I didn't believe the hinge thing. I read the posts on Reddit and I thought those people must be gorilla-handing their headphones, throwing them into bags carelessly, abusing them. I had the XM4s for two years and those things were tanks. Folded flat, stuffed into a backpack pocket, dropped twice, survived rain. I sold them to a friend and he's still using them. So when I upgraded to the XM5s I figured the hinge complaints were just loud outliers. Sony wouldn't ship a three hundred and fifty dollar flagship with a structural flaw. That would be insane. Eight months in, I heard a crack. I was taking them off my head, normal motion, both hands on the earcups lifting them straight up. The left hinge made a sound like a twig snapping. I froze. Slowly rotated the earcup and saw a hairline fracture running through the plastic where the swivel mechanism meets the headband. Not a visible break yet but a stress line. I stopped folding them into the carrying position entirely. I treat them like raw eggs now. Every time I put them on I'm aware of the weak point. That's not a feeling you should have with a premium product. The ANC though. Let me talk about the ANC because that's the reason I bought these and it's the reason I can't fully hate them. I fly four or five times a year for work and I'm a nervous flyer. Not scared of crashing, scared of the noise. The engine drone, the pressure changes, the crying babies, the guy behind me watching videos on speaker. My old XM4s handled it well but the XM5s are on another level. I put them on during taxi and the world just drops away. The engine roar becomes a distant hum. The crying baby becomes a visual experience I observe but don't hear. I watched an entire movie on my iPad with the ANC on and when the plane landed I took them off and was shocked at how loud the cabin actually was. The isolation is that good. Bose QuietComfort Ultra comes close, I tested them in a Best Buy, but the Sony has this specific way of handling low frequency drone that makes engine noise basically disappear. But I also tested the XM4 ANC against the XM5 side by side before selling my old pair and honestly? The difference is smaller than Sony wants you to think. The XM5 is better at canceling higher frequencies, voices and random clatter, things the XM4 struggled with. But the XM4 already handled low frequency noise incredibly well and the gap there is tiny. If you already own the XM4, the ANC upgrade alone is not worth the money. The real upgrade is the design, the lighter weight, the softer ear pads, the USB C charging. Those are quality of life improvements that matter over time. But you lose the folding. And you gain the hinge anxiety. The sound signature out of the box is aggressively bass heavy. The first song I played was something with a kick drum and it hit so hard I actually checked the volume. I'm not a bass head. I like a neutral sound. The default XM5 tuning is clearly designed for people who listen to hip hop and electronic music and want to feel the thump. For me, it was too much. I downloaded the Sony Headphones Connect app and spent an hour tweaking the EQ. Lowered the 400Hz band by two notches, boosted the 1kHz by one, left everything else flat. That fixed it. The detail retrieval is excellent once you flatten the response curve. Acoustic instruments have texture. Vocal breaths are audible. The LDAC codec on my Android phone makes a noticeable difference in clarity over standard AAC, especially with complex tracks like jazz with multiple instruments playing at once. But and this is a big but, LDAC is not stable. Walking through a city with my phone in my pocket, the connection drops out to a lower bitrate constantly. I've had songs stutter and skip. It's not a flawless experience. The call quality is where Sony dropped the ball and it's frustrating because they have eight microphones. Eight. My AirPods Pro 2 have half as many microphones and people tell me I sound like I'm in the same room. On the XM5s, three different people told me I sounded muffled. One person asked if I was in a tunnel. I was standing in my quiet kitchen. The wind noise cancellation on calls is even worse. A light breeze made my voice sound like I was talking into a jet engine according to a colleague. That's inexcusable for a headphone that cost four hundred dollars at launch. The carrying situation is genuinely annoying in a way I didn't anticipate. The XM5s don't fold. They swivel flat but the earcups stay wide. The included case is a soft cloth pouch with almost no structure. I bought a third party hard case for thirty dollars because I didn't trust the pouch and even then the case is huge. It takes up about a third of my backpack's main compartment. My old XM4s folded into a compact ball that fit in the front pocket. I used to take my headphones everywhere. Now I leave them on my desk because the hassle of packing them isn't worth it for short trips. That's a behavioral change caused by a design decision. I didn't notice how much I valued portability until it was taken away. The ear pads are a big improvement over the XM4. Softer material, more breathable. I can wear them for four hours without feeling the need to take them off. The XM4s would get hot and start bothering me after two. The headband is also padded differently, distributes weight better. The overall comfort is genuinely excellent and that matters more than people give it credit for. A headphone with perfect sound and perfect ANC is useless if you can't wear it for more than an hour. Battery life is thirty hours claimed, I get about twenty eight with ANC on at moderate volume. That's still very good. The XM4 gets about the same. Neither Sony nor Bose have made significant battery improvements in recent years. It's a mature technology. You charge them once a week with moderate use and you never think about it. Quick charge gives you three hours of playback from ten minutes of charging, which has saved me twice when I forgot to charge overnight before a flight. The Bose QC Ultra I tested for an afternoon at a friend's place. The ANC is very close to the Sony, maybe a hair behind on engine drone but slightly better at cancelling voices. The sound signature is more neutral out of the box. They fold. The carrying case is included and actually good. A lot of people would be happier with the Bose. But the Sony has a slightly bigger soundstage and the LDAC support if you're on Android. It's a genuinely close call. If you're an iPhone user, the Bose is probably the better choice because you can't use LDAC anyway and the Bose has better spatial audio implementation. If you're an Android user who values that extra bit of audio detail, the Sony edges ahead. The debate about waiting for the XM6 is everywhere on Reddit. Sony is overdue for an update. The XM5 launched a while ago now and the hinge issue has been a persistent stain on the product's reputation. If Sony releases the XM6 with a folding design and metal hinges, the XM5 will become the awkward middle child that everyone forgets. But if the XM6 carries a higher price tag and doesn't significantly improve the ANC, the XM5 at its current price of around two hundred and sixty dollars is a compelling value proposition. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know if the XM6 is coming this year or next. Nobody really does. The rumor mill is unreliable. I've had these for eighteen months now. The hinge hasn't broken completely but the crack has grown another millimeter or two. I've gotten used to handling them like museum artifacts. The ANC still amazes me every time I put them on in a noisy environment. The sound quality after my EQ adjustments is exactly what I want. The call quality still frustrates me every time someone says they can't hear me clearly. The bulk still annoys me every time I consider bringing them somewhere and decide not to. If I lost them tomorrow, I would buy a refurbished pair of XM4s. Not the XM5s. I'd go back. The ANC on the XM4 is ninety five percent as good, they fold flat, the hinge is metal, the carrying case is a proper hard shell, and they cost half as much. The XM5 is technically better but it makes you pay for that improvement with compromises that affect daily use. And daily use is what matters more than peak performance. I learned that the hard way.