The Internet is littered with problems of these headphones making odd "clicking" type sounds. So I decided to investigate it myself.

There have been many possible solutions to fixing the problems which mostly seemed to be relating to active noise cancelling and various clicking/ticking/crackling sounds. These ticking sounds for me seemed to start after about 10 minutes of wearing them where I use ANC only. However while talking I get constant clicking sounds in the left side ear cup (side where the power button is). This is incredibly irritating because it is like rustling paper almost in my ear. But even just slightly moving my head causes these clicking sounds.

You can even force the issue by tapping the outside of either cup and it will sound like the speaker is rattling loose inside. Even pressing on the back can cause ticking or even the "microphone whine" type feedback noises. Needless to say it is all immensely irritating and other fixes on the Internet have NOT worked thus far. However the solution I found seems to be incredibly simple. So I have documented it in hope that it will help others as well.

Sony's only response to the issue I can find is:

You may hear cracking or popping noises when wearing the headphones. These noises happen because, when wearing or adjusting the position of the headphones, air bubbles inside the earbuds get crushed and restored in response to movements that change the shape of the earbuds. This is normal, and not a malfunction

Yeah OK. Yeah its "normal" for it to happen. To the point I want to personally take a sledgehammer to the headphones because they become completely unusable. ANC is there to cancel noise out not introduce more noise! It kind of defeats the object don't you think Sony ? So in my book, it is a malfunction which should be addressed by Sony.

Disclaimer - This mod is all done entirely at your own risk.

Firstly carefully prise off the ear cup with a suitable tool. Then drill a small hole in the location pointed by the red arrow. I used a 0.8mm drill bit. Very carefully drill this hole because it will quickly drill through the plastic and it will hit the pivot plastic on the other side. You will feel the drill bit "jump" once it goes through where you must immediately stop drilling otherwise you could cause damage.

I do not recommend using larger holes unless absolutely necessary. Because these are noise cancelling headphones, you are introducing a external path where noise can enter your cup.

That is it!

What I believe to be happening is a internal air pressure problem. When moving your head or tapping the outside of the headphones, it will cause a minute air pressure difference which is then picked up by the microphone and then amplified to the speaker. So the idea of drilling the hole is that those minute air pressure movements are now equalised by the small hole drilled.

Currently I have only done one side of the headphones. Now tapping the drilled side no longer causes the rattling sounds. The right-hand side without the hole still has all the rattle type problems. Once I verified that all is well I will also repeat the modification on the other side. Currently I have been dictating this page with voice recognition for the past hour and not had a single click sound! Absolute heaven!

So I really hope this simple modification will help everyone to be suffering with these problems.

exxos

The fix seems to still be working really well. However these headphones seem to have a swivel joint issue where they can break really easily :( I don't think I have had these headphones for even two years yet. I was just laying in bed one night and then the right cup simply fell off!! After researching this on the Internet, it seems to be an incredibly common fault. Thankfully there are very good tutorials like THIS one on how to replace it and the parts seem relatively easy to obtain at a low price if you look.

Though these past few weeks the XM4 seems to have developed yet another fault! Oddly again, the right ear cup seems to start hissing very loud with the noise cancelling on, then seems to start oscillating, then screeches out a very loud very high pitched whine. It is so loud that another person in our house heard it in the next bedroom over. Considering how loud this wine is right next to your ear could potentially be rather damaging. Again I have researched this issue on the Internet but have not really found any solution to this problem and everything looks all securely fixed and not dirty at all. I was incredibly careful when changing the swivel part and I do not see any reason why this would have caused a new problem. In fact the bulk of the electronics and work is actually on the left ear cup anyway.

I have found that reducing the noise cancelling setting and disabling the white noise cancellation does seem to help. The problem seems to be that if the room is too quiet, the headphones seem to struggle and start oscillating with a high-pitched whine . When my bedrooms air filter is running and making a noise, the headphones block out the majority of the sound without problems. it may sound strange to use active noise cancelling in a quiet room, but we live next to a road, even at night time heavy vehicles are going down the road. So having the active noise cancelling on all the time is generally what I do. However a lot of the time the room is actually quiet. Annoyingly they only seem to start squealing when the cup is covered up. Even in a noisy room, placing them on my head can set it off squealing very loudly. I'm not going to try any more fixes on these headphones, they basically have developed three faults now in a relatively short amount of time.

Overall, I just simply regret buying these headphones, they were not exactly cheap at around £250 either. I certainly not not recommend people buying these headphones or any other range by Sony. They clearly have way too many faults and have not been thoroughly tested even after years and various model revisions. People on the Internet are also saying similar. It's a great shame that a once great company like Sony has really dropped the ball on products in recent times. I have purchased a couple of cheap noise cancelling headphones of the Internet, they certainly don't work as well as the Sony, and not as comfortable, but at least they are actually usable.