18 June 2023 · Headphones
A Year With the XM5s, and What They Taught Me About Wearing Things
Not glasses, I know. But the headphones I forgot I was wearing told me everything about what I want from the ones I do not.
I bought the Sony WH-1000XM5s in a slightly desperate week and they have not left my bag since. That is the whole review, really. The rest is footnotes.
What surprised me was not the noise cancelling, which everyone writes about, but how little I think about them now. They went on in May 2022 to a chorus of spec talk, and a year of ordinary use later the thing I value is that they ask nothing of me. I do not adjust them on the train. I do not notice the clamp. I forget the case in my coat and it survives.
I keep coming back to that feeling because it is the bar I hold every face-worn gadget to. A device you wear is a small daily negotiation, and the best ones simply stop negotiating. If a pair of glasses ever wants to live on me all day, this is the comfort it has to quietly earn first.