I was shopping for an ANC pair the other day because I will be going on a long flight soon and so to make a semi-informed decision, I tried a family member of mine’s XM4s, and boy am I disappointed. I was not expecting this from 400CAD headphones.
The sound is just so muddy and bassy, the mids are basically just drowned down. It feels like listening to what people say early beats were; just a bunch of muddy bass.
Maybe I just don’t like bass heavy headphones though. I like my ER2SE’s even though I think they are a bit lacking in the bass department, but not by much. I also quite like my HyperX Cloud II’s, but only with the velour ear pads, the leatherette earpads sound too boomy for me, and I like that they are more open that way. (I would love if someone with the equipment could compare the frequency response with both earpads!)
So yeah, is it only me? I ended up getting QC45’s because they were A) very cheap and B) are suppposed to have a more “neutral” curve. I don’t have many headphones to compare to, so I don’t know if the XM4’s are just shitty or if I am just not used to bass heavy headphones.
When I first tried the LinkBud S I had a similar reaction and was like “why is this so muddy and ultra bassy?” But as I spent a bit of time deactivating any random audio presets on the phone and then trying various settings with the sony app, they actually sound amazing. Very clear details and balanced bass. Mine is an IEM and not a headphone, but hopefully the experience to find a good audio balance for you is similar.