When using your Sony WH-1000XM5, the sound quality may sound poor. You may also hear unusual noises coming out of the headphones. To see how you can fix these problems, you can take a look at this troubleshooting article at Seeking Tech.
1. The first step we recommend taking is to look into the settings of the wireless headphones via the “Sony | Headphones Connect” app.
In order to do so, you need to download and install the application on a compatible smartphone or mobile device. Next, you need to open the app and then connect the WH-1000XM5 to the same phone or mobile device. You should then be able to change various settings in the app to see if the audio output sounds better.
2. You should also try changing the sound settings on the connected device to see if doing so will help improve the sound quality and/or remove the unusual noises.
3. If you are using the Sony WH-1000XM5 to listen to music, watching a video or playing a video game, then make sure that you are using the A2DP Bluetooth profile.
4. If you are using the WH-1000XM5 for video calling, then you need to switch to the HFP or HSP Bluetooth profile.
5. When it comes to video calling, the poor sound quality could be due to another device being used by the other person on the other end of the call.
6. Keep in mind that the sound quality may be poor initially once the headset has been connected to the other device. That quality should improve after a few seconds, however.
This phenomenon occurs because the Bluetooth connection will prioritize a stable communication at the beginning before switching to prioritizing audio quality shortly afterwards.
7. If you connect your WH-1000XM5 to two devices at a time, then the high quality LDAC codec will be disabled. In this case, you should disconnect one of the connected devices to get better sounding audio output.
To find out more about connecting this wireless headset to two devices simultaneously, you can check out this article.
8. Devices that produce ultrasonic sound waves, such as electronic rodent repellents, may produce strange noises on your WH-1000XM5.
In this scenario, you can simply move farther away from ultrasonic sound wave to see if the unusual sound goes away. Alternatively, you can also try turning off the Noise Cancellation mode and/or Ambient Sound Mode from the “Sony | Headphones Connect” app.
9. The audio source could also have poor quality. To test it out, you can try playing another audio, video or videogame to see if the sound output gets better.
10. You can also try connecting the WH-1000XM5 to another device and then play the same audio source to see if the sound output improves.
11. A firmware update for the wireless headphones may also help fix your issue.
12. You can also try resetting your headset. If a normal reset did not resolve the problem, then you could try a factory reset.
You can take a look at this tutorial to see how you can reset and factory reset the Sony WH-1000XM5 headphones.