Design and features:These earphones work with or without the noise canceling feature being turned on, and you can use the noise-canceling feature without listening to music. The WF-SP800N has integrated microphones and touch sensitive music player and digital voice assistant activation controls for Bluetooth paired devices and noise cancelling and ambient sound monitoring controls. Either earpiece can be used alone for one ear monitoring of Bluetooth streamed audio and telephone communications, but only channel will be heard when used with stereo program material. Additional features include an automatic pause feature that pauses audio when either earphone is taken out of an ear, support for Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri, and Google Assistant digital voice assistants when used with mobile devices that have those features, and manufacturer claimed dust and water resistance. This model comes with four pairs of ear pieces in various sizes, two pairs of earbowl supports in various sizes, a USB charging cable, and a charging cradle/recharger battery/carrying case that the manufacturer claims can be used to recharge the earphone batteries once between its own charges. The free Sony Headphones Connect app download for Apple and Android mobile devices can act as a audio program player, provide tonal balance equalization, adjust the ambient sound monitoring level and focus it on the vocal tonal region, disable the automatic pause and shut-off functions, change the touch control functions (including swapping a volume control function for one of the other functions), disable the voice announcements and update the earphone's firmware.
Sound quality: We found the WF-SP800N delivers sound quality that falls in the very good range - it reproduces music and voice very well although it does have some noticeable sonic quirks and very good active noise reduction. With the noise cancelling mode engaged and the Sony Headphones Connect app set with the Equalizer off and clear bass set to 0 (as received state of the earphone) the bass (as in bass drums, bass guitars, stand-up bass, etc.) has good impact and goes deep, but is a bit prominent and boomy. The midrange (voices, guitars, horns, etc.) is even, but is a bit hazy and grainy, and a bit soft. The treble (cymbals, the upper range of violins, etc.) is fairly extended and a bit subdued. While the sound has a decent sense of liveliness, it is somewhat closed (sound-wise it's fairly obvious you have something plugging your ears). It does a good job of recovering room ambience (the sense of the acoustic space in which the audio program that's being listened to was recorded). Warmish character. The overall sound can best be summarized as slightly bassy and a bit hazy. The tone settings of the app do have a noticable effect on the sound of these earphones. Noise Canceling: Very Good noise reduction across the entire frequency range with the low frequencies reduced the most. A faint rushing noise can be heard when there is no audio program to drown it out.
Comfort: As typical of in-ear models they produce a sense of pressure in the ear canal opening that might be uncomfortable for some. Users with small ear bowls might find that the earphone body feels a bit bulky in their earbowl and that they stick out too far and feel like they may lever out of place, but that they will generally stay in place during casual use and even vigorous head movements. Users with medium and larger sized ear bowls will probably find that this model fits and stays in place with no problems and are very stable even during vigorous head movement. Some uses might find tapping on the touch controls to actuate some of the functions drives the earphone further into the ear canal and causes ear discomfort. Incidental contact with the touch controls can cause unintentional volume level changes, playing, pausing, or switching between noise cancellation and ambient sound monitoring.
