Sony WH-1000XM4 wireless active noise cancelling headphones have been launched in India priced at Rs. 29,990. The premium wireless headphones have been unveiled in India a little over a month after the global launch, and are available to buy on Amazon, Sony retail stores, major multi-brand electronics stores, and Sony’s online shopping portal shopatsc.com. The Sony WH-1000XM4 headphones are the successor to the WH-1000XM3, which were launched nearly two years ago. The Sony WH-1000XM4 will go up against competition from Bose, Shure, and Sennheiser, to name a few.

Sony WH-1000XM4 price

With the launch of the Sony WH-1000XM4, the company will be discontinuing the WH-1000XM3 headphones, according to Mani Balan, Product Manager of Audio Business at Sony India, in an interaction with Gadgets360. Priced at Rs. 29,990, the Sony WH-1000XM4 takes the place of the previous headset in the range, which also includes other premium headsets such as the WF-1000XM3 and WH-H910N. With this launch Sony has completely refreshed its headphone line-up for the year.

As an introductory offer, Sony will be giving a discount of Rs. 1,500 till September 30, for an effective price of Rs. 28,500. Post this, the Sony WH-1000XM4 will retail at the MRP of Rs. 29,990.

Although expensive, Sony believes that the premium segment holds huge potential in India, and the Sony WH-1000XM4 is the company’s latest play towards capitalising on the potential of the segment. Even the global pandemic has had no effect on demand for high-end audio products. “With people being confined to home, the demand for premium headphones like WH-1000XM4 has only gone up,” says Balan.

Sony WH-1000XM4 specifications and features

The Sony WH-1000XM4 feature a similar design to its predecessor, and are powered by the QN1 noise cancelling processor that was introduced with the Sony WH-1000XM3. “We have used the same chip, the very powerful HD Noise Cancelling Processor QN1 which was used in WH-1000XM3. Thanks to improvement in the algorithm, in WH-1000XM4, we are able to realise up to 20% better Noise Cancellation performance than WH-1000XM3,” according to Balan.

There are also gesture controls on the outer part of the headphones, along with features such as adaptive sound controls, wear detection, and a claimed battery life of over 30 hours per charge with active noise cancellation on.

The Sony WH-1000XM4 can be controlled and customised through the Sony Headphones Connect app, available for Android and iOS. The app allows users to customise the noise cancellation, set up adaptive sound controls, and adjust other settings such as the equaliser and sound modes.

There is also multi-point connectivity on the Sony WH-1000XM4, letting users connect the headphones to two source devices simultaneously, as well as support for Google Assistant and Alexa. The headphones also support Sony’s own 360 Reality Audio format for spatial sound, although there isn’t a lot audio content available in this format for now.

Sony’s DSEE Extreme sound enhancement feature will be available on the Sony WH-1000XM4, which is powered by 40mm hybrid drivers. There is support for Sony’s LDAC codec on the headphones, but no Qualcomm aptX support. There is also a ‘speak-to-chat’ feature, which recognises the voice of the user and pauses the music when it senses that the user is conversing.

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