I had a pair of Sony WH-1000XM3. The earpads collapsed quite badly after about a year of constant use at work, and the inside of the (very shallow!) ear cups starting pressing on my ears, which ended up being painful to wear for more than a few hours.
I contacted Sony, expecting to be able to buy replacement earpads like basically every major headphone manufacturer on earth supplies (yes, even Apple and Bose), and they informed me that earpads are not user serviceable and that I would have to send the headphones into their service centre for a paid for repair. The repair would have ended up costing more than a new pair of the same headphones from Amazon. I'm not replacing my headphones annually, it's ridiculous (both from a cost and a waste PoV).
I looked online and found replacement pads available from third parties, and tried a set of Dekoni pads, which noticeably changed the sound signature of the headphones and caused ANC problems.
So I started looking for a replacement, discounted Sony's line completely, and ended up buying AirPods Max from Amazon when they were decently discounted in a Prime sale, and... they're fine. ANC is competent, sound quality is reasonable, unlike the WH-1000XM3 when I want to move them between Apple devices I don't have to do the re-pairing mess or stop bluetooth from autoconnecting on my other devices, earcups are lovely and deep, and the pads are user replaceable.
They're honestly not a bad product, they're just a bit too expensive without a discount.
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Or, perhaps, there are more nuanced reasons?
I had a pair of Sony WH-1000XM3. The earpads collapsed quite badly after about a year of constant use at work, and the inside of the (very shallow!) ear cups starting pressing on my ears, which ended up being painful to wear for more than a few hours.
I contacted Sony, expecting to be able to buy replacement earpads like basically every major headphone manufacturer on earth supplies (yes, even Apple and Bose), and they informed me that earpads are not user serviceable and that I would have to send the headphones into their service centre for a paid for repair. The repair would have ended up costing more than a new pair of the same headphones from Amazon. I'm not replacing my headphones annually, it's ridiculous (both from a cost and a waste PoV).
I looked online and found replacement pads available from third parties, and tried a set of Dekoni pads, which noticeably changed the sound signature of the headphones and caused ANC problems.
So I started looking for a replacement, discounted Sony's line completely, and ended up buying AirPods Max from Amazon when they were decently discounted in a Prime sale, and... they're fine. ANC is competent, sound quality is reasonable, unlike the WH-1000XM3 when I want to move them between Apple devices I don't have to do the re-pairing mess or stop bluetooth from autoconnecting on my other devices, earcups are lovely and deep, and the pads are user replaceable.
They're honestly not a bad product, they're just a bit too expensive without a discount.