A new great feature has a somewhat unexpected side-effect for the Sony WH-1000XM4.
Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti… NO. That’s what the best new feature on the otherwise-excellent Sony WH-1000XM4 noise-cancelling headphones seem to be implying every time I burst into song wearing them. Quite unexpectedly, and surely accidentally, Sony’s headphones don’t seem to enjoy my singing all that much. They’re the best noise cancelling headphones in the world – that much is now certain, having just posted our Sony WH-1000XM4 review. Packed full of smart feature additions, with excellent audio performance and improved noise-cancelling techniques over their predecessors (the Sony WH-1000XM3) they’ve been awarded a very rare 5-star rating from TechRadar. But the most useful feature that’s been added to the Sony WH-1000XM4s brings with it an unintentional side effect. ‘Speak-to-Chat’ is a new, optional, intelligent mode that can be activated on the headphones that uses the microphone to recognise and react when you’re having a conversation. Start having a chat and the headphones will pause your music, activating ambient audio pass through so that you can have a chinwag with someone nearby without having to take the headphones off your head, or manually adjusting the audio or pausing the track.
