Bose QuietComfort Headphones Wireless Headphones Review

These headphones look pretty similar to the Bose QuietComfort 45/QC45 Wireless. Their design is fairly non-descript and minimalist. The manufacturer's logo is found on the center of the ear cup. They come in a few different colors: 'Triple Black,' 'Smoke White,' and 'Cypress Green.' There's also a limited edition model made in partnership with Steve Lacy. This model is cream with black trim and pink accents. If you want to truly trick out your headphones, ColorWare offers this model in custom color schemes at an added charge. The color options range from subdued to neon and iridescent. You can also add custom engraving.

These headphones are pretty comfortable. Like other Bose headphones, they have plush padding along their headband and ear cups. They don't clamp very tightly on your head either, although they can feel a bit loose when you're moving around.

Their physical controls are great. The layout is the same as their predecessor, with three buttons located on the right ear cup and the 'Action' button on the left cup. There are physical and audible clicks when pushing the buttons, and there are warning chimes to let you know when you've reached min and max volume. There are even voice prompts for switching connections, the ANC status, battery life, and pairing. There's no feedback when pressing the buttons; you'll only hear the voice prompt following your command.

On the left ear cup:

'Action' button:

• Single press: Cycles between 'Quiet' mode, which is ANC on, and 'Aware' mode, which is a talk-through mode that plays the sounds around you alongside your regular audio content, so that you can stay aware of your surroundings without having to pause your audio or take off your headphones.
• Press and hold: Access voice assistant.

On the right ear cup:

• '+' and '-': Raises and lowers the volume.

Center button:

• One press: Plays and pauses audio. Also answers and ends calls.
• Double press: Skips the track forward.
• Triple press: Skips the track backward.
• Press and hold: Declines a call.

Like most over-ears, they have a bulky design. However, you can fold them into a more compact shape. The ear cups can also lay flat to save space.

These over-ears come with a faux-leather carrying case with a soft velvet interior. To fit the headphones into the case, you'll have to rotate the ear cups inwards to lay flat against the case. Overall, the case is sturdy enough to protect the headphones from on-the-go damage, and it has a high-quality zipper so that you can securely travel with your headphones. Inside the case is a little pouch for storing the cables.

These over-ears have a good build quality. They're mostly made of plastic with a few metal parts, like the adjustable headband and faux leather padding. Overall, they feel pretty sturdy, lightweight, and durable. The folding hinges can lose their snap over time, though.

These headphones are decently stable. If you're listening to audio at your desk, they won't move much from your head. However, slightly tilting your head can cause them to move and require a reseat. They'll easily fall off your head if you try to use them for tough workouts.

• Bose QuietComfort Headphones headphones
• 1/8" to 1/16" (3.5 mm to 2.5 mm) TRRS audio cable
• Carrying case
• USB-A to USB-C charging cable
• Manuals

These headphones have a somewhat V-shaped sound profile with ample low-end and a bright treble response. They deliver rumble, punch, and boom to kick drums and squelchy synth bass, which is nice if you like genres like EDM and pop. Meanwhile, the treble region trends towards bright, with peaks of emphasis that can sound harsh (depending on the song) and highlight the articulation of your favorite singer's voice. Similarly, peaks in the mid-treble sound piercing on a narrow band of frequencies like the sizzle of cymbal hits. The headphones' mid-range is rather even, producing natural-sounding lead guitars and keyboards, but the extra bass and excited top-end can push the mids down in the mix. With that said, if you want a different tuning, their companion app includes a three-band EQ with presets.

Although we measured their sound performance using Bluetooth, you can expect the same performance via analog, so long as the headphones are powered on. You can see a graph comparing the frequency responses over Bluetooth and active as well as passive wired connections. However, when used passively, the headphones deliver a very different sound with anemic low bass, considerably more boom, a boosted mid-range, and harsh treble. Vocals and instruments take a hit, sounding hollow and veiled or piercing, depending on the pitch.

The Bose QuietComfort Headphones have good frequency response consistency. Once you take the time to achieve a proper fit, seal, and positioning, you'll get consistent audio delivery each time you wear them.

These headphones have very good bass profile target compliance. While the low-end is over-emphasized throughout the range, adding extra boom and rumble in basslines to tracks like Satisfaction by Benny Benassi, for the most part, it's relatively smooth, so frequencies don't jump out within the playback.

The Bose QuietComfort Headphones' mid-range target compliance is outstanding. The response sticks to our curve well, so speech, vocals, and instruments sound present. However, the lower mid-range can sound a little cluttered, as it carries on the over-emphasized bass response, but this is very minor.

The headphones' treble target compliance is great. Their treble response is bright, with a dip that softens vocal clarity in the low-treble or plays it back with a bit of harshness, depending on the pitch. Most of the mid-treble is bright and detailed, but a narrow peak adds artificial sharpness to harmonics like cymbals. Lastly, depending on your hearing sensitivity, the uppermost frequencies have a fairly airy quality that's not overwhelmingly brilliant-sounding.

The peaks and dips performance is good. Bass and mids frequencies closely follow their own sound profile for mostly tight and even bass guitars and keys. The largest deviations are in the treble range, which indicates that the headphones struggle more to control their sound profile in this range than in the rest of the response. The dip in the low treble hurts the detail and clarity of vocals and instruments, while the peak adds harshness. The dips that bookend a prominent peak in the mid-treble make sibilants, like cymbals, either lispy or piercing, depending on the frequency range.

While Bose generally has good quality control and ergonomics, our unit has loose bass. While it's not always audible in mixes, if you like thumpy, rumbly genres like EDM and hip-hop, you'll find that mixes sound a bit sloppy. That said, our unit's L/R drivers are well-matched in amplitude and frequency response, which helps ensure the accurate placement of objects like voices in the stereo image. We also originally reported high phase mismatch, but after looking into our phase response results, we discovered an issue with our job's coding and interpretation of results from REW. After fixing this issue, you can expect a phase performance closer to our updated results. Keep in mind that imaging also varies between units.

The Bose QuietComfort Headphones have a poor passive soundstage, but that's normal for closed-back headphones. The soundstage isn't very spacious, and audio seems like it's coming from inside your head rather than from speakers placed in front of you. On the upside, the soundstage feels wide.

The weighted harmonic distortion performance is decent. There's a small peak between the low to mid-treble at moderate and high volumes. However, this peak is hard to hear as it affects a small frequency band. The rest of the response falls within good levels, resulting in mostly clear and pure audio reproduction.

These are the settings used to test the Bose QuietComfort Headphones. Our results are only valid when used in these settings.

The noise isolation performance is outstanding and even slightly better than their predecessor, the Bose QuietComfort 45/QC45 Wireless. They can cut down a wide array of sounds like the low rumble of bus engines as well as block out office chatter and the high-pitched hum of PC fans.

You can adjust the strength of the ANC in their companion app. By default, there are two ANC modes: 'Quiet,' which is ANC on, and 'Aware,' which allows you to stay aware of your surroundings without removing your headphones. You can add new modes based on your activity or usage and set their levels to your desired preferences.

These headphones also provide a similarly fantastic noise isolation performance when it comes to more dynamic everyday scenarios like busy streets and offices. The ANC system can also tackle airplane noise, giving you some peace and quiet during your travels.

These headphones have a Wind Block feature, which we tested. The manufacturer advertises that it turns the off ANC microphones located on the exterior of the headphones. This is to reduce the ANC system from picking up this sound and amplifying it. Using this feature can help reduce the presence of this sound, particularly in the bass range compared to when this feature is off but it's still present and annoying.

That said, wind noise is pretty challenging to reduce. It directly interacts with the ANC's microphones and causes the system to produce anti-noise as a response, even though the wind sound itself won't reach your ear. There's also a chance that using the Wind Block feature could impact ANC performance if you're in a windy environment.

The leakage performance is okay. Audio bleed is mostly concentrated between the mid to treble range but sounds mostly full. If you're listening to audio at high volumes, others around you will hear parts of it.

These headphones have an integrated mic. They also come with a TRRS cable, which has an in-line mic.

The integrated mic's recording quality is decent. Your voice sounds natural but lacks body. You can expect a similar performance if you want to use the in-line mic. You can see a comparison of both mics here. With the in-line mic, your voice sounds more full-bodied and bright.

The integrated mic's noise handling performance is disappointing.  It struggles to separate your voice from moderately busy backgrounds, like a bustling cafe. Louder noises, like a passing train, will cause your voice to be totally drowned out. 

The Bose QuietComfort Headphones' battery performance is excellent. The manufacturer advertises a continuous battery life of 24 hours, and we measured just over that. It takes roughly two hours to charge them back up, and they have an auto-off timer to help conserve battery life if you forget to turn them off. You can also use them passively with their analog cable.

The Bose Music app is great; you can see a video of it in action here. You can access EQ presets as well as a 3-band graphic EQ for sound customization. You can also access features like 'Self-Voice', which is a microphone sidetone feature, check out product updates, and add shortcuts like hearing the battery or quick access to the Spotify app (if you have it).

These headphones come with a USB-A to USB-C charging cable. Unlike the Bose QuietComfort 45/QC45 Wireless, they also come with a 1/8" to 1/16" TRRS cable with an in-line mic.

These headphones have excellent Bluetooth connectivity. They support multi-device pairing, so you can stay connected to your PC and smartphone simultaneously. They only support SBC and AAC codecs, though, and using SBC results in high latency on PCs, so there's some delay between your audio and visuals. Some apps compensate for latency differently, though.

These headphones can connect to Bluetooth-enabled PCs and via their analog cable with full audio and mic compatibility.

The Bose QuietComfort Headphones have full audio and mic support with PlayStation consoles via analog.

You can plug their analog cable into your Xbox console's AUX port for full audio and mic compatibility.