Wait is there a device that can do stereo AND mic? I’m not aware of any and I’ve searched long and hard. AFAIK, there is no way it is possible with the current BT spec. Are you saying your Apple headphones can do that?

I don't think there's really any headphones that provide "great"[1] sound quality and noise cancelling + bluetooth. There's necessary tradeoffs that need to be made and physical limitations that mean that sound quality and noise cancelling ability are kind of at odds with each other.

You can definitely get "good"[1] sound quality + noise cancelling, but for me at least most decent non noise cancelling headphones sound noticeably better than my Sony XM4s, even at much lower price points. I'm fine with this though, because I use my XM4s when I need to focus without being distracted by background noise and they do an amazing job at that.

(There's also the issue of bluetooth signal not being as good as wired, and the DAC/Amplification needing to be built into the headphones but I don't think that's having as much of an impact on the overall sound signature - it hasn't been my experience when using bluetooth adapters on some other headphones, and using the XM4s wired).

[1] Obviously peoples subjective idea of "good" vs "great" vary wildly, I'm just sharing my subjective opinion on things.

I got the Sony WH-1000XM4 as a replacement to a cheap wired Sharkoon RUSH ER2. It's like 300 USD vs 30 USD. Sony provides good sound quality + great noise canceling + bluetooth. But as soon as I switch on the mic the quality turns bad. It's abysmal with a old Win 7 Laptop and bad on a Win10 Laptop/iPhone. So for all cases which require a mic, I switched back to the cheaper wired one. Getting an extension cord for the wired one would have been a much cheaper solution. The Sony one only shows its real strengths when walking outside in a noisy environment.

> I’ve looked at the Sony XM1000’s and from what I understand there is some issue with Windows where if you enable the mic, it goes into some different Bluetooth mode that degrades the audio quality coming out of the headphones.

I have the Jabra Elite 85h's and have the same exact problem on OS X from time to time. (I really like them otherwise, though!) I'm not entirely sure what it is.

Bose quite comfort 35 ii and the 700. We use them 4-6 hours a day due to covid homeoffice and couldn't be happier. IMHO if you want to have something better you have to switch to the studio section and give up the BT.