WH-1000XM4 - Loud whistling noise in one ear appearing randomly

[MyUniqueUsername]

My WH-1000XM4 are about 16 months old. Today the right earcup nearly burst my eardrum - it suddenly made a loud, whistling noise that only appeared when I put the headphones over my head. It lasted for maybe a minute or two, during which I disabled BT module in my phone and PC so they would fully disconnect, that didn't help. The noise was there with the ANC enabled and disabled.

After resetting back to the factory defaults (both buttons held until the LED flashed four times) and pairing again they worked fine for a few hours, but it just happened again, this time in the left earcup. The noise modulated as I moved the earcup to and away from my head, lasted for about 20 seconds and stopped.

It was so sudden and loud I'm now scared of using them and damaging my hearing.

This is my second pair of WH-1000XM4. I had to exchange the first set only a couple of weeks after purchase due to loud static hiss from the right earcup. "Disappointing" is a gentle way to describe my experience with a £349 premium product. I use them only in the house and at work, never been out in a rain or dusty places. 

I got them in Argos UK (store, not online) in September 2020. I registered them on Sony website, I'm trying to find out whether they're covered with any extended warranty from Sony.

Has anyone experienced this problem? And Since this is an intermittent issue, what are the odds of them coming back with "couldn't replicate the fault" note even if Sony still covers them?

[HannahEd01]

Hey MyUniqueUsername, have you tried SW update? Or the initializing?

[CrisCros]

I just fixed this issue on my WH-1000XM4s! I'd already gone through all the troubleshooting steps described above with a Sony CSR over the phone who ultimately recommended I send them in to get repaired. Luckily I found this Reddit thread and found that the loud feedback was being caused by earwax collecting on one of the internal components.

To get to the component I needed to clean (a short, metallic cylinder), all I had to do was remove the earpad/foam and then a small grey, rubber cap covering it. After that, I used Q-Tips and >90% isopropyl alcohol to clean the rubber cap and contact points on the cylinder. Put everything back together and everything's working great again!

[torbencook]

Sorry I'm a bit confused, how does ear wax affect things when these are over the ear headphones?  I'd understand if they were in ear. The only contact my headphones have with me are the outer pads.

[Timjones]

I'm having the same problem. Although it only happens when the Ambient Sound Control is switched on. As soon as I switch it off in the app, the noise stops. 

It's extremely annoying and loud. A real risk to my hearing.

No idea what the answer is..!

[yinka007]

Me too

[SkyNet404]

Sorry for you guys! But if you did reset it, and initialize it. A repair will be the only solution moving forward unfortunately. 

[SussyMilkers]

FIXED THE ISSUE. So I first attempted to update the software on the over ear headset but that never fixed the issue. Seem to only affect setting 0 in the noise cancellation slider. Set this setting to 1 and its basically no different than regular noise cancelation and it has resolved the whining microphone in my left earcup. I hope this helps others with the same issue 

[Piscie]

Hello @SussyMilkers, brilliant, thanks for updating the thread with this workaround!