Sony has officially confirmed it is bringing back its 2020 flagship over-ear ANC headphones, this time with a ‘C’ tacked onto the end. The WH-1000XM4C will live alongside its current flagship WH-1000XM6 and 1000X THE COLLEXION models.
Joining the XM4C are the WH-CH730N and WH-CH530N as wallet-friendly alternatives, presumably with a few concessions made.
The WH-1000XM4C comeback arc
Since the original XM4 launched in 2020, they have become the longest-running headphone in Sony’s 1000X series to date, remaining on sale until last year. The answer to the question ‘Why are they back now?’ is probably ‘Money’, but Sony has also had to make a few changes to comply with new regulations.
The battery in the original XM4 was not user-removable. Article 11 of the EU’s new battery regulation (EU) 2023/1542, which comes into effect in February next year, means that if Sony wanted to continue printing money from selling the ever-popular headphones, it would need to change the batteries. It’s done just that.
The downside with this change is that the battery life of the WH-1000XM4C is slightly shorter than the originals — a claimed 27 hours with ANC enabled, compared to the original’s 30 hours. DSEE Extreme and Sony’s ‘Speak-to-Chat’ features will reduce that even further.
Outside of that change, Sony hasn’t done much else — most of the other hardware remains the same. The same 40mm drivers and QN1 noise-cancelling processor are back, with a few new additions to the companion app. Namely, a ten-band EQ and the new dedicated gaming EQ setting.
Sony says it has adjusted the tuning to be closer to that of its newer XM5 and XM6 models, but we’ll believe that when we hear it. There’s also a new lavender colour option in addition to the standard black and silver choices.
Sony’s sound for less
Along with the XM4C, Sony is also releasing the relatively wallet-friendly WH-CH730N and WH-CH530. These over- and on-ear headphones seem best suited for folks looking for broadly consumer-friendly audio, but don’t want to take a chance on lesser-known brands.
The former offers 30mm dynamic drivers, some form of noise-cancelling smarts, up to 75 hours of battery life with the noise-cancelling disabled, and multipoint connection support. The latter also boasts 30mm drivers and a reduced battery life of up to 55 hours. Neither supports Sony’s LDAC lossless compression codec.
We reached out to Sony’s local PR representatives and will update this article when local pricing information is available.
UPDATE 08/09 13h20: We can now confirm that the WH-1000XM4C will be available locally from November and priced at R7,000. The WH-CH730N and WH-CH530 will be available locally from October with R3,000 and R1,300 price tags, respectively.
