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Wireless Headphones

March 2022

What Hi-Fi Sound and Vision

Huge technological advances and keen competition add up to a real bonanza for the buyer in this sector

Sony WH-1000XM4

₹26,990

WHAT HI-FI? AWARDS 2021

BEST WIRELESS HEADPHONES ₹15,000-₹30,000 PRODUCT OF THE YEAR

These advanced over-ears represented such a significant step forward for Sony when they featured on these pages last year that we're not at all surprised they're here again this year.

That's not to say Sony has sat on its laurels: you can now specify these noise-cancellers in Midnight Blue and Silent White as well as Silver or Black.

Fit is very comfortable and there's just enough pressure to grip your ears and get a solid seal around them without the headphones feeling too loose - although we wouldn't recommend using them during exercise.

You'll need to run Sony's NC Optimiser (via the 'Custom' button) before you use the headphones for the first time. It optimises the noise-cancelling based on factors such as the shape of your face and whether or not you wear glasses.

Among the headline features here is an advanced DSEE Extreme sound processor that attempts to upscale compressed music to near hi-res quality, and an artificial intelligence technology called Edge-AI. This was developed with the help of Sony Music Studios Tokyo to analyse music in real-time to reproduce a more accurate sound, more faithful to the original track.