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.
I tried them for a second at a Best Buy and immediately went "ew" and put them back. The XM5's actually sounded good, which I wasn't expecting after hearing the 4's.
I didn't have the opportunity to try the XM5s, but anyways, the QC45 were so much cheaper (320CAD taxes in vs 400 CAD +tx) that I am happy with my purchase. But thank you for confirming to me that I am not crazy and that the XM4s do indeed sound terrible. It's weird how mainstream audio can be muddy and just loud