I’ve found a good number of negative reviews of Bose QC 2 and quite a few good things said about Sony WF-1000XM5 so I’m leaning towards buying them but would love to hear the general recommendation on Lemmy first.
I live in a very noisy environment and need earphones for my sleep, when I work or relax, and for listening to podcasts as well as a bit of music. And since sleep is most important for me, I have in-ear comfort as the top priority.
I’m still on the Sony XM4. No reason to upgrade really.
I bought the XM4 somewhat recently, because it’s like half the price of the XM5 new. And from reviews it supposedly has minor upgrades, so not worth the difference.
I got the xm5 after I lost my 4’s and the differences aren’t that great. The bass seemed better on the 4’s too.
Aha! I’ve had both of these types.
Got a set of the Sony ones. Comfort 10/10, sound quality 12/10, stupid fuckin touch sensors instead of physical buttons that trigger constantly when you put the headphones down round your neck and you can’t switch them off and it drives you so fuckin mad you sell them on eBay at a massive loss 0/10
So I got the Bose QC 45, comfort 12/10, sound quality 10/10, physical buttons, was 5/10 because there was no way to check battery level but they updated them last week so now long-press on the left button does that 10/10
The Bose ones even feel more well-made than the Sony and were €100 less
The noise cancelling on the Sony was slightly better but the Bose ones aren’t as tight so that could be why
I will never, ever buy a set of headphones with touch sensors ever again
Um, I believe OP was talking about earphones, not headphones. :)
Not sure why you got downvoted but you’re right 😅
Sony has best in the world noise cancelling and better audio quality than Bose pretty much any day of the week. In fact, I wouldn’t recommend Bose almost ever, for anything. Not for the price. They’re like Monster cables (maybe not quite as evil though).
I have both. The way Bose handles bluetooth with multiple devices is so awful that I gave up on them and bought the Sony’s. They would probably be fine if you only intend to ever pair them to one device. However, for me, I just never figured out what they were trying to do. I’d turn them on and they’d wake up a sleeping iPad in another room, or closed laptop, and then refuse to connect to my phone (using the phone’s built in Bluetooth menu) until I opened the Bose App to reconfigure them. The last straw was on video calls for work-- they’d randomly re-connect with a random device.
The Sony’s just don’t do that. They don’t wake up random sleeping or idle devices, and if they do connect to the wrong device I can use the OS Bluetooth menus to manually connect them to a given device – rather than opening the app in my phone.
If you might also care about the socioeconomic manufacturing process and fair payment for these necessary resources, I can recommend the Fairbuds in-ears or Fairbuds XL for over ear.
https://shop.fairphone.com/fairbuds
Both have noise cancelling as an option and an equalizer via app.
Tbh fair phone really turned me off when they removed the headphone jack on their phones. All for sustainability but they force you to use wireless earbuds that never seem to last more than a few years, or buy their sustainable, overpriced mediocre headphones.
That’s fair to be annoyed about. I can understand their approach and their tradeoff for a bit of better water-/rain protection and having less components inside. With an USB-C adapter I am using my analog ear buds, even though I switch more and more to bluetooth as I find them more comfortable.
Mediocre headphones, I would not say. They are definitely not top of the line technology wise, but I find them sufficient and sometimes even more than I expected fairly produced hardware to be.
That’d be great but can you comment on the comfort and sound/ANC quality?
They’re underwhelming especially for the price. You trade performance for sustainability and repairability… But they do work.
Better than individual experiences I like to present some reviews, but there doesn’t seem to be that many technical reviews in english, at least I did not find them. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/apr/11/fairphone-fairbuds-review-ethically-made-earbuds-with-replaceable-batteries
However, for in-ears, I find them comfortable, but I am more an over ears person. ANC is alright, I’d say. A bit annoying if I am using it on the train and keep hitting the wall or head rest. But either I adapt to these sounds or the hardware takes a bit more time to filter these vibrations out.
For the tradeoff of better sustainability and exchangability if something breaks or the batteries need replacing, I find the price fair.
Both the Bose and Sony are considered top but Sony is more expensive.I have the Bose and like them but a known defect is the earpad that will break very quickly (buy Chinese replacement for those)
sennheiser always makes good products. i have an old pair of BT 4.50 ANCs that have been kicking for more than 5 years. they’re great
I would agree, but I would not want to sleep with them on as OP requested.
I’ve got Bose QC35 ii or something. If you’ve got big ears or a big head, they’re great.
I didn’t do many tests myself comparing the noise cancellation, but they do a good enough job for me at cancelling our steady noise (like wind, engine noises, computer fans, etc).
I can wear them all day and not feel like I need to take a break for my ears or head.
I had the 1000XM4 until recently and it was fantastic, too. My SO would often get mad at me for not paying attention when I was in the computer.
To be fair, they can’t really expect you to be able to hear them with your tiny ears when you’re encased like that…
You’d think so…
Really wanted to love the WF-1000XM5, but I had issues with the left earbud constantly hissing and worse still, they have a habit of turning themselves on while in the case (cutting off any media playback and draining the battery if I didn’t notice)
Sennheiser always make good quality cans.
I sleep with my AirPods Pro in every night. I can’t live without them.
Sennheiser, jabber. You’ll need to buy into their up-market products though.
I should also add that the gesture control on Sony is almost worthless. To turn the volume up or down a significant amount, you have to swipe up or down like 20 times. Half the time it ends up reading one of the swipes as forward or backward and skips to another song.
For me it works 80% of the time. It’s only if your hands are slightly moist when you’re in trouble.
The volume is slow but I use the play/pause, next features all the time without issue. I think you need to fix the direction you swipe your finger
Haha, could be. I just find it super annoying. I think I’ll probably go back to Bose, as it just worked without any real fuss. That’s more important to me than a marginal improvement in sound quality.
