Amazon Renewed WF-1000XM5 Wireless Noise Canceling Headphones – Black

Un casque d’une très bonne qualité sonore avec des tas de fonctionnalités que je ne maîtrise pas encore. Par contre je trouve que le vendeur se moque du monde avec le petit bout de papier servant de mode d’emploi qui est écrit si petit que l’on ne peut même pas le lire avec une loupe. Ceci explique peut-être pourquoi je ne comprends pas toujours son mode d’emploi que je suis obligé de chercher sur internet.

I bought them renewed or pre owned. Came very clean, only thing I didn’t like was no box no instructions, but in the age we live in I found everything I needed to know online so I’m satisfied. Came with a card that explains the ease of contacting them if there’s a problem with my order. Good sound quality came with the traditional three sets of ear tips.

I received the original box, but only one set of ear tips. It’s lucky that the ones I received seem to fit my ear canal, but others might not be so lucky. All of the contents appear to be in like-new condition, suggesting that the previous purchaser removed some of the ear tips, or that the unit I received was opened for spare parts. No instructions were included.

The headphones themselves are phenomenal. These are the only earbuds I’ve ever used which I could not improve with EQ. I’m literally using the default, flat EQ because that sounds best to my ear. Incredible.

I bought these as an upgrade over the Anker Soundcore Space A40, which compare favourably for the money. I can EQ the Anker to sound fairly close to the Sony, but the Anker lacks a sparkle and clarity which I can only seem to get out of the Sony. If you can’t afford the Sony, the Anker would be a decent alternative if you’re comfortable with a slight decrease in sound quality.

Sony’s Android software is horrible. Sony needs to fire every product manager and director involved in that abomination. Installing the software, one is bombarded with seven thousand modal dialog boxes informing the user of a million different features, asking intrusive questions, and generally just being annoying. The spam doesn’t stop once you proceed through the initial setup. At all times, weird popups appear to distract you from your task. The UI controls feel clunky and severely lacking polish, like something made by a garage startup company.

There are a limited number of EQ presets, and you cannot add more. There are only 3 slots for custom EQ configurations, a pointless limitation in the age of software. Changing between EQ presets causes the sound to cut out for about 500 milliseconds, which severely impedes the ability to compare custom EQ and fine-tune them.

Astonishingly, the “Flat” EQ preset does NOT sound identical to a “Custom” EQ preset which is set to a flat configuration. Two flat EQ profiles that do not sound the same. I have no idea what is going on, but this makes no sense. I personally find the default “Flat” EQ to sound best, but I would like to boost the bass very slightly, and I can’t do this, because as soon as I move that slider, the Sony software forces me to start editing the “Custom” EQ preset, beginning from a flat EQ profile, which does NOT sound the same as the “Flat” profile. It is thus impossible to modify the default, “Flat” EQ profile, which is pretty infuriating because these headphones are very expensive.

The sound isolation is phenomenal. The memory foam ear tips appear to be doing almost all of the heavy lifting. I have a large box fan near me, and when I insert the headphones with noise cancellation disabled, I can barely hear the (normally quite loud) fan. Activating noise cancellation removes all remaining noise. I can’t speak to the rest of the frequency spectrum, but compared to the Anker Soundcore Space A40, these Sony earbuds are SILENT. It’s an eerie silence. I wasn’t expecting the noise cancellation to be this good. Note that it will depend heavily on whether the earbuds seal your canal correctly. On initial insertion, I didn’t get a good seal, and I wondered if the noise cancellation was working at all.

Overall I think these earbuds have incredible potential. Their performance reputation is well deserved. However, Sony clearly does not care about its customers and their day-to-day experience. Incredible hardware paired with infuriatingly bad software. Sony is lucky that the default performance of these buds is so good, otherwise I would want to return them.

Update #1: I did some research and found that Sony makes replacement ear tips, model EP-NI1010, but Sony’s authorized online reseller in Canada does not sell them! These ear tips appear unavailable within Canada, and will cost over $100 to import from overseas. Total customer service disaster. I contacted Amazon customer support, who offered a partial refund for the missing earbud tips, or a full refund if I return the product. They also recommended that I reach out to the seller to ask them to send the missing tips, which I have done.

Update #2: I discovered, buried within the Sony Headphones Connect Android app, that I can request replacement ear tips from Sony! Tap the “System” tab, then scroll down and tap on the text “Determines Optimal Earbud Tips”. Do the “Test The Wearing Condition” test. After the test has failed, you will see an option: “The earbud tips may be too small … If none of the supplied earbud tips fit, you can request other types of earbud tips. Click here to order.” You can then select your country and fill out a form to request replacement earbud tips. After entering my address, I received the message: “We have received your request for new earbud tips. Please allow 7 to 10 business days for processing and delivery.” I didn’t enter my credit card information, so it appears that these will be free. We’ll see what happens. I should note that after filling out this form once, the option does not appear again, even if you reinstall the app. To get the option to order replacements again, go to the “System” tab within the Sony Headphones Connect app, scroll to the bottom and select “Initialize Settings”, then choose “Initialize App/Headphone Settings”.

Update #3: On the recommendation of other buyers, I bought the SpinFit Omni ear tips as a replacement. I got the small size, which is about 1 mm smaller than the medium Sony ear tips size that I have access to. On comparative listening, there is a slightly better sound from the Sony memory foam ear tips, but the SpinFit Omni are quite competitive. The Sonys are warmer and give better punch to bass frequencies. The sound isolation is also slightly better, but only slightly. Memory foam surprisingly seems to make a difference!

Update #4: Sony reached out to me via email to clarify my shipping address, and have confirmed that they are shipping replacement ear tips to me. Yay!

Update #5: Sony did not provide any tracking information for the replacement ear tips, and I received phone calls from FedEx indicating that I was not home to receive the package. It turns out that Sony sent the ear tips using FedEx Direct Signature requirement, and they are now being held at some location, and I must physically go there with my ID. I am disabled and cannot travel to this location, and FedEx will not allow another person to pick up the package instead. It makes no sense to ship a cheap replacement part with an expensive and inconvenient signature requirement. I get Amazon packages left at my front door every day without issue. I emailed Sony to request that they call FedEx to waive the signature requirement, and ask FedEx to make a redelivery, which is how FedEx insists upon resolving such situations.

Update #6: I called Sony and, to their credit, had one of the best customer support experiences of my life. Their phone tree is a horrible labyrinth of pain and suffering, but once I got through to a human on my THIRD call, that human was truly wonderful and clarified that Sony had contacted FedEx with my request, but was waiting on a response. Sony said they would email me when there is a resolution.

Update #7: The package finally arrived, but with no notice. I found it in my mailbox when I checked my mail. It contained the WRONG replacement ear tips. The replacements are silicone, but the XM5 earbuds are supposed to come with memory foam ear tips. I am heartbroken. This ordeal has wasted way too much of my time. This is a terrible way to treat customers who keep giving unlimited second chances to make things right. I have emailed Sony to ask them to send the correct part.

Update #8: I did some comparative listening between the new silicone replacement ear tips that Sony sent (YY2963/BQ-TPKIT), the original Sony memory foam tips (EP-NI1010), the SpinFit Omni, and my Sennheiser HD-600 open back headphones. The new Sony silicones seal much easier and better in my ear canal compared to the Sony memory foam ones, providing shockingly improved noise cancellation. These are by far the best noise cancelling ear tips currently in my possession, however this may be due to fitting my ear canal better. Recall that the Sony memory foam ear tips I currently have are one size too large for me. The SpinFit Omni feel slightly too small by comparison. The Sony silicone tips are very competitive with the Sony memory foam tips, but have slightly less clarity, slightly muddier bass, and louder bass. The Sony memory foam tips have tighter bass which can sound punchier at times, and add a high end clarity and sparkle which, although very slight, really elevates the immersiveness of the sound for certain tracks. Going back and forth, I really feel the silicone tips are very competitive, and ultimately it comes down to a matter of taste: do you prefer a warmer tone, or a tone with more sparkle and clarity? I prefer clarity, especially now because I suffer from derealization due to prior COVID infection, so my conscious experience feels distant and removed from reality, as if I am experiencing reality through a television screen. Enhanced clarity of sound brings my conscious experience closer to what I used to experience before my disability. So I still give the edge to the Sony memory foam tips, although when listening to a panel of several songs, I’m not confident that I could tell them apart from the Sony silicone in a blind listening test. The SpinFit Omni featured noticeably less bass, higher treble, sounding almost tinny and a little bit shrill, and very noticeably inferior noise cancellation. However, to SpinFit’s credit, the Omni tips still provide very good performance, especially when compared to other headphones such as the Anker Soundcore Space A40 mentioned earlier in this review. The Sony silicone tips sounded clearly superior to the SpinFit, however only when wearing the medium size; the small size sounded very similar to the SpinFit, suggesting that the seal quality within the ear canal is a critical factor, and the next larger size of SpinFit may be competitive with the Sony silicone. The Sennheiser HD-600 open-back headphones performed surprisingly poorly, and while I do prefer them to the SpinFit, and while they do sound very good, they featured weaker bass and slightly too elevated treble tones for my taste. My conclusion is that the Sony WF-1000XM5 with Sony memory foam ear tips remain the gold standard. I would really like Sony to send me the correct ear tips that I bought and paid for, because the memory foam seems integral to the sound of the XM5 earbuds. The only reason to pay so much money for a pair of wireless earbuds is to achieve the best possible sound quality, and achieving this is now a critical accessibility need for me since my disability compromises the way that I perceive sound. I actually require the product to perform at its best in order to enjoy music in the way that an able-bodied person could with inferior earbuds.

Update #9: It has been 3 months since my purchase. I tried to make Sony’s replacement tips work for a while, but they keep sliding out of my ears when I am just a little bit sweaty, or for about an hour after I take a shower. I gave up and requested a partial refund from Amazon. After some convincing, they relented and gave me the refund, which I have now immediately spent on a pair of AZLA SednaEarfit MAX Standard tips. Despite being silicone, these tips produce a frequency response nearly identical to the original XM5 foam tips. @aaronloudnwireless on YouTube has a video comparing the frequency response of the original Sonys, the AZLA, and also the Comply TrueGrip Pro. At this point, I have paid almost as much out of pocket to make up the difference between new and used XM5s, and purchasing the used model was a waste of time. To Amazon’s credit, they are the only party who provided meaningful customer service on this issue; both Sony and the seller let me down. I don’t know if I would recommend purchasing XM5s based on the experience so far, though the sound quality remains stellar. I popped in the original ear tips for another quick listen today, and the improvement in quality between those and Sony’s replacement silicone tips is noticeable. This product is such a hot mess.

Used them for a week now. Works great. Showed up in a nonbranded box. Headphones, charging cord, and replacement earbuds. Nothing else. All that I need.

Not working and not recharging

Ordered two of these. One came in a Sony box with charging cable and 4 sets of different sizes of silicone ear buds. This came with only one set of ear buds and no mention of being Sony refurbished.