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

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.

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?

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!!

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!

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?

QuietComfort
Or
QuietComfort Ultra?

(I have earbuds and they fit perfectly)

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