Disclosure – I may receive compensation for some of the links on this page. From time to time I will write about products I ACTUALLY use and can provide recommendations on based on my own personal experience.

Sony WH1000xm2

Airplanes are Noisy

That’s pretty obvious, of course. Propelling such a massive machine at hundreds of miles per hour is not a subtle activity. It’s not just the machine itself being noisy. Those pesky fellow passengers can cause a disturbance as well.

For years I just used simple foam earplugs. I bought a pack of 100 of them for less than $10 and still have a ton of them left. While I never found them truly comfortable, they never bothered me for a 5 or 6 hour flight.

First experience with Noise Canceling

I had never tried noise canceling headphones until my wife bought a pair for herself. Based on some recommendations from blogs she trusted, she got a pair of AKG N60 headphones. I was skeptical and after listing to them originally, I wasn’t all that impressed with the actual sound quality as pure headphones.

As a frame of reference, I’m quite picky about sound quality. I spent decades and tens of thousands of dollars on stereo equipment looking for the perfect speakers, components, and overall sound. While I don’t have “golden ears” like the true experts, I have a fairly refined ear and can appreciate high end sound quality.

Back to my wife’s headphones, I wasn’t initially impressed with the sound, but then realized I hadn’t turned the noise canceling feature on. I was just using them as regular headphones. Turning on the noise canceling activated an internal amplifier and really made the sound pop much more while also blocking out any external background noise. When no music was playing they did a great job blocking out the noise around me.

On a short business trip I borrowed them to see how they worked on a plane. I was quite impressed! They were comfortable for the 2-3 hour flight and more effective than the ear plugs. The only downsides were that because the headphones rested on my ear, they were starting to get uncomfortable by the end.

Looking for Something Better

I was impressed with the noise canceling abilities of the AKG headphones though the long term comfort left a lot to be desired. They also were wired headphones and I was hoping to find something that I could also use at home for work as well as for travel. A Bluetooth headphone was really what I wanted as I spend a lot of my day on video calls and the ability to move around without wires is a game changer. There is now a Bluetooth version of the AKG N60 though it wasn’t available at the time and I haven’t used them. I would assume they have similar comfort and sound quality characteristics as the non-Bluetooth version I have used.

I also needed something with all-day comfort and did not want to sacrifice sound quality compared to the wired headphones (with microphone) I was using at the time. While I knew finding this wasn’t going to be cheap, I was more worried something like this didn’t exist!

I know most people will instantly think of Bose and their well known lines of headphones including their well regarded QuietComfort 35 model. In my experience, people associate Bose with being expensive with high end sound. I believe they’ve done a fantastic job with their marketing and failed miserably with producing something that actually sounds good. I live only a few miles from their corporate headquarters so this may be equivalent to being a Yankees fan at a Red Sox game, but I’m simply not impressed with their products in general.

That said, I did actually give their best product a try at the store. They were light and surprisingly comfortable for the few minutes I had them on. The noise canceling was excellent as I could barely hear anything else in the store around me. Then I played their demo music they had as part of the display. AWFUL! Fake highs, fake lows, and muddy everything in between was not going to cut it. I’m sure plenty of people that have never heard high quality sound would think they sound great, but I’m not one of those people. I needed to find something better.

Finding the Answer

There aren’t that many headphones that met my criteria. Great sounding Bluetooth headphones are hard to find. Since I simply don’t find in-ear earbuds comfortable at all my options were limited even further. I can’t seem to get earbuds to actually stay in my ears at all. I probably have some weirdly shaped ear canals!

On hear headphones like my wife’s AKG’s weren’t comfortable enough, so I was looking at larger over the ear as my only option. Finally, I needed top notch noise cancelling abilities.

In my research I kept coming back to the Sony WH1000xm2 headphones. The online reviews all touted the noise canceling abilities and equivalent or better than the halo Bose headphones I had already rejected. They were also said to have excellent sound quality.

I was able to demo the model at a nearby store to see if they lived up to the hype. They were instantly comfortable and it took only a few seconds to tell the sound quality was a step above the Bose models I had tried. While expensive at $350, they were the ones that checked all the boxes for me so I took the plunge and ordered them.

Blissful Silence (at work)

I was immediately impressed at how good the noise canceling was. It was eerie at times, like when I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye only to realize it was the landscapers with the backpack blower going full blast just feet outside my windo. I could see them but could barely hear them. Or when my wife is talking to me from the other room and I had no idea. Some might say that happens even without the headphones, but that’s different!

I find this silence unexpectedly helpful in getting work done. Even at home without the kids there’s a ton of background noise I never knew was there because I had gotten used to it. By putting my headphones on I can block out everything.

I don’t even listen to music all that often. I mostly forget to turn it on between meetings. When I do listen to music, the sound quality is nearly as good as the high end wired headphones they replaced! There’s sound quality limits inherent with Bluetooth headphones, but the convenience of the wireless connection and the noise canceling far outweigh those limits. Plus on video and voice calls I can’t tell the difference in the quality anyways.

The battery life not he headphones is fantastic. The specs call for about 20 hours of use between charges and that seems about right in my experience, even after 18+ months of daily use.

Blissful Silence (in the air)

While they are great at work, I really bought them for riding on an airplane. In short, they are fantastic in the air. The noise canceling successfully blocks out nearly all the engine and wind noise and makes a vast majority of passenger noise disappear as well.

The best example of this was our trip home from Dubai. It was a 13.5 hour flight and we were sitting behind a family with a baby who was not having any fun on the flight. The baby was right in front of me and was apparently crying for a vast majority of the flight. I say apparently, because I only saw the baby crying a couple times and barely heard any fussing because of the headphones.

Another great benefit of the noise canceling is that when you are watching a movie on the plane, you can keep the volume level much much lower than you would normally because you don’t have to overcome the background noise. Not only are you saving your hearing, but the sound quality is much better. Also, listening at a lower level does reduce your stress level and anything you can do to reduce the stress during flying is a plus.

Favorite Features

Clearly the noise canceling is my favorite feature followed closely by the Bluetooth conectectivity and the sound quality. They all hit my requirements to the level I demanded and really was the only model I found that did.

While they are rather large headphones they fold up into a relatively small carrying case (included) which is well padded and designed for travel. It would be nicer if there was a better way to store the headphone cable inside the case as I only use that when I’m traveling but that’s a minor quibble.

These headphones are also incredibly lightweight especially given their larger size. They are rarely uncomfortable even after those 12-18 hour days that happen every once in awhile. The battery lasts 20+ hours and seems to charge relatively fast. Even if I forget to charge it one day it will still make it through the next even after 18 months of use.

The revision of the headphones I have use a micro USB connection to charge the battery. There is a newer version, the WH1000xm3, that uses a USB-C connector instead for charging. If you have other USB-C devices then that might be better path, though if not getting the slightly older version at a discount may be better value. There were other features in the newer version that are more evolutionary revisions that groundbreaking changes. There was nothing to compel me to upgrade from what i have, though buying new, the USB-C charging connector may be the deciding factor.

Quirks

As much as I like the headphones there are a few minor quirks I’ve experienced with them.

The biggest quirk is that if you’re in Bluetooth mode (i.e. wireless mode) The headphone will turn itself off after a few minutes unless it’s paired with another device (phone, laptop, etc.). When you phone is in airplane mode, Bluetooth is disabled so when you’re on a plane, the headphones won’t stay on. The workaround is to use the (detachable) headphone cable and keep it plugged into the headphones. Many times you’ll want this for watching movies on the in flight entertainment system anyways, but not all flights have that. Luckily, the headphones will stay on even if only one end of the headphone cable is plugged in. So if you have the cable attached on the headphone side and turn them on, they will stay on and just do noise canceling.

The headphones fold up and come with an excellent padded carrying case. There is even a place to store the include adapter for two prong headphone jacks all too common on airplanes. The case unfortunately doesn’t have a specific place to store the removable headphone cable. While there is room under and around the headphones in the case, it would be nice if there was a specific pocket to keep the cable organized.

Finally, the case is a bit larger. The newer model does have a slightly more compact case which does address the issue a little. It’s always nice to have smaller things when packing, but I’ve never had problems finding space for them in my laptop bag.

Conclusion

While expensive, these headphones are something I use nearly every day. After more than a year of near daily use, they have held up extremely well and still work as they did when they were new. They are showing very little wear and tear which is surprising given how much I use them. With the noise canceling enabled, I am noticably more productive. That was a benefit I didn’t expect. It’s priceless to be able to concentrate on work even after the kids have gotten home from school!

I can recommend these headphones without reservation and even convinced one of my co-workers to by them (he loves his as much as I love mine). While the full size headphones may not be to everyone’s taste they are a must have item to pack for any trip we take!

They aren’t cheap, but for me they have been worth every penny!