4. Headphones: Sony 1000-XM4 (€389)
Apple’s new AirPods Max headphones (see following page for first impressions review) came a little too late to be considered in this category. Even when I have spent some time with them, toppling Sony’s 1000-XM4 cans will be a tough task. Their combination of comfort, audio quality and superb ‘active’ noise-cancellation abilities is still the industry benchmark.
Compared to all others in the sub-€500 category, the XM4s deliver amazing noise cancellation and top-end audio performance for headphones in their class. A significant upgrade over the XM3 is the ability to now switch between two different Bluetooth connections easily. With all previous models, it was a manual process that took a few seconds each time.