Here we go again. Another Bose QuietComfort 35 competitor. Samsung just made the Level On Pro Wireless, and now Sony's crashing the party with its MDR-1000X. It can feel, at times, like we're just beating the dead active noise-cancelling horse here.It's an exceptionally fierce competition, but while there are some definite similarities between them ? they're all noise-cancelling headphones with four microphones, a 20-hour battery life and their own codec that promises Hi-Res Audio when paired with any of the brand's music players, for example ? Sony's MDR-1000X brings its own bag of parlour tricks to the table. It's these tricks, this attention to the minor details, that gives the MDR-1000X the edge on the QC35s, especially if you take into consideration Sony's X-factor: the LDAC codec and DSEE HX that converts uncompressed or lossless 44.1kHz/16bit files to near Hi-Res quality sound.Announced at CES in 2015, LDAC is Sony's play into the high-resolution audio space replacing, or rather enhancing, Bluetooth by promising 96kHz/24bit music in wireless mode for anyone rocking a Sony Xperia Z series phone (Z3 or later), Hi-Res models of Walkman, 4K Sony TVs, AV receivers or a Sony-branded wireless speaker.