Sony WF-1000XM3 review | Stuff

PERFORMANCE: THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME

Install the app, arrange the touch controls as you’d like them, get the XM3s comfy in your ear and pair them with your player. None of it takes very long and the rewards are significant.

The WF-1000XM3 are a very musical listen. It may seem like a blindingly obvious thing to say about a product like this, but there are enough unmusical headphones around for the Sonys to really stand out. Any music you play through the XM3s sounds natural, believable and full of character.

Every element that goes into painting a convincing musical picture is here, and in quantity. At the bottom end, for instance, the Sonys dig deep and hit hard, but control bass sounds to the extent that they start and stop with absolute precision, and never threaten to swamp the frequencies above them. At the opposite end, treble sounds have plenty of crisp attack, but there’s never any sense they could get coarse – even at considerable volume.

In between, the midrange is open, spacious and just as pleasantly detailed as the rest of the frequency range. Lætitia Sadier’s voice during Stereolab’s ‘Jenny Ondioline’ exists in its own space, integrated into the rest of the music as effectively as it is isolated from it. The overall balance is skilfully struck.

There’s a fair bit more dynamism available here than from any number of nominal competitors, too. Small harmonic variances are given just as much prominence as big Nirvana-style dynamic swings, but they’re never overstated and never at the expense of the bigger picture. The XM3s are organised, agile and punchy without ever seeming to have too many observations of their own to make – they simply serve up the music in as realistic a fashion as possible.

The more a recording requires scale, the more the Sonys provide it. The more it requires texture and detail, the Sonys reveal it. The more it charges and attacks, the more the Sonys sink their teeth in.

The Sony WF-1000XM3 even have half-decent call quality, despite the fact the mics are quite a distance from your mouth. As all-rounders, they’re mighty impressive.