizard, tapped my phone on the case (NFC) and that's it. They were paired - a very hassle free, and a no tech challenge process, which anyone can do. Bluetooth connectivity was perfect. I could roam around anywhere in my 1 room kitchen apartment without losing connectivity. Once these babies were paired, I popped them into my ear, and then launched the companion app to configure them.CONFIGURATION & PLAYBACK:Right out of the box, this pair provides a very neutral sound-stage with clear mids, though the highs can be very tinny and the lows quite muffled. This might make some people to take the knee jerk reaction of returning them as they do not sound all that well for the price. Well, don't, and have patience. Configure them to suit yourself, and that's how you'll get the best out of them. Configuration depends on the kind of music you listen to, and hence this step is critical.Personally, I'm not beholden to a particular genre, which makes this stage of the onboarding a bit difficult. I launched the Youtube music app, and started cycling through some of my favorite songs in the metal, pop, vocal, reggaeton, hip-hop, EDM and trap genres. To give an idea: I cycled through songs by Pink Floyd, Paradise Lost, John Legend, Post Malone, Nicky Jam, Alan Walker, Lil Nas X, Skrillex, Flosstradamus, Fever Ray, Florence + The Machine & Eminem. And post that, I went to work with the Equalizer, tweaking it while cycling through the same songs to find the perfect blend of settings that can achieve the sweet spot of a great sound-stage applicable to all these genres.My final equalizer settings for the slider bars: +4, +2, -2, -2, 0 with Clear Bass set to +8. I found that these settings gave me the best sound-stage across all the genres (of course, these won't be perfect for any one genre, but it is either that, or tweak them according to the genre that you listen to). I also set DSEE HX to ON, since this allows for the audio stream to be upscaled to simulate a high resolution stream - a good to have feature if you listen to streamed audio like I do. With the afore mentioned settings, I found that I retained the clear mids, but I was also able to deepen the lows and make the highs sound natural.USAGE:The drivers do taking some burn-in, and I started hearing a slight upgrade in quality after the first 10-12 hours of use. This was the same for my WH-1000XM3s, which sound absolutely wonderful after 4 months of use.While this pair is great on the ears while traveling (I sweat quite a bit, and the over-ear cans become uncomfortable for me), I'd still prefer the WH-1000XM3 if I'm at my desk working, or if I'm in an airplane traveling, because there is definitely some ear fatigue (which is typical for in-ears). The fit, once you have achieved it correctly as described in the first part of this review, is secure, and I did not feel any risk of these falling off.I would definitely not take this pair out for jogging or any gym exercises, since they are not water resistant, and the fit is not secure enough to handle strenuous activities of jumping, running, etc.CONCLUSION:All in all, this is a great pair, and well worth the price, if you have the patience to configure them according to your specific use cases. I highly recommend both the models from Sony, both are winners in my book, and I hope to use them for many years.PS: If you use the Tidal app, it's probably a good idea to go through the 360 degree music setup. I don't, and hence I didn't.

I’m going to reveal the XM3 operating secrets that Sony’s horrible documentation won’t tell you about. I spent *hours* on chat with Sony’s tech support. Turns out Sony’s own support doesn’t know this product too well and they mostly misguided me. Here’s what you must know to be a happy XM3 customer:1. Earbud Fit: It’s 100% true: You must have a tight ear canal fit to get the benefit of Sony’s excellent noise cancelling. I can’t emphasize this enough. Sony’s gives you lots of ear tip options and don’t assume both ears need the same tips. If you’re hearing ambient noise from one or both earbuds in full noise canceling mode, you need to install bigger / squishier ear tips. Put in the earbuds with the Sony logo facing down , push in, and rotate forwards to parallel (90 degrees turn up).2. Pairing. When you open and take out the buds they go into pairing mode…but good luck getting a second device to pair. The trick: Put the earbuds in your ears and press on both buttons simultaneously for ~7 seconds until you hear the pairing announcement and now you can pair with another device.3. Getting Noise Cancelling All The Time: The Sony Headphones app (at least on iOS): What an option overload of an app. Sony gives you all these location options to automatically select what kind of noise cancelling you want (from full, to variable, to none). Technically the left earbud button lets you cycle between noise canceling/ partial / none but I found it was too easy to turn off noise canceling, so here’s what you do: First, you must ensure that the XM3s are “Connected” on your iPhone. Go to Settings / Bluetooth /Device List and select the WF-1000XM3s. If you have other devices paired to the XM3 in proximity, like your Apple Watch, you’ll need to *manually* select the XM3s on your iPhone. You’ll hear about the connection status in your left earbud. Once connected to your iPhone, launch the Sony Headphones App. IF YOU WANT FULL NOISE CANCELLING ALL THE TIME: I suggest turning the “Adaptive Sound Control” off and using the “>” to set more options. Next to “Detection of Actions” and * the App lets you set four settings for noise canceling. You can decide what to do but if you want full noise cancelling on in all cases, you then turn on Ambient Sound Control and select full Noise Canceling by moving the slider button all the way to the left for each of “Staying” “Walking” “Running” “Transport”, but please note, you might not want full Noise Canceling for some of those activities and Sony gives you that option, including automatic switching based on location (which I turned off). BUT PLEASE NOTE: This noise-canceling-all-the-time setup *deactivates* your ability to cycle between noise canceling modes via the left earbud so if you want to hear ambient sounds you’ll need to press and hold your left earbud.4. Full Reset. To do a factory reset, you put the buds back in their fancy case and hold down both buttons until you get fast red flashes and then release. You should see blue flashes and you’re done. The buds can pair with 8 devices but only one at a time. It’s easy to go from iPhone to Watch and back…on the Watch you need to select the XM3s from the menu when prompted. Note that the Sony Headphone App will not connect to your buds if they’re bluetoothed to another device (like your watch): You have to go back to your Bluetooth device menu on your iPhone (Settings / Bluetooth / My Devices ) and manually select the WF-1000XM3s (likely towards the bottom of the list).Otherwise, these are elegant devices that stay put (I’ve never even come close to having them come out at the gym) and the sound quality is terrific as is the noise cancelling at the noisy gym. Sony’s packaging is just like Apple’s: A beautiful thing to behold…just too bad there’s not a cheat sheet for basic operations / issues included!! Good Luck and hope this helps.