Are these the best noise cancelling headphones you can buy? Sony thinks so

Sony’s push to be known for Audio continues in the mid range too – alongside the high end audio products announced today was the MDR-1000X, a set of wireless noise cancelling headphones made to rival the most popular brands out there.

With a similar look and overall design to the current hear.on range of Wireless headphones, the MDR-1000X add a superior noise cancellation feature with some handy tricks to make the most of them.

When in full noise cancelling mode, you can place your palm over the right ear and the headphones switch to ambient mode allowing you to hear people around you.

On the plane this is ideal for those who sit relaxed listening to their music or videos, and the airline staff ask you if you want anything – you just put your hand over the right ear and you can hear them as normal.

Likewise there is an Ambient voice mode, which allows a level of noise cancelling, while maintaining the voices around you – ideal for airport waiting where you don’t want to miss your boarding announcement.

But to cap it off, I listened to three headphones. In the background a speaker played a mild rumbling sound, very similar to inside an aircraft at 30,000 feet, along with some voices speaking.

Beats headphones, great.  Bose headphones, amazing.  Sony MDR-1000X – just a touch more amazing.  Not leaps and bounds ahead, but a touch – and that’s what Sony’s own research showed.

It’s not often I hear noise cancelling anywhere near as good as Bose, but these are certainly that.

Sony reckon the MDR-100ABN compare directly to the Bose QC35, and are around $50 cheaper, the MDR-1000X will retail for $699.95, set apart from the Bose QC35’s by the touch palm to switch to ambient, and also ambient voice isolation that are unique to the MDR-1000X.

We should have these in Australia before Christmas.

Trevor Long travelled to Berlin for IFA 2016 as a Guest of Sony Australia – Click here for Full details of commercial interests and disclosures