WH-1000XM4 Firmware

[uninterred]

Hello.

Picked up my new M4’s yesterday. Early indications are excellent and despite having the same drivers they definitely sound better. Noticed a couple of times the music stuttered though, which I’m hoping the firmware update will fix. Just wanted to ask that those of you that have updated already. Is everything still ok after the update?

Didn’t want to have the whole XM3 firmware problem with the noise cancelling getting worse after the update. 

[dnicuk]

I have installed the update on the XM4’s no problems at all. 
 A step up from my XM3’s in many ways. NC is amazing. 

[uninterred]

Nice one. Thank you

[IamNic]

Hello @uninterred,

just FYI - there was never any "downgrade" of the NC capabilities of the WH-1000Xm3 trough firmware. 

It was an elaborate hoax fueled by people not deactivating the (by default active) 'adaptive noise cancellation' after the update.

Who initially spread the hoax or gave it momentum - no idea - but as a reason why Sony presumably did make the NC worse people often said 'to sell more WH-1000Xm4 headphones which will be announced at IFA 2019' (the 4.1.1 Update was released around July 2019).

But surprise - Sony did not release the WH-1000Xm4 then - then again they did not release them at holiday season 2019 after the next update dropped.

Some people even created downgrades to the first firmware version and - surprise again - the NC did not 'improve' when performing the downgrade - just another clue that the NC was never made worse in the first place.

To this day (mostly on reddit) people still spread this misinformation (on r/headphones many Sennheiser users do that from my experience) to get people to not buy Sony headphones.

So whoever spread the hoax initially did a very good job if you ask me.

- Nic

[uninterred]

I owned two pairs of XM3’s. One I updated, one I left on stock 2.0.0. The ones I didn’t touch NC was definitely better listening in an office environment. The pair I updated then downgraded were just not as good even after I downgraded them.

[IamNic]

Hello @uninterred,

did you get in contact with support? If something really changed after updating I believe the Sony support would have been very interested in taking a look at the unit.

- Nic

[trexiyu]

There is no hoax going on, I have personnally experienced this issue after upgrading the firmware for the first time since I bought them (06/2019) and started noticing this white/wind noise with ANC on the right cup. Shame really because I really enjoyed the earphones, I will just RMA them and hopefully get a replacement with an older firmware that I can downgrade ...