Hi Everyone,
My pair of headphones have got exactly the same issue. Nobody can hear me on a phone call, if I am walking outside on the street with higher background noise. Even when I am in a silent room, others say that it sounds like I've put them on loudspeaker and walked away from my phone while we were talking. I contacted Sony customer servce, and I got the answer to do factory defaults etc. It did not help at all. As a second step they told me to send my headphones back, so they can have a look. I did not do it, mainly because of missing it for 2 weeks, and mainly because I don't feel that my specific product is a faulty one - it is more like a general problem.
I purchased a pair of very cheap in-ear bluetooth earphones from Amazon (£20) for testing (not mentioning the brand here, but it is a best seller in its price-range). Of course music quality is far away from the MDRs, however everyone was super satisfied and had absolutely no quality issues, who I called on my phone using this device. As I got really upset because of the fact, that a £20 device does phone calls much better, I started to make test recordings on my phone. I did recordings with both pair of headphones in a silent, and after that in a noisy environment. (Basically in an empty office in the morning, and at the office entrance next to the street at the same time). Sony was way much better than the cheap one in the silent environment, however in the loud environment it cancelled my own voice together with the loud background noise as I was talking. I think this is mainly an issue for people with deeper voice, as higher tones not getting cancelled that effectively.
With all the knowledge, and the test recording files, I have contacted Sony again, writing down all my experience, attaching the sound recordings, and telling them what the problem is in my opinion. I told them I understand this is a noise cancelling issue, but there must be a firmware upgrade or something else that fixes this. I simply wanted to get to know if all new headphones have the same behaviour, or if there is any improvement, so it is worth me sending it back. If the behaviour is still the same, it is pointless for me to send it back, however if there is anything they can do, I am happy to ask them to get it done. Guess what? Sony came back to me with the "set your headphones back to factory defaults, if still not working, you can send it to us" message AGAIN. At this point I became really angry, as I felt Sony is having a shield that I can't get through, to ask a simple question from an engineer. I cannot get anything else than copy-paste answers. I got back to them asking for this exact answer (which is a yes or no), but still haven't received anything else than copy paste template answers.
I thought I get to one of the shops to try another pair with a phone call, however all demo sample products are on a cable (at least the ones I could reach), which do not allow you to test its microphone. I am getting close to the end of my warranty period, so I don't have any other choice than sending the product back, and see what happens. Sony, please, this is a real, existing issue with your flagship product, please, please listen to us. There is a reason people giving more than £300 for your product, they have high expectations. They expect professional customer service for example.
I have uploaded my recording, please have a listen if you are interested. Please note, that the final bit of the recording is made with the MDR-1000X on the street, and I am talking until the end, but my voice is completely cancelled for the final 3-4 seconds.
Sony headset recording
FYI: Using my pair of headphones with an iPhone 6 Plus, and my pair of headphones was purchased in November 2016.
