I've had the XM3 for a year. It's a great set of headphones and the noise canceling works great. It does have a few peculiarities to be aware of. My biggest is

I've had the XM3 for a year. It's a great set of headphones and the noise canceling works great. It does have a few peculiarities to be aware of. My biggest issue is you can't use the noise cancelling or the bluetooth connectivity while it's charging. You either have to wait for it to charge (which is absurdly fast. 10m will give you at least 4-6 hours) or you have to plug in an 1/8th inch audio cable. The touch controls are kind of odd. If the headphones are tilted slightly forward or backward and you try to increase the volume, you can accidentally trigger backward or forward. It also doesn't trigger consistently. Sometimes, I have to try once or twice before it recognizes the gesture. However, Cupping the hand over the right headphone to hear what's going on around you works every time and is priceless in an office environment. The built in microphone is terrible. Don't use it. I use either the built in microphone in my 2015 macbook pro or the Antlion ModMic Wireless. If you live in an area where winter is a thing and like going for walks while listening to podcasts, then don't use the gestures at all. Once the temperature dips below 32F, touching the touch-sensitive controls even once will cause the headphones to switch to "ambient sound" mode, where it pipes in the sounds around you. You can't switch it off and you can barely hear the podcast. To sony's credit, this isn't permanent. You can reboot the headphones and it works perfectly again, provided you avoid those touch controls. All that said, I don't regret my purchase in the least. They're great headphones and I'll use them until they die on me.