I Never Thought They Could Be This Good...

So it's been a little while since I looked at a dedicated pair of over-ear headphones

and that's because I've been so satisfied, to be quite honest with you

with these guys right here, the XM3s from Sony. My goodness, man

These things were a game changer with the noise cancellation, the application, the ability to adjust the ambient noise that comes through them

the insane battery life, the sound quality, the comfort. I could wear these things for hours

These checked so many boxes for me And actually, if you're curious about them, you should go watch the video I made one year ago, about a year ago, on these versus a pair of bows

I've just always been on the hunt for the ultimate wireless headphones

Now, the one drawback with these, if you can call it that, oh, I almost forgot, the quick charge

You can get hours of battery life in like a 10-minute charge. So anyways, there is one drawback, and that's price, which is usually the case

You go to the champion status, it's going to cost a few dollars. on Amazon right now, these are $350

Well, that's restricted a large number of people from ever getting to try these things out

Now, I did bounce around Amazon a little bit and notice that there is a pair with an international warranty

In other words, no US warranty. And they're discounted to $260. So that could be a steal of a deal

if you don't feel that you need the warranty. $260 for this color and $250 for black, though

They only have nine left in stock. So to me, that's a pretty substantial savings, around $100

And that's where today's video kicks off because I love these things so much

It's like, what's it going to take for some headphone to displace them

Well, Microsoft, they're in the background. They're working. They want to have a headphone too

In fact, they have the earbuds and the headphone. But the headphone caught my attention actually more because of the design

Look at this thing. It looks fantastic. They have this unique input method with this wheel on the side and they dropped the price

So the starting price on this thing is $250 instead of 350 which was the previous version of the surface headphones

Which made them kind of a hard recommendation up against the champion status

XM3s now they didn't just drop the price They also gave you this black color option and they supposedly increased the battery life

Which was another area that the Sony headphone had an advantage So I'm excited to check these out, see if they can become the daily over top of the XM3

or at least offer a very comparative experience or close enough experience

where you start to seriously consider them, given the fact that they start out $100 cheaper than the XM3

Surround yourself with spectacular omni-sonic sound. Stay focused with adjustable noise cancellation

So that's what I am most excited for. They claim, if you head over to their website

they claim to have 13 levels of active noise cancellation which are scrollable through a

wheel that's on the side now people you probably think i'm crazy what's the deal lu don't you just

want noise canceling on sometimes and off sometimes no you want the various degrees in between based

on the environment that you're in this has to do with your spatial awareness being aware of your

surroundings in certain circumstances you need to hear them if you're on a bike riding if you're

on a walk if you're even if you're at home alone you know the feeling that you get when

uh if you have too much isolation it's like did somebody just walk in the door i don't you know

what i'm saying you know what i'm thinking you know where i'm going here and so you might want

to toggle that back but you don't want it off completely because it can in some cases enhance

your sound quality or your perception of sound quality so having 13 levels of noise cancellation

My goodness, I'm excited for that. Well, also you have intuitive touch controllers

So you have the wheels around the outside of the unit, but then you have touch controls also

And actually that one other drawback I should mention with the XM3s So many people hit me up after these things launched after my video after all the praise saying that in cold weather in some cold weather circumstances these touch controls give out

I never experienced that personally, but I got enough messages from people saying that was the case

so it's worth noting. Now, of course, you can also make phone calls with these as you'd expect

and supposedly the built-in microphones do a decent job of handling a phone call. Now

I will say, just upon first glance here, looking at the design of the Surface headphones

and I guess you could say the same for the previous version, but somehow the matte black version is making me appreciate it more

This is an incredibly minimalist design and something that I actually like quite a bit

The form is somewhat simpler than even the XM3 with the circular ear cups

So you get this nice hard shell case to store them in

and they store flat like this as you can tell with your accessories up top

Three, two, one. So even though the ear cups are circular, the actual section where your ear is gonna fit in is the shape of an ear

You can see the speakers on the inside there. Now, one thing that changed, these spin all the way around

This is gonna help out a little bit when you wear this just off your ears around your neck

because now they can lay flat and it'll just be a little bit more comfortable

What do these ones do? These ones stop. They only go one way. So two things that happen with that, when you go to pack them up

sometimes it can be, it take you an extra second to figure out which way do they fold again

These ones will go both ways. I kinda like that straight out the gate

So yes, when I'm talking about the form, you just look at a matte black headphone with a circular ear cup

and come on, tell me that isn't the most beautiful, I think that's a good looking headphone

I'll tell you what, in my opinion. Champion status is hard to come by

and you never want it to be more about form than function, Or you at least want that to be balanced

And I remember when I moved over to this headphone, I'm just, I seriously consider comfort

I want to wear the thing in some cases for some serious hours on end

And when I saw this ear cup, I said, okay, that's good. That's the shape of an ear

That's what you want. And look how much space you have in there for the ear. You can see already, this is a little bit shorter

So we'll see how that works for my ear. Ears. I have two of them

USB Type-C cable to charge these up. They have their own quick charge version

What did they claim? A full charge will give you 20 hours of listening, or if you're in a pinch, you can get an hour of use with a five-minute charge

So they have their own kind of boost charge. This has been a game changer for me on Sony's compared to old-school wireless headphones

Also in the package, you have a cable. You can use these with a wired connection if need be

This might be my favorite aspect. I haven't tried it yet, but at least the proposition of volume control, which is an actual wheel

I like wheels. I'm a tactile guy. I want to, sometimes I want to have an actual physical thing move

I don't want just strictly touch controls. And as we found out with people who had issues with the XM3s, which are pretty exclusive on the touch side

sometimes touch controls aren't the most reliable. So having some functions like volume on a physical wheel is kind of a nice touch

So this wheel is actually going to be your noise cancellation levels

And it is a smooth, I'll tell you what, that's a smooth wheel. And then on the other side, you're going to have your volume

So noise cancellation, volume. There are some buttons on the unit as well

A dedicated power switch. You have a microphone mute switch, which is pretty rare to see on a headset like this

But I think maybe Microsoft being in the gaming business, I think some people will use these for gaming

And in those cases, you may wanna mute your mic with a physical switch

USB type C connector, and there's your dedicated og audio input if you wanna use it as well

the headband. It's sturdy, it has a kind of soft touch material where it's going to rest against

your head. It's not the biggest looking headband. Maybe I have a large head. Of course we'll find

out It is adjustable as well So yeah no that going to be no problem for my head right there Alright so first things first let do a comfort ysis I pop this onto the head without the hat first then with the hat So that huge I have a big head too

So you're going to have no issue there. It is comfortable. And I can tell you straight away

even without turning them on and turning on noise cancellation, they are isolating very well against

ambient noise. I can tell from my own voice being muffled, they're blocking external sound pretty

So it's a it's a decent seal on there now. We'll go ahead and try with the hat as well

You know users are gonna use it both ways with a hat without a hat With a hat is equally good. There's very little pressure. They are light enough

I believe I could wear these for hours on end. We'll do a quick comparison though

Against the XM3 because these are the champs in my world at the moment

oh Oh I'll tell you what Uh, these are more comfortable. They're just- they're a bit lighter

On the- on the- on the ears, I just feel them being there less. They may isolate a little bit less without being turned on

But, comfort, these ones win straight. I don't even feel the headband. These are ridiculous

That's a ridiculous level to live up to. By no means am I saying these are uncomfortable

you could wear them for hours on end and remember I'm comparing them to a

headphone that's a hundred dollars more at retail so that's worth taking into

consideration these are not if I really end up liking them they're that close in

comfort that I could live with this okay let's see if these have any power oh oh

very nice little Cortana voice these headphones are ready to pair so it tells

you they're impairing you don't have to guess it says open your bluetooth settings to get going

with it as i'll do right now now the sony app gives you some pretty good control over your noise

cancellation and how it behaves two options the surface earbuds as well as the surface headphones

oh my god i love the physical wheel call me crazy as you normally do but i love a physical wheel

So smooth too, I just I can imagine myself in a pinch just reaching up boom turning it down. No swiping

No, and then they tell me pass through sound ambient sound amplified and right now I can hear my own voice

And I can hear the surroundings in superhero status. This is what I want

This is what any headphone I want to use or recommend in 2020 gotta have this feature on it. I'm on maximum noise cancellation. Yes

Noise is definitely canceled at the moment. That's hefty Nice level of configurability in there. Okay, cool. I got that under control

This is the best voice I've ever had with the assistant in the ears

It's the best voice. Nice fidelity in there. Well done. On the left, turn the dial forward to hear less sound

You see what I'm saying? Very natural. Tap and pause on either ear

Our battery life indicated here, 13 hours remaining. Our volume level. We have device info including the amount of noise cancellation which as I told you before for me

It's low right now. We can be paired of course more than one device with the latest Bluetooth

I could be connected to a laptop To a computer and a smartphone multiple smartphones at the same time. Here's the equalizer. It is flat out of the box by default

I'll play this Look at me control look at that smooth volume control

Okay, let me put a little on it. Oh Yeah

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh Uh Listen Let me just I gonna toggle back the noise cancellation so I can hear myself here

You are... You're going to like these headphones. They're $250. You're going to like them

You get these headphones, you're not even going to think about these XM3. It's going to live your life

You're going to say, look at this design. All right, you're going to be spinning your wheels. You're going to be fine

are the xm3s better when it comes to sound i mean i have phones about sound a little bit

little bit okay i don't even need to put them i actually don't even need to put them on right now

they're a little bit better in sound uh what can i say slightly more dynamic maybe i can mess with

the eq a little bit to make them sound more like that if i boost maybe let me let me try to add

some dynamics real quick. I might as well. It kind of already does that. Say you select pop or rock

I think I'm just going to do a custom here and just kind of give myself a little scoop to it

I'm going to give myself a little scoop to it. Save as. I'm going to call it the good old scoop. The scoop attack

And this can just in some cases, I mean it could ruin the music too, but in some cases it can..

You know what guys, you twist, you tweak the EQ a little bit, you can kind of make these sound how you want

I was impressed. A little scoop to it and kind of got me closer to where I wanted to go

I still think they probably give up a little bit of sound. They probably give up a little bit of sound performance to the more expensive Sonys

But my goodness, I'll tell you what, if you're looking for an upgrade, you get $250 to spend, you appreciate the aesthetic of this in the fashion that I do, you got yourself a product

And I will say, the physical wheel is a bit addictive in both cases

Not just with the volume where you'd expect it, but also noise canceling

So on the Sony, you have a singular switch over here. This little switch right there that controls NC slash ambient

So you can bring in the ambient noise, but it's just a switch. toggles your presets. Whereas over here it's the full spectrum on the fly with the wheel. So I like

what Microsoft is doing here. I think it's gonna make a lot of people happy. Yeah you got being the

premium headphone territory to begin with. The app is not as comprehensive as the Sony app either

And of course Microsoft is still relatively new in the headphone game comparative to a company like

Sony or others. For now I think this is a real player in the space and if you want to save a

hundred bucks on the XM3s this is a truly valid alternative. Granted do me a favor and if you're

in the market for headphones in this price category take a peek at the Amazon listing

for the $250 version of the XM3s with the lack of warranty. If you are at all open to the idea

of neglecting the warranty, that's a pretty nice price on the XM3, which is probably still the top dog in my world

This is probably still the champ. I don't think the champ was dethroned. You know what the ultimate headphone is

It's this one at that price with these spin inputs alongside the touch interface

Now you have the ultimate headphone. That extra 100 bucks is significant. And then now it's a harder thing for me to answer

with the value proposition. I think for a lot of people at 250 compared to 350

well it'd be really easy actually to make the argument that this is the better deal

Well done Microsoft! You're new in the headphone game but you're making some nice moves

and you got yourself a product there in the Surface Headphones Version 2