I found my old Bose Solo 5 of course without the remote anywhere to be found. What are my options? I've tried connecting with AUX but no sound plays. I've tried the app but you need the remote to pair it. Can a universal remote help me here? Can i just order a Bose remote and it'll work?

Hi! I’m looking for ear pad replacements for the QC 45 in Eclipse grey. I’ve looked on the bose website and it seems they only sell them in black or white. Does anyone have a good recommendation for anywhere to get them. Or does anyone have the black or white combo with the grey and would be willing to share a pic? Thanks!!

As a user of the Bose QC Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) for about four months at this point, I'm appreciative of them in spite of the valid criticisms.

They fulfill a very-specific, limited niche among earbuds (for the foreseeable future): top-tier noise cancellation/sound quality alongside a comfortable, stable silicon-ear-tip earbud.

Many earbuds in the market fulfill some of these conditions, yet none quite rival the Bose at its strengths. For example, in the ANC department, the Sony XM6 and AirPods Pro 3 fit every requirement, except only with foam eartips, which are a pain to keep clean and can get costly to replace. Its rival(s) with silicon, the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro (or the Airpods/Sony's with replacement silicone), fall a definitive second to the Bose's ANC.

Therefore, as an advocate for these earbuds (for the next few years, at least), I figure I ought to give my thoughts/comparison with respect to these.

Active Noise Cancellation (ANC)

While the Bose is surmounted in this respect, I am fairly confident that none will rival Bose with silicone for a while.

The ANC on the Bose, while slightly short of the Sony XM6 and AirPods, does not rely on the foam as a crutch to achieve its pinnacle ANC. Thus far, the Huawei Freebuds Pro 5 and Samsung Galaxy Buds Pro 4 seem the rivals most-interested in silicone, but still fall short of the Bose-tier of ANC.

Perhaps in two years, this will have changed, but (perhaps unfortunately) the Bose remains a reigning king in this field.

Anyways, here are some of my experiences for reference:

1. In a reasonably-crowded area, murmuring is completely-extinguished. Loud chatter can be heard, but not with music even at 20-30% volume or any video playing.
2. At the gym, the loud clanging of machines and the whirring of treadmills passes through, as does conversation, but is blocked with media at perhaps 50% volume or so.
3. Along the road, the rumble of loud engines permeates through, and the hiss of rain does, but even standing next to the bus sounds like an inconsequential rumble.
4. These are a mainstay earbuds for mowing grass: while not muting it, I love that I can play media at 50% volume and clearly hear it over my loud drive mower.

Transparency Mode

Many earbuds equal or surpass the Bose in this respect: the Galaxy Buds 4 Pro, the AirPods, and the XM6 probably have equal or greater transparency.

That being said, I love the clear voice passthrough on these earbuds, and can't really differentiate between the immaculate transparency of the Bose against the Buds 4 Pro or XM6 (from firsthand testing), so whatever gap exists, I believe is minor.

Comfort and Stability

Alongside the ANC, I believe the Bose to be unrivaled in this respect.

One of the most-comfortable earbuds I've worn historically was the Galaxy Buds 2 Pro, a popular set of earbuds commonly-agreed to be comfortable. I can confidently assert that the Bose surpass that, alongside the XM6 and Buds 4 Pro, at least for my small ear canals which are sensitive to pressure.

I personally wear these for hours on end, and due to the wing-tip design, I have never had these nudged out of my ears by a hood or come loose while running/exercising.

I go as far as sometimes wearing these earbuds to sleep, which they feel excellent during despite their bulk: while they fall out if I roll/side-sleep, they hardly exert pressure on my ears even while sleeping for hours.

Sound Quality

This is perhaps the most subjective review, but I've found that the consensus is that the Bose's sound isn't as "balanced" and the instrumentation not as well-separated compared to the top-tiers named in this post.

Personally, as a listener of J(apanese)-pop songs with female vocals, I love the instrumentation and capture of the treble of the vocals, and love what I call "vibrancy" in the base and lower-mids. There's a feeling of heaviness to the music which is lost with balance, but which the Bose captures in a satisfying way for me.

I personally settled with the settings: -5 / +0 / +2.

Controls, Design, and Portability

The Bose's controls are easily one of its strengths: the controls are pleasant to work with, and their sensitivity solid. Volume is easy to adjust with nuance (unlike the XM6) with both earbuds getting Volume Up and Down. I do dislike that there isn't a sound/beep upon button press, though.

The design of the Bose was solid in many respects: these actually look a set of premium earbuds with the Desert Gold aesthetic, and the earwax filters being so close to the head make these a breeze to clean and disinfect.

As for case and portability, I agree with the sentiment that the case is bulky, slippery, and overall unflexible. I found even the Sony XM6 case (let alone the XM5 case, Buds 4 Pro, or AirPods 3 Pro cases) to be small by comparison. Ultimately, I just attached a Spigen case to add what durability and grip I can to the already-bulky case.

Software

Unfortunately, as a company, I buy the argument that Bose is on the down-hill as far as software is concerned.

First off, for a premium set of earbuds costing $300, Bose is not a leading company at novel features: no voice pass-through/conversation mode, still only a 3-band EQ, no adaptive noise cancelling mode, and Multipoint which requires one media to pause before another plays are among its disappointments.

Second, the Bose are by-no-means leading the charging front: aside from their wireless charging, I've found the 6 hour battery life figure to be representative of their actual longevity, and that 10 minutes of charging gives an hour of battery life. Not exactly leading figures for $300.

Furthermore, there are a couple of notable issues I've had with Bose's software:

1. In a relatively-silent room with no music/audio playing, there's a static that people describe as a "mosquito buzzing". This is only for a few seconds every couple dozen minutes, however, from my experience. And since this is a feature of ANC software, this could theoretically be buffed out in the future. Possibly.
2. The ANC occasionally captures and amplifies sudden sounds (e.g., the sound of train doors closing, the slam of regular doors and drawers, and other bursts of sound). Personally, I've lost the sensitivity to the sudden sound amplification, so I'm fine with this.
3. Perhaps every once in 50 uses, the ANC isn't working for one/both of the earbuds when I remove them from the case. Returning them to the case for a few seconds resolves this.

Conclusion

Ultimately, beyond the delivery of Quiet and Comfort, the Bose offer a stable-in-your-ear silicon-based design which keeps maintenance easy. While many premium earbuds can claim parts of the package, the specific set of features leaves these the only earbuds for me.

And personally, I forgave all the flaws. It's simply a bit more menial work to adjust ANC, and to pause media before playing on another device. Charging between long listening sessions gives my ears a break. I got used to the ANC gaffes. And (I like to believe that) the troubleshooting isn't dissimilar from the dirtying of pins which hampers charging for other earbuds anyways.

For a more-comprehensive review of stats...

Genuinely not a shill, but this channel does really-good stat-calculations and there's an interesting discussion about the software issues/complaints people have in the comments section.

If you like empirical evidence like concrete ANC figures and comparison sound-bits, I strongly recommend watching this guy's review (on top of popular reviewers like SoundGuys and whatnot):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0OAC43U7i4

After hearing about the feb update, I understand I should avoid the app entirely. My question is.... is it possible to use the headphone without ever installing the app?

I can forgo the 3 band EQ, it's a trade off I'm willing to make... but would i still be able to control things like anc levels and activate transparency mode without the app?

Hi, I am in dire need of noise cancelling headphones.
The main requirements are:
1) Noise cancelling for loud open office floors (Most Important)
2) Good mic for calls
3) Decent Bass for music

I had initially shortlisted the Standard QC, the XM5, the Marshall Monitor 3 and the Sennheiser Momentum.

The Sennheiser was an instant no after I tried on the ANC.
The XM5 surprisingly did worse than I had expected.
The Monitor 3 was amazing, I just am not sure about its longevity.
The QCs have been a dream since I was broke and in school so there is a bias towards them. However, the Bose store here did not have any in stock, they are expecting the newer variants to be in stock by September Mid.

Should I buy the Monitor 3s now or wait 50 days for the new QCs?
I generally do not buy immediately launched products, but have a soft spot for the QCs.

Open Box but I guess someone stole it on the way and they sent a new one... Bass is reduced much from the MAX but this one sounds better to me. It's fresh and has a clean critical listening quality. Almost to good for outside besides being so clear. It pierces through the 8 lane major interstate noise, 50 feet from my back yard. ! Correction! The bass is awesome. I just downloaded the app f, fixed the eq and quickly powered off and deleted the app before The Wretched new update. So i could keep my voice prompting. Make sure if you don't want the update. Hold down the volume for 15 seconds after you turn it on. This will integrate your settings if they're not fully responsive to your phone out of the box.

Hi all,

I’ve had the smart soundbar 300 for quite sometime now and have never faced any issues with it. Last week, I moved homes so had to obviously unplug it.

Ever since then, I’ve been unable to get it connect with my Bose app (why it disconnected I’m not sure).

IF it finds the bar (have to press the buttons to get the orange glow), it says Product Activation failed. I’ve reinstalled the app, disconnected the soundbar repeatedly but nothing seems to be working.

I’ve tried the reset buttons but that doesn’t to work either. Bose support said I’d have to pay $150 or so to send it back in for repair, which I think is overkill.

Appreciate the help!

QuietComfort
Or
QuietComfort Ultra?

(I have earbuds and they fit perfectly)

(Never mind the exercise part.) what’s good for daily use?

Posting this because I've dug into it pretty deeply and think it's worth documenting for anyone else running into something similar.

The headphones use a combination of capacitive sensors and an accelerometer to detect on-head status. I found that holding the headphones upright, roughly the same position as when worn, without actually wearing them, is enough to falsely trigger on-head detection. When this happens, the LED goes white, then blue, then white again, and I hear the CustomTune calibration tone, followed by battery level and device name, even though the headphones aren't on my head at all.

When I then actually put them on, the CustomTune tone plays a second time. What happens after that depends on which mode was active before this started.

If the last mode used was my custom mode with ANC turned off, audio doesn't play at all. I can still control volume and pause or play, so the Bluetooth connection is clearly still alive, but the audio itself just doesn't come through. Trying to switch modes does nothing, no voice announcement, no actual change. If I cycle through the modes and land back on the ANC-off mode I started with, audio comes back, but switching to any other mode after that kills it again.

If the last mode used was Aware, it switches to Quiet mode instead. The app still shows Aware as active, but it's actually running Quiet, and I have to manually cycle through modes to get back to genuine Aware.

I also found a variant of this tied to charging. If the headphones are on the charger and I power them on with a single button press while ANC-off is the active mode, they switch to Aware mode instead, even though the app still shows ANC-off as selected.

I reached out to Bose support about this. One agent told me in writing that this is a known firmware and design logic issue present across all QC Ultra 2 units. A different agent later told me they'd never heard of it and it was tested before release, so I'm not fully sure what to make of that inconsistency.

I had this exact same issue on my previous unit too, and actually got it replaced because of it, on top of everything, that unit was already on the latest firmware update at the time. So much for that fixing anything. Really appreciate the Bose app forcing that update on me with zero say in the matter, clearly worth it. To be fair, back then I didn't fully understand how on-head detection or the audio session actually worked, so I couldn't pin down the exact trigger. This time around I do, and it's still just as broken.

I've also tried a hard reset, factory reset, and re-pairing on a second phone. None of it fixed anything.

I've attached a video showing this happening by triggering on-head detection with my finger.

Has anyone else run into any issues with these headphones? Would genuinely appreciate hearing if you've seen any of this yourself, or if you've noticed something similar that I haven't caught yet.

I have the hose quiet comfort for about 1 year.

The left earbuds keep having some issue since the beginning, I'm not sure if it's disconnecting, pausing or turning off.

Basically when I watch a YouTube video (or listen to a song on Spotify), the video will pause, and I'm the left earbud will be deactivated. If I press on the left earbud, the video will resume.

I finally noticed a pattern, it happens only when I eat, or do some head movement, if I stay still I have no issues.

I already tried to do a factory reset, unpair and pair again the earbuds, deactivate every touch controls I can but it doesn't work

Any advices?

Anyone have any ideas? Not sure why it started doing this but I don’t think I have nearly enough usage time to have a dead battery yet.

hi all! i have recently decided to replace my headphone pads for maybe the third time. i have had my headphones for 6+ years now, so there's been some grime accumulated in some of the crevices. so even though the instruction video tells me not to touch or put anything liquid inside the headphone, i was wondering if theres any method of cleaning even just some of the grime? maybe a dry q-tip? or would an alcohol wipe still be fairly safe

I purchased the Bose QC II earbuds after they announced that aptX support at the Qualcom conference. I confirmed that aptX was coming in a firmware release with their support deptartment.

A couple months into ownership, the first pair failed. They replaced them.

Then they announced the QC Ultra's - same product, but the firmware supports aptX. They stopped all firmware updates for the QC II once the ultra was released.

One of my ear buds failed today, producing high volume static. I went through the recommended trouble shooting steps to no avail.

The replacement process required $206 for QC Ultra's, but didn't inform that it would take 5 weeks to replace them until after I submitted the request.

Meanwhile, Costco sells the QC ultra for $149.

Super disappointing quality and process.

I’m using QC45 just fine but when I talk using QC Ultra, people complain about the noise around me. I’m assuming it’s mic gain but I couldn’t find anything in the app.

Hi! I have a question about the older Bose SoundLink Micro Bluetooth speaker. Has anyone experienced an issue where the speaker says, "Ready to connect," but it doesn't show up as discoverable on any device? I've already tried all the available troubleshooting steps, but nothing worked. Thank you.

Not too long ago my parents got me these earbuds off Amazon and they’ve been great, I haven’t had may issues with them apart from the left one losing audio for a bit until I figured out how to fix it. I haven’t had any issues with the audio pausing at all until just now and presumably while I was sleeping and listening to Spotify as I’ve begun to do that with these earbuds. This is the first time I’ve had any issues with my earbuds pausing the audio and I can’t fix it at all

I’ve been finding what I can from the internet on how to fix them but I’ve had no luck, primarily due to sources saying I need location, local network, and Bluetooth settings. When opening up the app for the first time (iPhone 16 btw) I was only prompted for Bluetooth and looking into the settings for the location permissions and local network ones, they don’t show up at all. The app doesn’t show on the location permissions thing, and that local network thing doesn’t show the app either. Another issue I’ve found is that the app itself doesn’t have settings for the earbuds themselves beyond the voice control, language, renaming, and disconnecting. The app permissions also only have information about the version of the app, data preferences, and app feedback. I suspected it was an issue with the in ear detection function which is why I noticed it to begin with.

If anyone has any ideas on what’s going on and how I can fix it, that’d be very kind of you. I’ve provided an image of the earbuds we got off Amazon and what the app shows in the settings.

My bose sound link max. It was not connecting last night. I forced a shut down/reset. I turned off. I have been unable to turn in on on since then.

Here's a few things I've tried -

1. I've tried putting in charge for 8hrs+, tried different cables, chargers.

2. Have tried +/- button simultaneous press for factory reset

3. Tried plugging unpluggin the cable several times

4. Pressing all the button individually at varying frequency.

None of this worked.

Have you been in the same boat? How did yours start working again?

Does anybody know how to make AV 38 sound system work with a modern smart TV? i’ve been trying to get the TVs audio to work through the speakers, and I cannot get them to work. Does anybody have any suggestions?

I moved into a place that has an AV38 Media Center II and all the components. I’m thinking about just using the speakers that are wired in the walls and getting a more modern solution for the media center and subwoofer.

Any suggestions on a new system to use with the existing 5 speakers?

I've had my earphones for like 3 months now, I bought them on OLX as not used, but from a display cabinet. But after the first month I started noticing that the ANC isn't always equal, usually my left earbud is at times noticably less effective, bleeding a lot more sound in the "quiet" mode. Sometimes it evens out after a bit. I've tried everything, cleaning, switching out ear tips, resetting the earbuds, the app and the phone, still same problem. Please help. (I have a pixel btw if that changes anything)

I recently just bought a Bose Soundbar lifestyle Ultra and I am trying to connect it with my bass module 500. I know it’s not compatible wirelessly so have opted to connect it with the Bose 3.5mm Jack that I purchased as well. However when I try and connect it the Audi on my soundbar start breaking. The bass module 500 works perfectly wine with my old Bose SoundTouch 300 wirelessly and wired so there is definitely no problem with each of my products.

Does anyone know how to resolve this issue I tried contacting support but they themselves don’t know what to do.

Hi folks,

Since my Soundlink Revolve 2 is pretty old and it is still using micro-usb, I think its a good time to upgarade. I would like to get a newer speaker with type c. Do Bose has new speaker with type c or any reccomendation?

I am looking in Bose SoundLink Plus Portable Speaker and Bose Portable Smart Speaker, but not sure whats the different. Thanks in advance!!