The Sony WH-XB700 wi-fi is the latest entrant inside the corporation’s range of Extra Bass headphones. The XB700 take their area someplace near the decrease mid-variety within the fee variety and come in at $a hundred thirty. The XB700 is a fairly simple pair of hi-fi headphones, and you may tell that from their layout. They have a totally minimum, monochromatic layout without any flashy elements or any layout aptitude of any type. The headphones are made almost entirely out of plastic with a matte, sandblasted finish at the ear cups and headscarf. While now not always reasonably priced-looking, it would not definitely conceal the fact that this is a cheaper pair of headphones. They also are very lightweight due to the plastic construction.
The tiny ear cups have a swiveling design that turns ninety stages so they can lie flat to your chest whilst putting from your neck. The side headbands have a big Sony brand printed on both sides and really truly marked L and R speakers. However, there are no bodily indicators apart from the buttons to help you figure out the left speaker from the proper in the dark. The scarf extends generously, and internal, you see the best-seen piece of metal protecting the inner band body. The headscarf on the top has been covered in gentle leatherette fabric, much like the flagship 1000XM3, even though not as dense.
Coming to reverse the ear cups, the XB700 has a supra-aural design, which means the ear cups relax in your ears rather than around them. The cushion seems fairly thick but isn’t always absolutely as dense as greater pricey headphones. It’s blanketed in the identical leatherette cloth as the headband. Inside, a fine material covers the speaker grille. The controls are pretty simple and nicely laid out. On the right speaker are the volume buttons that also double up as playback controls. Between them is the play/pause button that also lets you pick up and cancel calls.
The different ear cup is a piece busier. There are three.5mm jack for plugging within the supplied audio cable for listening in stressed-out mode if your battery runs out. Then there is a USB-C port for connecting the charger. Next to this is the power button and, finally, a button to invoke the voice assistant (you could select among your cellphone’s default assistant, Google Assistant or Alexa).
The XB700 are available in colorations, black and blue. Both have a matte finish, except on the speaker grille located on the pinnacle of the ear cups, wherein it is sleek. The blue version uses a brighter color of blue for the sleek bits and the Sony logos, which offers it a greater two-tone appearance than the monotonous black variant. The pairing process with the headphones is reasonably easy. You can press and preserve down the energy button to go into pairing mode or use NFC to pair your Android smartphone. The XB700 work with the identical Sony Headphones Connect app that works with Sony’s different wi-fi headphones. Here you may see your final battery, what audio codec it’s miles using, update the firmware, and alter a gaggle of audio functions.
The sound features consist of various surrounding outcomes, including an arena, club, doors degree, and live performance corridor. You also can alter the bass level and also the position of the sound around your head. The actual cause of the latter has continually eluded me, but it is a fab effect nonetheless. There’s additionally DSEE, which is Sony’s upsampling characteristic for improving the sound of compressed audio documents; however, either I do not have sufficiently compressed files, or the feature would not do a lot as it’s impossible to tell the difference between it being on or off.
As I even have enumerated in my previous Sony wi-fi headphone evaluation, the main hassle with those outcomes is they only work if you pick SBC as your codec. If you pick out any of the higher great formats, which in the case of the XB700 is aptX, then all the capabilities get disabled (besides DSEE, which would not do plenty, anyway). This makes them fairly needless, and I’m not in reality positive why Sony cannot or might not make them work outside of SBC.
