Best Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones
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Best Bose Noise Cancelling Earbuds
Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds
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Slightly improved Bose noise-cancelling headphones
Bose QuietComfort Headphones
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Best new open earphones with innovative clip-on design
Bose Ultra Open earphones
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What are the best Bose headphones?
Bose headphones and earphones are known for their comfort, sound quality and excellent noise cancellation, which is arguably the best on the market, although Sony has been a close competitor in recent years as both companies vie to become the king of noise cancellation. Bose models are some of the best wireless headphones and earphones on the market and tend to be quite expensive, but they do go on sale regularly.
As far as the best Bose model goes, the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones are clearly Bose’s best headphones. However, if you want something smaller, the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds are the way to go and offer the best noise cancellation on the earbud market. However, you can’t connect them to an in-flight entertainment system on a plane as they are exclusively wireless, while the Ultra Open Headphones have a wired option.
I have tested all the Bose models on this list and will update with new Bose headphones and earbuds as they come out. Bose’s latest headphone product is its Ultra-open earphonesthe only model on this list that doesn’t have noise cancellation. They feature an innovative clip-on design (it was a huge improvement over the design of the cheaper clip-on earbuds that were previously on the market) and best-in-class sound for open earbuds.
Read more: Best wireless earbuds for 2024
The best Bose headphones are earphones of the year 2024
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While Bose’s new flagship QuietComfort Ultra Headphones may not be a huge improvement over the company’s Noise Cancelling 700 headphones, they feature a more premium design as well as Bose’s new Immersive Audio feature, which offers some improvements in sound quality. In addition to great sound and excellent noise cancellation, the QC Ultra Headphones are also great for phone calls, as they do a top-notch job of cancelling background noise. A worthy opponent to Sony’s highly rated WH-1000XM5 and Apple’s AirPods Max, we named them the best new noise-cancelling headphones of 2023, and they remain a top choice among noise-cancelling headphones in 2024.
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While the QC Ultra Earbuds aren’t a huge upgrade over Bose’s excellent QC Earbuds 2, which launched in 2022, they’re definitely a bit better. They should fit most ears very well and have excellent noise cancellation that’s arguably the best on the market. And a natural-sounding Transparency mode with a new ActiveSense feature activates some ANC when the sound around you gets too loud (that’s similar to the Adaptive Audio feature on the AirPods Pro). They also sound a bit better overall, with a touch more clarity, and their new Immersive Audio feature opens up the sound a bit.
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When Bose released its new flagship QuietComfort Ultra headphones, it also replaced the QuietComfort 45s with a new, slightly updated model called simply QuietComfort Headphones. Like the QC 45s, this model continues the very comfortable, tried-and-true QuietComfort design that has been around for a few generations and that many people continue to love. The QC Ultra headphones also feature Bose’s new Immersive Audio feature and have a more refined design with some metal parts (they also have Bluetooth 5.3 instead of Bluetooth 5.1). But the QuietComfort headphones still offer very good sound (the Ultras offer a small improvement in sound quality), excellent noise cancellation, and strong performance on voice calls.
As for the differences between these and the QC45s, Bose says it has tweaked some of the electronic parts to improve battery life (now 24 hours instead of 22 hours) and tweaked the logos to make the products “visually distinguishable and more in line with its latest design language.” It also added an inline microphone to the auxiliary cable to “help some users who prefer a plug-and-play solution over Bluetooth pairing.” There’s also a windscreen feature and some additional small performance improvements via software upgrades. Finally, the headphones come in new color options, including green and a light blue version that’s only available on bose.com.
While the list price of the QuietComfort headphones is $50 higher than the QC 45 at $350, we expect them to be regularly discounted to $250 and possibly even less in 2024 – so try to buy them when they’re on sale. You can read our QuietComfort 45 review to get a good idea of the QuietComfort headphones.
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The Bose Ultra Open Earbuds have one of the most unusual designs of any earbud I’ve tested in recent years. They literally clip onto the sides of your ears, much like earrings, and their open design features micro speakers that fire sound into your ears while still letting you hear what’s going on around you. At $299, they’re a bit overpriced, but otherwise there’s a lot to like about them, including a surprisingly comfortable, secure fit and very good sound quality for open earbuds.
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We test wireless earphones and headphones based on five main criteria and compare models with similar design and price. These criteria are design, Sound quality, Features, Voice call performance And Value.
- design: We not only evaluate how comfortable the earphones or headphones are (ergonomics), but also their build quality and how well the controls are implemented. For earphones, we also pay attention to water and dust resistance.
- Sound quality: We evaluate sound quality by listening to a set playlist of music tracks and comparing models to the best competitors in their price range. Sound characteristics such as bass definition, clarity, dynamic range and naturalness of the headphone sound are key factors in our evaluation.
- Features: Some headphones and earbuds with great sound aren’t packed with features, but we consider what extra features are on board. This includes everything from noise cancellation and transparency modes (ambient sound mode) to special sound modes and ear detection sensors that automatically pause your music when you take the headphones off your ears.
- Voice call performance: When we test voice call performance, we make calls on the noisy streets of New York and evaluate how well earbuds and headphones reduce background noise and how clearly callers can hear your voice.
- Value: We determine the value after evaluating the strength of the headphones and earphones based on all these criteria and their performance compared to other models in their price range.
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