SONY WH-1000XM4
HEADPHONES OF THE YEAR
In truth, there wasn’t much we disliked about Sony’s WH-10000XM3s – but any minor quibbles were addressed by their 2020 successors, resulting in a near-flawless pair of noise-cancelling cans. Sony kept the XM4s as great-sounding and comfortable as before, improved the already excellent ANC and added new features like automatic wear detection, the ability to connect to multiple Bluetooth devices at once and ‘Speak-to-Chat’, which pauses audio and allows ambient noise to pass through when it detects your voice. Should you have this function enabled, it does mean an end to singing along to your music… but we dare say that your loss is everyone sitting in close proximity’s gain. No offence. £349 / sony.co.uk