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.
If on Android, try installing Wavelet. You can they apply the eq for that set of headphones.
I bought the xm5 and momentum 4 to upgrade my xm3s. But after applying the eq, adjusting the bass, and setting a bit more customized eq; I can't justify the extra cost.
I forgot to try out wavelet when I had the XM4s sadly, but I had played around with the EQ settings in the app, that made it a tiny bit better, but when reducing the bass I also lost some clarity... The momentum 4's were also a consideration especially for their battery life, but I already have received the QC45 and I quite like them, they were really cheap too
Wavelet is great, even for the qc45. They're a little too bright for me, but wavelet really helps. It helps with my Linkbuds S, which have a really similar signature to the xm4 earbuds. I've never tried the headphones though.