Sony WH-XB700 EXTRA BASS Wireless Headphones with Mic for Hands-Free Calls, 30 Hours Battery Life, On-Ear Style, with Alexa Built-in - Blue

Product Information

The XB700 are a fairly basic pair of wireless headphones, and you can tell that from their design. They have a very minimal, monochromatic design without any flashy elements or any design flair of any sort. The headphones are made almost entirely out of plastic with a matte, sandblasted finish on the ear cups and headband. While not necessarily cheap-looking, it doesn't really hide the fact that this is an inexpensive pair of headphones. They are also very lightweight due to the plastic construction.

Understandably, everyone will have different ears and tolerance for pain and some might not find an issue with the design at all. But if you are someone who, like me, has experience with discomfort with supra-aural style of headphones then you know to avoid this one.The XB700 are woefully uncomfortable headphones to wear. I generally dislike supra-aural headphones because they tend to press down hard on my ears and the XB700 are no exception. It takes about ten minutes before I start noticing discomfort in one of my ears, which over time keeps rising until about 30 minutes or so later I have to remove the headphones to prevent further discomfort. There have been times where they were simply too painful to keep wearing and my ears hurt long after they were removed. As for the rest of the sound, the headphones have decent imaging, although the soundstage isn't very wide and seems restricted to the size of your head. All of the pairing information is deleted. In this case, delete the pairing information for the headset from the device and then pair them again. In a small twist of irony, the XB700 are some of the longest lasting headphones I've used. Sony claims a battery life of 30 hours and while I didn't put it to test, the headphones did seemingly last forever on the 70% charge they came with out of the box. I have no doubt they will manage to reach that 30 hour figure if one were to put it to test. Acoustic Center Sync is compatible with Sony Soundbar HT-A7000 /HT-A5000 and Home Theater System HT-A9. Product availability varies by region.

Unfortunately there isn’t any fancy way to connect to these in the same way that there is for other popular models. You won’t even find NFC here which I find to be a bit of a bummer as I still think it’s a seriously underrated way to pair two devices together (if you’re on Android at least). To initially pair, all you have to do is take the earbuds out of the case for the first time and they will automatically enter pairing mode. From there, just look into the Bluetooth settings of your source device for “WF-XB700” and tap it to connect. If you’re already connected to a device and want to pair a second device, then there’s a bit more of a process that you’ll need to go through.Unfortunately, the deal breaker for me is the design, which is just not comfortable at all. It was difficult for me to listen to these for more than half an hour at a time without an equally long break in between. While this may not be the case for everyone, supra-aural headphones are generally not as comfortable as circumaural headphones so it's more that I'm the rule here rather than the exception. Also, the sound quality really isn't worth the pain. Not that any headphones are worth hurting your ears. As for the rest of the sound spectrum, the mids just aren't there. Sony claims the bass doesn't overpower the mids but the mids weren't good enough to begin with. Even when you use the app and bring down the bass, the mids are still hard to hear and you have to increase the volume to hear them better.

The pairing process with the headphones is fairly simple. You can either press and hold down the power button to enter pairing mode or use NFC to pair your Android phone. The XB700 also, thankfully, charge over USB-C. Sony includes a cable in the box but at 20cm long it feels rather useless. The headphones do have a fast charging feature, where they can provide 90 minutes of usage after just 10 minutes of charge. A full charge, however, takes a lengthy 4 hours. Connecting the headset to both a music player and a smartphone / mobile phone (multipoint connection) The sound features include various surround effects, such as arena, club, outdoor stage and concert hall. You can also adjust the bass level and also the position of the sound around your head. The exact purpose of the latter has always deluded me but it's a cool effect nonetheless. There's also DSEE, which is Sony's upsampling feature for improving the sound of compressed audio files but either I don't have sufficiently compressed files or the feature doesn't do much because it's impossible to tell the difference between it being on or off. In case you do find the bass a bit overpowering, you can use the app to bring things down a notch. But as mentioned before, this does mean switching to the basic SBC codec.Once you hear the “Bluetooth pairing” notification go to the Bluetooth settings son your secondary device.