Sony WH-1000XM4 Leaked by Best Buy (update 4)

Best Buy US had the Sony WH-1000XM4 up on their site a bit but pulled the listing down a few days ago. I did grab the photos of the site and I am posting them below. Pricing is the same as the current model, $349.99 USD, so expect identical pricing to the WH-1000XM3 when it was new in your own country.

There was not much information on the product page. Voice assistant support will include Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri. The drivers are 40mm, so same as the previous model, thankfully the size was not reduced like in the h. ear on 3 line. Bluetooth is now 5.0, not sure if it can be upgraded to 5.1

Comparing the photos to the WH-1000XM3, the new model appears to be slightly larger, with the ear cushions being larger along with the top band. The gold highlights appear to be more yellowish, but that could just be the photo. The ambient button how now changed to the Custom button. There are some other minor changes, which one can see from comparing with the WH-1000XM3.

Update:

I forgo to post this from the product page. The WH-1000XM4 can connect to 2 devices simultaneously.

Finally, seems that Walmart has also listed the WH-1000XM4 in their system, check reddit for the photo.

Update #2:

Polish retailer, X-kom had a page up for both the black and silver models of the WH-1000XM4 but removed it and now there is a placeholder page here named "Sony Sony". The product codes are as following for Europe, WH1000XM4B.CE7 and WH1000XM4S.CE7. Xperiasite.pl has a few screenshots of the pages when they were still live right here. Pricing is 1699 PLN, which is about 375 Euros, which is inline with the pricing in the rest of Europe for the WH-1000XM3 for example. Expect more leaks I feel soon and possibly an announcement sooner.

Update #3:

A Czech retailer has the WH-1000XM4 up for pre-order, 10,990  Kč  or 400 euros.

Update #4:

One more update, I am sure most people have seen this, but on XDA, from twitter user JustPlayingHard, a teardown of Sony's Headphone app have revealed some interesting pieces of information. XDA claims there is also a white model but provided no photo since there is none in the app, just a placeholder. A white model would go well against the new apple headphones which will no doubt come in white but the best buy leak provided no photos of a white headset.

Next up is DSEE Extreme which could be DSEE HX with AI features as is seen by the code from the app. Supposedly similar to the DSEE Ultimate on the new Xperia 1 II. Will be interesting to see if this AI enhancement will come from the Bluetooth chip, the QN1 or a new AI audio chip. 

The next piece of information, multi-point connection. The headset will be using a new mediatek Bluetooth chip, perhaps even the MT2811s, so multi-point was expected. Supposedly when multi-point is being used, the high quality LDAC codec cannot be used. Hopefully Sony can solve this issue so both 990 LDAC and multi-point can be used at the same time in the future.

Next up, when the WH-10000XM4 will detect your voice when talking with someone, it will automatically switch to Ambient sound mode, then once the conversation is over, the NC will slowly turn back on, with the user being able to set how quickly.

Finally the headphones via the phone might be able to detect your location and turn on/off specific noise cancellation modes, or functions. 

Here are the photos, with comparison photos at the end.

Comparison photos:

WH-1000XM3 (left) vs WH-1000XM4 (right)

The first comparison, the angle of the side ribs is now more straight. Will be interesting how this translates to better comfort and passive noise isolation.

WH-1000XM3 (left) vs WH-1000XM4 (right)

For the following 2 photos, I superimposed the WH-1000XM4 onto the WH-1000XM3. In the photos, one can see the ear cushions are slightly larger and extend out more, but the rest of the cups are more or less identical to the naked eye but there is a slight difference in shape size with the WH-1000XM4 a tiny bit larger.

In this next photo, the larger cushion size can be seen more clearly, and the larger ear cup size as well. I suspect the larger cushions will help in passive noise isolation which should improve active noise cancellation in turn.

Finally, some close up comparisons. First up the hinge with the ear cups. The plastic from the body seems to extend and follow the curve on the WH-1000XM4, where as on the WH-1000XM3, it was cut off and angled down. The gaps between the hinge and ear cups seems much smaller and more closer, which could reduce creaks and squeaks. In addition the pattern on the ear cushions also seems to have changed.

WH-1000XM3 (left) vs WH-1000XM4 (right)

I used the lighter beige model for the next comparison since it is easier to see the hinge mechanism, which looks to also have been updated.

WH-1000XM3 (left) vs WH-1000XM4 (right)

Finally a close up of an area where users have complained of cracks and breaks. It appears that Sony has made certain parts of the side ribs thicker to improve their durability and minimize the chance of cracks. If these thicker parts will lead to less cracks is unknown, but it should help. Likewise as with the ear cups, the joints between parts in the WH-1000XM4 appear to be tighter and more closer together, which again should help with creaking and squeaking.

WH-1000XM3 (top) vs WH-1000XM4 (bottom)

That is it for now. If anyone notices any other major differences, please comment. Enjoy and share.