OVER-EARS

Clamp a pair of these beauties to your head and, as well as looking a bit like a Cyberman, you'll be able to wallow in a pool of high-quality immersive audio

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SONY WH-1000XM4

For once, 'less' really is 'more'. Compared to the extremely capable WH-1000XM3s they replaced, these WH-1000XM4s are slightly slimmer and slightly lighter, and travel in a slightly smaller case. And as an overall proposition, they're slightly better - which means that, by extension, these are the finest pound-for-pound wireless over-ear headphones you can buy.

The specifications haven't got any smaller, naturally. The WH-1000XM45 can be controlled via voice commands, capacitive touch controls, or an app for which the word 'comprehensive is a complete understatement. They have adaptive noise-cancelling that monitors your environment 700 times a second in order to make sure it's doing an optimal job; they're compatible with Sony's 360 Reality Audio spatial sound algorithm; and they even have music-pausing accelerometers that detect when you've taken them off your head to pause the music - which was about the only worthwhile feature the XM3s went without.

Most important of all, though, the WH-1000XM4s sound the absolute business. With some fat hi-res digital audio files playing (they're compatible with Sony's LDAC codec), the Sonys combine forensic detail retrieval, heavyweight punch, outstanding rhythmic expression, and brilliantly intimate and revealing reproduction of vocals into an overall presentation that can't be bettered at anything like this money.