Sony WF-1000XM3 Truly Wireless   Headphones Review

The Sony WF-1000XM3 are sleek but somewhat bulky truly wireless headphones. Their metal build looks stylish and high-end, but they're fairly big and protrude quite far out from your head when you wear them. These headphones are available in either black or silver.

The Sony WF-1000XM3 are decently comfortable. They come with several differently-sized foam and silicone ear tips, but the smallest size is bigger than what comes with many of the other headphones we've tested, so they may not be ideal if you have small ears. The earbud itself is fairly bulky and protrudes quite a lot from your ear. They don't feel extremely sturdy, and you may need to push them quite far into your ears for a good fit, which may bother some users. If you're looking for premium in-ear headphones with a more comfortable fit, check out the Sony WF-1000XM4 Truly Wireless or the EPOS GTW 270 Hybrid Truly Wireless.

The Sony WF-1000XM3 have touch-sensitive surfaces on each bud for different controls. You can easily control music and calls and can cycle between their ANC and talk-through modes. Holding down the left earbud enters the talk-through mode, and as soon as you release it, it goes back to ANC mode. You can also trigger your device’s voice assistant by holding down the right earbud. These commands can be remapped inside the app for both earbuds, but out-of-the-box, these headphones don't offer volume controls on the buds. The touch-sensitive surface is responsive, easy to use, and offers good audio feedback when making inputs. If you prefer a control scheme with physical buttons, check out the Jabra Elite 75t Truly Wireless.

Like most in-ears, the Sony WF-1000XM3 are very breathable. They don’t trap heat inside your ears and you shouldn’t notice a difference in temperature when wearing them. This helps make them a great option for sports, as you shouldn't sweat more than usual.

The Sony WF-1000XM3 are very portable, like all in-ear headphones. You can easily put them inside a pocket or a bag, making them easy to carry around. They also come with a nice hard charging case.

The Sony WF-1000XM3's case is great. It's stylish and feels well-made. The case is a bit bigger than those of some competitors, but it can still easily fit in some pockets or a bag. It holds the headphones well thanks to magnets and protects the buds from physical damage and scratches. Like most earbud cases, the battery will likely lose charge capacity over time. If you're interested in earbuds that have a case with a user-replaceable battery, consider the Fairphone Fairbuds True Wireless.

The Sony WF-1000XM3 have a great build quality. Their design doesn't look as premium as the Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless, but feel very well-made and could likely survive a few accidental drops without a problem. The case feels solid and looks high-end. Unfortunately, we didn't find any information about an IP rating, which measures dust and water resistance. The Jaybird Vista Truly Wireless or the IP55-rated Sony WF-SP800N Truly Wireless are IP-rated in-ear headphones, although we don't currently test for that.

The Sony WF-1000XM3 are decently stable, with caveats. The smallest tip option is quite large, which made finding an air-tight fit a bit harder, especially if you have small ears. They also don’t have any stability fins or ear-hooks. If you like this design but would like something more stable, check out the Anker Soundcore Liberty 2 Pro Truly Wireless.

• Sony WF-1000XM3 earbuds
• 4x silicone tip sizes
• 3x foam tip sizes
• Charging case
• USB-C to USB-A charging cable
• Manuals

The Sony WF-1000XM3's sound profile is fairly neutral, although a little boomy. The low-bass is also a bit underemphasized, so mixes lack some thump and rumble. That said, their sound profile is still suitable for a variety of audio content. The companion app has a graphic EQ feature you can use to adjust the sound profile if you don't like how they sound out-of-the-box too.

The Sony WF-1000XM3 have remarkable frequency response consistency. If you achieve a proper fit and an airtight seal using the assortment of tips that come with the headphones, then you should be able to get consistent bass and treble delivery every time you use the headphones.

The Sony WF-1000XM3 have great bass accuracy. The slight lack of thump and rumble may be caused by the poor seal we achieved in testing due to the overly large ear tips. If you manage to get an air-tight seal, you’re probably going to get a good amount of low-bass thump, which is quite common on Sony headphones. On the other hand, we measured an overemphasis in the high-bass, which results in a bit of excess boominess in the overall bass performance.

These headphones have amazing mid-range accuracy. Vocals and instruments sound present and clear, although a slightly over-emphasized low mid-range results in a somewhat cluttered or muddy sound.

The Sony WF-1000XM3's treble accuracy is great. The response is very flat and even for most of the range, resulting in detailed, present, and bright vocals and instrumentals.

These headphones have excellent peaks and dips performance, as none of the variations should be very noticeable. The mid-bass to low-mid range is slightly overemphasized, which makes your mix a bit boomy and muddy. Vocals and lead instruments are also nudged back towards the middle of the mix by a small dip in the mid-mid range.

The Sony WF-1000XM3's stereo imaging is outstanding. Their weighted group delay is well below the audibility threshold. This ensures a tight bass and a transparent treble reproduction. Also, the L/R drivers of our unit are well-matched in frequency, amplitude, and phase response. This is important for the accurate placement and localization of objects in the stereo image. Note that these results are only valid for our unit and yours may perform differently.

The Sony WF-1000XM3's passive soundstage is awful. Due to their closed-back design and lack of interaction with the outer-ear, sound is perceived as coming from the inside of your head instead of from speakers placed around you. Their soundstage won't be perceived to be as open as that of open-back earbuds like the Apple AirPods (2nd generation) Truly Wireless.

Update 02/07/2022: These headphones are compatible with Sony's 360 Reality Audio feature, which you can control in the companion app. This feature can offer better sound quality. However, you need to subscribe to services that support this feature and use compatible files. Unfortunately, they're no longer compatible with the Virtualphones Technology (VPT) feature. We have updated our review to reflect these changes.

These headphones are compatible with Sony's 360 Reality Audio (360RA) virtual surround sound feature. Using 360RA comes with a couple of caveats. Firstly, only a few premium-tier music streaming apps offer support for it, including Deezer, TIDAL, and nugs.net. Also, relatively few songs are mixed with 360RA, and the quality of said mix can vary depending on the artist.

The Sony WF-1000XM3's weighted harmonic distortion performance is great, with mostly clean and pure audio reproduction. There's a spike in the high-mids at high volumes, but it can be hard to hear with real-life content.

These are the settings used to test the Sony WF-1000XM3. Our results are only valid when using this configuration.

Update 03/20/2020: We received some feedback from our users that a recent firmware update to these headphones improved their ANC performance. Upon updating and retesting the ANC, we didn't find any significant changes to their isolation performance, and our test results remain the same.

The Sony WF-1000XM3 headphones block out a satisfactory amount of ambient noise. The ANC feature struggles somewhat to block lower-frequency sounds like plane and bus engines and turning it on hurts the headphones' ability to passively block higher-pitched sounds like background conversations. It's also hard to achieve an airtight fit in your ear, so they may not block out as much noise as other in-ears. Luckily, they do a great job of reducing sounds like ambient chatter or the hum of an A/C unit. For even better isolation with ANC earbuds, check out the Amazon Echo Buds True Wireless 2019 (1st generation) and the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds Truly Wireless.

The Sony WF-1000XM3's leakage performance is impressive. The sound that does leak sounds thin, and it's likely you won’t bother surrounding colleagues in an office setting, even if you're listening to content at high volumes.

The Sony WF-1000XM3’s integrated microphone's recording quality is okay. Recorded or transmitted speech sounds natural and fairly clear but might be perceived as thin.

The Sony WF-1000XM3's microphone has sub-par noise handling. It has trouble separating your voice from loud background sounds like bus engines, so it's not ideal for making phone calls from a busy street or any other noisy environment. The Sennheiser CX 400BT True Wireless are in-ears with better noise handling.

The Sony WF-1000XM3's battery performance is okay overall but is quite good for truly wireless headphones. We measured almost seven hours of continuous playback on a single charge, slightly over the advertised six hours. According to the manufacturer, you can get about eight hours of continuous use if you disable the ANC feature, though we don't test for this. Also, battery performance can vary depending on real-life use, meaning you may get different results with your headphones. The case gives you three additional charges, and there's also an auto-off timer that can be set inside their companion app. That said, while you can use the left bud while the right bud charges, you can't use the right bud while the left is in the case. Some users have also reported this issue, particularly on Android phones. Since you can't use both buds individually while the other one charges, we don't consider these headphones to support 'Audio While Charging'.

Unlike the Sony WF-XB700 Truly Wireless, the Sony WF-1000XM3 are compatible with the Sony|Headphones Connect app, which gives you a lot of customization options and excellent control over the features. The app is easy-to-use and offers quite a few uncommon options. It gives you access to live data on the adaptive noise cancelling feature as well as to a slider for noise cancelling and ambient sound control. There's also a graphic equalizer with presets, as well as an in-app media player. You can even remap the touch-sensitive controls of each earbud for their respective hold or tap commands.

These truly wireless headphones have good connectivity. They're Bluetooth 5.0-compatible and have a case that supports NFC, which makes pairing very quick and easy. However, they don’t support multi-device pairing, which is quite disappointing for high-end headphones. The Sony WF-1000XM3's latency might be a bit high for watching video content, particularly on PC and Android devices. However, apps and devices compensate for this audio lag, so your real-world experience may vary. On the other hand, it seems that there’s a delay between the buds. We experienced a noticeable delay where the right earbud would play/pause music before the left bud, which is frustrating.

As expected, the Sony WF-1000XM3 headphones can’t be used wired for audio. They come with a USB-C to USB-A cable for charging their case.

These headphones use Bluetooth to connect wirelessly, so they aren't compatible with Xbox One.

The Sony WF-1000XM3 come with a nice hard charging case that holds three charges. The case doesn’t have any inputs other than the USB-C charging port.