These are the most discussed consumer audio products, at least online. With no difficulty, you will find detailed “analysis”, and “reviews” of these products on long reddit threads, YouTube, or non/pretentious pro audio forums, besides regular tech websites. Despite their terrible nomenclature, these products have garnered lots of positive reviews. Especially with the AirPods Pro 2 (let’s just call them “APP”), the reviews are unbelievably positive. They are generally tagged with adjectives ranging from the futile “best earphones ever” to the less creative “incredible” in Apple speak, and even “shockingly good” where the reviewer was apparently toying with the rising attention deficit of our times. Together, these reviews may as well be case studies of our declining critical thinking supported by a broken internet taken over by big companies and paid reviews.
Why is that? Two simple propositions stand to challenge the generally positive reviews of these products: sound is subjective, and the inescapable vulnerability of any audio product, even on the parameter of sound alone. In other words, there isn’t an audio product in the market (or possible cannot be) that is so universally loved in terms of its audio quality. The shortcomings pointed by most reviews concern parameters unrelated to the audio quality such as comfort, connectivity, battery life, etc. Sure, those are important parameters – and possibly more objectively judged than sound quality, but the sound itself is the centrepiece of an earphone in my opinion. As for my last judgement on Sennheiser BT350, I’d like to stick to that.
As for the sound alone, judging the Sonys and APP have been difficult, even frustrating, especially when they were pitted against each other. At one point, I was listening so critically that I stopped enjoying my music, and none of these products appealed to me anymore. I had to take breaks from the both of them – together or in turns – and use them over an extended period of time. After the first couple of months, my judgement was more or less clear, depending on how you attribute clarity of judgement in these cases. I thought all of them are good products; depending on the mood and the environment of the listener, they can either be loved or hated in some or the other situations. This was an incredibly dissatisfying conclusion. I really wanted to have an overall sense of which emerges as the better choice in terms of sound – after all, they do sound very different from each other. Having spent more than 6-7 months at least on each product, I finally have things to say on the audio experience of these “prosumer” earphones.
1. Sony WF 1000 XM4
My story began with Sony WF 1000XM4 … ugh, the nomenclature again! Let’s call them Sony 4. I did not like them initially. They “felt” premium, but the audio for me was too boomy with an over-emphasised bass which was unpleasant. But this was pointed by the internet expert reviewers too: that out of the box sound on Sony 4 was not optimal. I disliked that I had to scour internet forums for EQ settings that other people found more pleasant. But it soon became a nice hobby. Due to the attention these earphones received by audio enthusiasts, there were many contributors charting the frequency response of these earphones with professional equipment under different EQ settings, trying to optimise the settings closer to a more flat sound profile. Usually, few people would want to tune their consumer earphones to a flat sound signature – it sounds boring to most people who buy these products for their exciting sound profile. But it speaks for Sony 4s that their bass was so out of order, that for once, it prompted listeners to actively seek a relatively flat sound. Sometimes, human behaviour is best characterised by what people are running away from, rather than what they are seeking. I ponder often if cycling between sweet and salt is prompted by seeking one to escape the saturation from another … but that’s for another day.
As for the Sony 4s, this was fascinating to me. Why were people speaking so highly of a pair of earphones that was, by even forgiving reviews, whacky in sound out of the box. This was a product that required you to make your own efforts to cure an issue that it carried; an issue that went to the core of its functionality. Sure, it can be explained in the Ikea way. I came to understand some part of it as I browsed through and tried multiple EQ settings on my pair: it gave me a sense of control. Quite antithetical to Apple products, arriving at a nice EQ setting for my Sony 4s felt like fruit of labor – useless as it was because I shouldn’t have needed it in the first place.
But this alone does not explain all the hype earned by this product. In terms of sound, when you finally reduced bass and accounted for somewhat unusual high frequency response, it allowed for that sweet spot that introduced people to something new: a sound that had bold timber with still overconfident bass, but, with the adjustment in bass, a beautiful mid-range was uncovered. It was a mid range that was not tinny or cheap sounding like keyboard on metal cans, but one that was backed by bass and not overshadowed by high pitch or treble. I don’t know if this was by design but the treble/high frequency response of Sony 4 was poor. But that mellow treble allowed for this mid-range to descend with a certain purity that was (or still is) uncommon in consumer earphones. All of a sudden, I was welcoming subdued cymbals in favour of the base note of acoustic guitar. I could deal with letting go of higher frequency elements of female vocals in favour of its base presence because it gave … shape, or character to the sound. It’s as if the fat in the meal became so delicious, you didn’t need much spice or salt to season. And was it good! I was listening to all the music from the 90s, getting introduced to the sounds that hadn’t stood out to me before. Each song sounded like it had more presence. Most of the musical elements landed with impact – not the kind where bass was overemphasised, but in a way that it sounded powerful and tasteful. By this time, I must admit, the bass hadn’t entirely corrected itself: the emphasis was still there despite the EQ because this was the nature of the diaphragm material. Nevertheless, by this time, I may as well have been guilty of letting some of that extra bass pass because the sound was perceptively so detailed.
This led to a minor correction in my view of sounds: I used to think that it is the character of both bass and treble frequency to mask other frequencies strongly. With these earphones now, I blamed more the treble frequencies than the bass ones. Done rightly, as it was being done with Sony 4, when the bass is supplied to just the right most basal elements, mids and everything else before ~4khz shines. Details that were hitherto masked emerged, and my ears were not hurting due to cymbals dominating the room. I was listening to long hours.
But then, each of those long listening sessions were anyway painful. The culprit? Those memory foam eartips and literally, the weight of the earphones. Those ear-tips went deep inside the ear canal. To insert them, you had to squeeze the memory foam, which upon insertion would then expand to form a seal. I suspect that when they expanded, they only stopped when its expansion forces equalled the counter-force that was placed by my ear-canals to keep in shape. I am no doctor or scientist, but my guesstimate is that my ears were exerting some force for the equilibrium to strike. The good news was wonderful noise isolation, even in its passive implementation. Bad news? It was eventually weighing down on me.
But when things got hard, monotonous (few of those moments for sure), or boring, I discovered the “DSEE Extreme” feature. It seems the DNA of Sony’s electronics division to name things in an odd long way to make them sound more scientific. I will not dignify this bad nomenclature with expanding that abbreviation here – you can read the descriptions and few other details on Sony’s website. The details are all scattered, ambiguous, and its workings are at best speculative on web. Few things are clear: (i) this DSEE Extreme tech is part of the larger DSEE project by Sony; (ii) it serves to compensate, or fill-in the details of frequencies for compressed music that was lost in the process of compression – e.g. Mp3 or such with a heavily lossy bitrate; and (iii) in its version on Sony 4 earphones, it works by deploying AI, which is trained on huge data sets of Sony Music audio and works by supplying the lost frequencies based on its trained calculation (AI guessing in common speak). But then, I can’t figure why on relatively less lossy compression, upon streaming music from my iPhone with AAC 256kbps, does it make a difference. When toggled on, music on Sony 4s felt “fuller” with a slightly roomier soundstage. I almost got addicted. But then, after a point perfectionism creeped in and I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I am somehow “impurifying” the sound and disturbing its original mastering with AI tweaks. I must admit that my own AI biases were also at work here.
But end of the day, howsoever sweet Sony 4 was, it was heavy in more than one sense. The troubles with memory foam notwithstanding, the deep placement of ear-tips made their presence felt. It wasn’t helped by the still bold and bass-heavy sound signature. Cumulatively, this made the music feel like it lacked space, room, and ambience. In fact, on occasions, when I was going around the city in trains and on foot, these earphones felt overwhelming in a way that I couldn’t figure. The instrument detailing was maybe too precise; or the strong mid presence was a bit too strong; or the height of music was too grounded. It was like having too much fat in the meal, satisfying at first as it can be. Either way, the Sonys made its presence felt and before long, the “Sony sound signature” was identifiable to most people who heard these earphones. They were bold in many ways – Sony imagined a sound that was niche in the most cliched way and pulled it off.
As for the Sony 4s, this was fascinating to me. Why were people speaking so highly of a pair of earphones that was, by even forgiving reviews, whacky in sound out of the box. This was a product that required you to make your own efforts to cure an issue that it carried; an issue that went to the core of its functionality. Sure, it can be explained in the Ikea way. I came to understand some part of it as I browsed through and tried multiple EQ settings on my pair: it gave me a sense of control. Quite antithetical to Apple products, arriving at a nice EQ setting for my Sony 4s felt like fruit of labor – useless as it was because I shouldn’t have needed it in the first place.
But this alone does not explain all the hype earned by this product. In terms of sound, when you finally reduced bass and accounted for somewhat unusual high frequency response, it allowed for that sweet spot that introduced people to something new: a sound that had bold timber with still overconfident bass, but, with the adjustment in bass, a beautiful mid-range was uncovered. It was a mid range that was not tinny or cheap sounding like keyboard on metal cans, but one that was backed by bass and not overshadowed by high pitch or treble. I don’t know if this was by design but the treble/high frequency response of Sony 4 was poor. But that mellow treble allowed for this mid-range to descend with a certain purity that was (or still is) uncommon in consumer earphones. All of a sudden, I was welcoming subdued cymbals in favour of the base note of acoustic guitar. I could deal with letting go of higher frequency elements of female vocals in favour of its base presence because it gave … shape, or character to the sound. It’s as if the fat in the meal became so delicious, you didn’t need much spice or salt to season. And was it good! I was listening to all the music from the 90s, getting introduced to the sounds that hadn’t stood out to me before. Each song sounded like it had more presence. Most of the musical elements landed with impact – not the kind where bass was overemphasised, but in a way that it sounded powerful and tasteful. By this time, I must admit, the bass hadn’t entirely corrected itself: the emphasis was still there despite the EQ because this was the nature of the diaphragm material. Nevertheless, by this time, I may as well have been guilty of letting some of that extra bass pass because the sound was perceptively so detailed.
This led to a minor correction in my view of sounds: I used to think that it is the character of both bass and treble frequency to mask other frequencies strongly. With these earphones now, I blamed more the treble frequencies than the bass ones. Done rightly, as it was being done with Sony 4, when the bass is supplied to just the right most basal elements, mids and everything else before ~4khz shines. Details that were hitherto masked emerged, and my ears were not hurting due to cymbals dominating the room. I was listening to long hours.
But then, each of those long listening sessions were anyway painful. The culprit? Those memory foam eartips and literally, the weight of the earphones. Those ear-tips went deep inside the ear canal. To insert them, you had to squeeze the memory foam, which upon insertion would then expand to form a seal. I suspect that when they expanded, they only stopped when its expansion forces equalled the counter-force that was placed by my ear-canals to keep in shape. I am no doctor or scientist, but my guesstimate is that my ears were exerting some force for the equilibrium to strike. The good news was wonderful noise isolation, even in its passive implementation. Bad news? It was eventually weighing down on me.
But when things got hard, monotonous (few of those moments for sure), or boring, I discovered the “DSEE Extreme” feature. It seems the DNA of Sony’s electronics division to name things in an odd long way to make them sound more scientific. I will not dignify this bad nomenclature with expanding that abbreviation here – you can read the descriptions and few other details on Sony’s website. The details are all scattered, ambiguous, and its workings are at best speculative on web. Few things are clear: (i) this DSEE Extreme tech is part of the larger DSEE project by Sony; (ii) it serves to compensate, or fill-in the details of frequencies for compressed music that was lost in the process of compression – e.g. Mp3 or such with a heavily lossy bitrate; and (iii) in its version on Sony 4 earphones, it works by deploying AI, which is trained on huge data sets of Sony Music audio and works by supplying the lost frequencies based on its trained calculation (AI guessing in common speak). But then, I can’t figure why on relatively less lossy compression, upon streaming music from my iPhone with AAC 256kbps, does it make a difference. When toggled on, music on Sony 4s felt “fuller” with a slightly roomier soundstage. I almost got addicted. But then, after a point perfectionism creeped in and I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I am somehow “impurifying” the sound and disturbing its original mastering with AI tweaks. I must admit that my own AI biases were also at work here.
But end of the day, howsoever sweet Sony 4 was, it was heavy in more than one sense. The troubles with memory foam notwithstanding, the deep placement of ear-tips made their presence felt. It wasn’t helped by the still bold and bass-heavy sound signature. Cumulatively, this made the music feel like it lacked space, room, and ambience. In fact, on occasions, when I was going around the city in trains and on foot, these earphones felt overwhelming in a way that I couldn’t figure. The instrument detailing was maybe too precise; or the strong mid presence was a bit too strong; or the height of music was too grounded. It was like having too much fat in the meal, satisfying at first as it can be. Either way, the Sonys made its presence felt and before long, the “Sony sound signature” was identifiable to most people who heard these earphones. They were bold in many ways – Sony imagined a sound that was niche in the most cliched way and pulled it off.
[It didn’t help them that Sony 4 had widespread battery issue where the right earbud would drain faster and the batteries altogether would ruin soon afterwards and sooner than expected. This was a serious drawback – not experienced on my set, but cannot be ignored. Anyway, I focus on the sound experience so back to that.]
2. AirPods Pro 2
The APP came to me as a discounted pair along with my MacBook purchase. At this point, I was content enough with my Sony 4s. But this was about to change with APP’s arrival. I was always curious to see Apple’s implementation of the in-ears. I had tried their first version (the 1st gen AirPods Pro) and I was not impressed. It felt like Apple’s way of tuning music for aged and tired ears: nothing offensive, almost flat, very dull, and not musical at all. There was no rhythmic sense in the 1st gen AirPods Pros. Now, to the current 2nd gen APPs, I was expectantly happy with all the Apple suspects: good connectivity, OS-level integration, and dumbed down implementation of feature set while at the same time complicating it. The last of these have recently become Apple’s new UI mantra. For example, there is no EQ in the name of “just works out-of-the-box” design; but, an important feature set is almost hidden behind Audio Accessibility menus two layers down in iOS. This important feature set includes changing frequency response of your APP depending on your listening capabilities via an Audiogram, which is the only way to EQ these earphones. Wow, so annoying, so Apple. Most likely, people who most need audiogram customised audio will find it most unintuitive to locate this option.
My first impression of the sound was nice. This thing was so breezy. I was coming from Sony 4s, so the first thing I unsurprisingly noticed was cymbals or generally the treble. Things were .. oh so bright! There was an uplifting tenor to music suddenly. The formal seriousness of Sony 4s gave way to light and bouncy sound, a pepped-up version which was happy not being taken seriously. Yes, you couldn’t take instruments seriously in APP after listening to it on Sony 4. Nothing had impact. The instrument separation was err.. minimal. There was little cadence and pause to music. I thought this is the after-run of Sonys so I should give it sometime. Also, the light breeziness of the music was drawing me to the APP.
I spent a good few weeks with it. Each music session on APP left me wanting for something and dissatisfied. Yet, the very lightness of music in APP kept me drawing towards it. It was a set of earphones I most often resorted to when I was in a contemplative or heavy mood because the music in these was rarely overpowering; in fact, quite the opposite. They accompanied you rather than demanding your attention, which could be a good or a bad thing depending on how you relate to music. At the least, I was sure that the so called reviewers of this product were not telling the complete story. These earphones were far from the universal winner of the in-ear wireless category.
On APP, the fact that music felt like it was accompanying me rather than demanding my attention was confusing because on some occasions, I wanted music to sit in front of me and take all my attention. It is very subjective and I don’t have the same disposition to music always, but allow me to explain. On some bouts of happy mood, for example, I wanted the drums of my favourite track to land with a bit of oomph, and the voice of the artist to take me with it – ups and downs, highs and lows. I wanted to hop, chuckle, and waltz around the room with the guitars and piano strokes. I wanted the violin to go down my heart and float around the stage as it did so. All of this, I wanted at once. When this symphony of instruments took place, I wanted to be wherever I wanted: with the strings, behind the vocalist, next to the guitarist, or near the percussion; on the grasslands, the mountains, in love with someone, or filled with a nostalgic lull. The Sonys with their bold and serious rendition of instruments and vocals allowed for this possibility, fatiguing as it was. The APP not. APP would rather have you work, play, or do your thing and live your life while it adds a bit of sparkle to your environment. It rarely took me inside of the orchestra or brought the strings to my heart; I was always in the know that I am very much in reality, and music is only an accompaniment. The advantage of this was that APP allowed for music to slip easily into the background and rarely made it overwhelming. The disadvantage? It was unable to disconnect me from that world where I was. Sometimes, that world was not so neutral. Long story short – APP was, in relation to the Sonys, flat and boring in some ways while being sparkly and happy in other ways. This confusion caused me immense pain because I developed a love-and-hate relationship with my APP.
The source of this pain may as well have been my conflated relationship with music. I don’t always want to escape the reality of my world with music. Yet, I need a pair of earphones that allows for it. I want music to be comfortable and not overwhelming at the same time. I want it all.
On good days, listening on APP was like appreciating humour without laughing your heart out. You know they were good. On most other days, it was a very frustrating experience. Music sounded “smaller”, cheaper even, and hollow. I disliked Apple for overtaking the internet with sheer capital power and the reviewers for accepting “review units” and sounding superlative adjectives for the earphones. On bad days, I was miserable with APP. I kept returning to Sonys but when I did, I missed how comfortable and blend-in-the-background APP were. Then I was miserable again because I thought modern big-tech had taken me over – this is what they want. They want to slap their product on my body for longer hours; their mission is quantity over quality of time I spend with the product. For long, this was my judgment. When I wanted to listen to music intently, with detail, or when I wanted to escape and dream with my music, I would wear the Sonys. But while commuting, random small runs to the supermarket, or when I was already feeling overwhelmed, I’d put on my APP to just have the music softly play with no impact in the background.
There was one exception to all this, and a serious one: when you play Dolby Atmos tracks on APP, it changes a lot. Of course, I am not referring to badly mixed Atmos tracks. The good ones sound so good that it fulfils my “want it all” soul and satiates it. This is especially true when APPs are paired with Apple TV and you watch an Atmos mixed show on them. The sound is so real that with the comfort of APPs, I forget that I have earphones on. Sometimes, when on the screen a door opens, I am guilty of looking behind if someone just walked in! On Sonys, I was throughout impressed with how they had tuned the human voice – they got it down to being very real but also very musical. On APP, the emphasis on high frequency made the voice brighter but not so real. This was different with dialogues on Atmos movies on Apple TV. I found the explanation for this soon enough – Apple admitted to the media that they programmed the APP in a way that their tuning changes depending on the device that it’s connected to. Of course this might apply to devices only on the Apple ecosystem (in the Apple-verse, there are only Apple devices and humans who don’t pay this company regularly for at least two of their devices are persona non-grata).
Sadly though, this is the state of modern tech today. Devices themselves are not the end in a way that they should result in customer satisfaction by themselves. Instead, each of Apple’s products is a means to another end which is eventually to hook the consumers to use Apple services and pay the company more. It’s a tech cycle and I am disgusted by it. It is probably partly Apple’s success and my hypocrisy that I am typing this on a MacBook with an iPhone by my side. Either way, I never felt this with the Sony. Far from pulling you into its services, somethings about Sony 4s have the opposite effect: take the naming for example. Few consumers would even remember the model number, fewer would buy a Sony phone (gorgeous as those phones are), and even fewer would even recall a Sony service for which they are considering paying after buying the XM4 earphones. As for APP, at the least, I wanted to watch more shows in Atmos on Apple TV now that I had discovered how they worked with that configuration.
But now I digress. Back to the sound, I was still left confused with how APPs could be so highly recommended when they sounded so dissatisfying on stereo mixed music – which is still the norm. Maybe most people don’t want to escape the world with music, and what a sad world it is! After several dissatisfied and frustrating experiences, I finally let go of my APPs and kept them next to my tv remote mostly. I would only wear them on occasion. I concluded that they sounded tinny, light, and even cheap and plasticky on some settings. At this time, the lack of EQ annoyed me too. These earphones have an auto-EQ constantly running in the background (source: internet; Apple is not only manipulative, but also a secretive enterprise – they won’t tell you). This auto-EQ changes the sound profile depending on the environment and wearing angles. Often, it’s not noticeable, but it’s annoying when it is. I still think that these earphones don’t deserve the hype they have got. But my general impression of APPs were about to change.
It happened when I fell sick. With high fever and heavy nausea, I couldn’t distract myself with more screen time. I wanted some music to accompany my sickness but I couldn’t get past the resistance I felt when I thought of those memory foam from Sony 4/5 (I had XM5 by this time) pressing against my ear canal. So also, I didn’t want some bold percussion nor was I interested in the impact. I was, in this state, more drawn to the light breezy voices, with somewhat bright cymbals, and an occasionally wonderful soundstage would do. APP came to the rescue. I have not mentioned it yet, but when I finally let go of my wanting for “impact” and serious bold music timbre, I could finally focus on aspects of APP that I had overlooked so far. Amongst these one that stands out is the soundstage despite an annoying midrange.
The midrange of APPs is a bit weird. It’s harsh on loud volumes, thanks to APPs adoption of Fletcher-Munson Curve, or equal loudness monitor. This quite a dated and debatable research, and there is dispute in modern science if it is adequate. The research originally had questionable sample sizes and other parts of its methodology may be questioned in retrospect. Following the theory anyway, APPs reduce the high and low frequency at higher volumes to “correct” for the tendency of the listener to focus more on bass and treble in higher volume music. This makes the mid-range more “visible” (audible?) as you increase the volume and changes the character of the audio in higher volumes. To be sure, some other earphones adopt it too, but APPs do it in a way that was a bit more noticeable to me. The good part of this is that the listener is discouraged from increasing the volume only to get more bass and treble (which the listener is often left wanting in APPs). The sad part is the inconsistency of sound on APPs – a serious flaw if you ask me – across different volume levels. But I could use this to my advantage when I heard music through my sickness. I was of course listening to lower than usual volumes and everything seemed so balanced in a way that fewer earphones can manage at low volumes. The midrange, as I said, is a bit odd but it does make for a very airy and roomy soundstage. Instruments don’t land with impact, but as a result of the midrange tuning, they float around. The effect of this is a soundstage that sounds very mature, almost close to that of a decent headphones. Couple this with the comfortable silicon ear-tips and lightweight, and you’ve for earphones that sound and feel like they are not earphones. The reason for why it feels like sound is coming from a bigger speaker and not earphones starts with APPs midrange tuning.
When the focus of the listener is driven away from impact, boldness, and “landing”, and when like my sick-self, I am not focussed on instrument separation so much, this midrange allows for perception of unusually nice artefacts in music. For example, you can – if you focus – percieve the echo of the voice of the singer that goes around the room. You can hear the chorus less harshly, but “behind” the singer. This spatial placement of different voices is the strength of APPs. Yes, it occurs from the fact that APPs are more balanced. But the unfortunately, most people won’t be naturally attuned to focus on these midrange aspects of music. A lot of people still hear music by instruments more than by vocals. It doesn’t mean that vocals don’t matter. Just that instruments and the character of sound through various instruments define the beauty of the track a bit more. After all, voices are fewer than instruments. Even so, the APP focuses on unusual echos of instruments in the non-cliches of midrange that allows for spatial perception and makes the music “blend” easily with the world of the listener rather than overtaking them. I think Apple engineers were aware of this strength of the APPs and the tuning of bass and treble were contained to allow for these possibilities in the midrange. This especially helps the APP in the Atmos audio.
Eventually, I found some love for APPs and started using it more again. I now switch my APPs again with Sonys. In the meanwhile, I switched from Sony 4 to Sony 1000 XM5 (“Sony 5” here onwards). The APP still remain on my ears for longer due to its rhythmic lightness and comfortable fit. The Sonys for when there is need for some impact. Before I conclude, I will write briefly about my impressions of Sony 5. They are mostly similar to the 4, although Sony changed sound signature in the 5th version.
3. Sony WF 1000 XM5
[to follow].
I spent a good few weeks with it. Each music session on APP left me wanting for something and dissatisfied. Yet, the very lightness of music in APP kept me drawing towards it. It was a set of earphones I most often resorted to when I was in a contemplative or heavy mood because the music in these was rarely overpowering; in fact, quite the opposite. They accompanied you rather than demanding your attention, which could be a good or a bad thing depending on how you relate to music. At the least, I was sure that the so called reviewers of this product were not telling the complete story. These earphones were far from the universal winner of the in-ear wireless category.
On APP, the fact that music felt like it was accompanying me rather than demanding my attention was confusing because on some occasions, I wanted music to sit in front of me and take all my attention. It is very subjective and I don’t have the same disposition to music always, but allow me to explain. On some bouts of happy mood, for example, I wanted the drums of my favourite track to land with a bit of oomph, and the voice of the artist to take me with it – ups and downs, highs and lows. I wanted to hop, chuckle, and waltz around the room with the guitars and piano strokes. I wanted the violin to go down my heart and float around the stage as it did so. All of this, I wanted at once. When this symphony of instruments took place, I wanted to be wherever I wanted: with the strings, behind the vocalist, next to the guitarist, or near the percussion; on the grasslands, the mountains, in love with someone, or filled with a nostalgic lull. The Sonys with their bold and serious rendition of instruments and vocals allowed for this possibility, fatiguing as it was. The APP not. APP would rather have you work, play, or do your thing and live your life while it adds a bit of sparkle to your environment. It rarely took me inside of the orchestra or brought the strings to my heart; I was always in the know that I am very much in reality, and music is only an accompaniment. The advantage of this was that APP allowed for music to slip easily into the background and rarely made it overwhelming. The disadvantage? It was unable to disconnect me from that world where I was. Sometimes, that world was not so neutral. Long story short – APP was, in relation to the Sonys, flat and boring in some ways while being sparkly and happy in other ways. This confusion caused me immense pain because I developed a love-and-hate relationship with my APP.
The source of this pain may as well have been my conflated relationship with music. I don’t always want to escape the reality of my world with music. Yet, I need a pair of earphones that allows for it. I want music to be comfortable and not overwhelming at the same time. I want it all.
On good days, listening on APP was like appreciating humour without laughing your heart out. You know they were good. On most other days, it was a very frustrating experience. Music sounded “smaller”, cheaper even, and hollow. I disliked Apple for overtaking the internet with sheer capital power and the reviewers for accepting “review units” and sounding superlative adjectives for the earphones. On bad days, I was miserable with APP. I kept returning to Sonys but when I did, I missed how comfortable and blend-in-the-background APP were. Then I was miserable again because I thought modern big-tech had taken me over – this is what they want. They want to slap their product on my body for longer hours; their mission is quantity over quality of time I spend with the product. For long, this was my judgment. When I wanted to listen to music intently, with detail, or when I wanted to escape and dream with my music, I would wear the Sonys. But while commuting, random small runs to the supermarket, or when I was already feeling overwhelmed, I’d put on my APP to just have the music softly play with no impact in the background.
There was one exception to all this, and a serious one: when you play Dolby Atmos tracks on APP, it changes a lot. Of course, I am not referring to badly mixed Atmos tracks. The good ones sound so good that it fulfils my “want it all” soul and satiates it. This is especially true when APPs are paired with Apple TV and you watch an Atmos mixed show on them. The sound is so real that with the comfort of APPs, I forget that I have earphones on. Sometimes, when on the screen a door opens, I am guilty of looking behind if someone just walked in! On Sonys, I was throughout impressed with how they had tuned the human voice – they got it down to being very real but also very musical. On APP, the emphasis on high frequency made the voice brighter but not so real. This was different with dialogues on Atmos movies on Apple TV. I found the explanation for this soon enough – Apple admitted to the media that they programmed the APP in a way that their tuning changes depending on the device that it’s connected to. Of course this might apply to devices only on the Apple ecosystem (in the Apple-verse, there are only Apple devices and humans who don’t pay this company regularly for at least two of their devices are persona non-grata).
Sadly though, this is the state of modern tech today. Devices themselves are not the end in a way that they should result in customer satisfaction by themselves. Instead, each of Apple’s products is a means to another end which is eventually to hook the consumers to use Apple services and pay the company more. It’s a tech cycle and I am disgusted by it. It is probably partly Apple’s success and my hypocrisy that I am typing this on a MacBook with an iPhone by my side. Either way, I never felt this with the Sony. Far from pulling you into its services, somethings about Sony 4s have the opposite effect: take the naming for example. Few consumers would even remember the model number, fewer would buy a Sony phone (gorgeous as those phones are), and even fewer would even recall a Sony service for which they are considering paying after buying the XM4 earphones. As for APP, at the least, I wanted to watch more shows in Atmos on Apple TV now that I had discovered how they worked with that configuration.
But now I digress. Back to the sound, I was still left confused with how APPs could be so highly recommended when they sounded so dissatisfying on stereo mixed music – which is still the norm. Maybe most people don’t want to escape the world with music, and what a sad world it is! After several dissatisfied and frustrating experiences, I finally let go of my APPs and kept them next to my tv remote mostly. I would only wear them on occasion. I concluded that they sounded tinny, light, and even cheap and plasticky on some settings. At this time, the lack of EQ annoyed me too. These earphones have an auto-EQ constantly running in the background (source: internet; Apple is not only manipulative, but also a secretive enterprise – they won’t tell you). This auto-EQ changes the sound profile depending on the environment and wearing angles. Often, it’s not noticeable, but it’s annoying when it is. I still think that these earphones don’t deserve the hype they have got. But my general impression of APPs were about to change.
It happened when I fell sick. With high fever and heavy nausea, I couldn’t distract myself with more screen time. I wanted some music to accompany my sickness but I couldn’t get past the resistance I felt when I thought of those memory foam from Sony 4/5 (I had XM5 by this time) pressing against my ear canal. So also, I didn’t want some bold percussion nor was I interested in the impact. I was, in this state, more drawn to the light breezy voices, with somewhat bright cymbals, and an occasionally wonderful soundstage would do. APP came to the rescue. I have not mentioned it yet, but when I finally let go of my wanting for “impact” and serious bold music timbre, I could finally focus on aspects of APP that I had overlooked so far. Amongst these one that stands out is the soundstage despite an annoying midrange.
The midrange of APPs is a bit weird. It’s harsh on loud volumes, thanks to APPs adoption of Fletcher-Munson Curve, or equal loudness monitor. This quite a dated and debatable research, and there is dispute in modern science if it is adequate. The research originally had questionable sample sizes and other parts of its methodology may be questioned in retrospect. Following the theory anyway, APPs reduce the high and low frequency at higher volumes to “correct” for the tendency of the listener to focus more on bass and treble in higher volume music. This makes the mid-range more “visible” (audible?) as you increase the volume and changes the character of the audio in higher volumes. To be sure, some other earphones adopt it too, but APPs do it in a way that was a bit more noticeable to me. The good part of this is that the listener is discouraged from increasing the volume only to get more bass and treble (which the listener is often left wanting in APPs). The sad part is the inconsistency of sound on APPs – a serious flaw if you ask me – across different volume levels. But I could use this to my advantage when I heard music through my sickness. I was of course listening to lower than usual volumes and everything seemed so balanced in a way that fewer earphones can manage at low volumes. The midrange, as I said, is a bit odd but it does make for a very airy and roomy soundstage. Instruments don’t land with impact, but as a result of the midrange tuning, they float around. The effect of this is a soundstage that sounds very mature, almost close to that of a decent headphones. Couple this with the comfortable silicon ear-tips and lightweight, and you’ve for earphones that sound and feel like they are not earphones. The reason for why it feels like sound is coming from a bigger speaker and not earphones starts with APPs midrange tuning.
When the focus of the listener is driven away from impact, boldness, and “landing”, and when like my sick-self, I am not focussed on instrument separation so much, this midrange allows for perception of unusually nice artefacts in music. For example, you can – if you focus – percieve the echo of the voice of the singer that goes around the room. You can hear the chorus less harshly, but “behind” the singer. This spatial placement of different voices is the strength of APPs. Yes, it occurs from the fact that APPs are more balanced. But the unfortunately, most people won’t be naturally attuned to focus on these midrange aspects of music. A lot of people still hear music by instruments more than by vocals. It doesn’t mean that vocals don’t matter. Just that instruments and the character of sound through various instruments define the beauty of the track a bit more. After all, voices are fewer than instruments. Even so, the APP focuses on unusual echos of instruments in the non-cliches of midrange that allows for spatial perception and makes the music “blend” easily with the world of the listener rather than overtaking them. I think Apple engineers were aware of this strength of the APPs and the tuning of bass and treble were contained to allow for these possibilities in the midrange. This especially helps the APP in the Atmos audio.
Eventually, I found some love for APPs and started using it more again. I now switch my APPs again with Sonys. In the meanwhile, I switched from Sony 4 to Sony 1000 XM5 (“Sony 5” here onwards). The APP still remain on my ears for longer due to its rhythmic lightness and comfortable fit. The Sonys for when there is need for some impact. Before I conclude, I will write briefly about my impressions of Sony 5. They are mostly similar to the 4, although Sony changed sound signature in the 5th version.
3. Sony WF 1000 XM5
[to follow].
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