Bose Sport Earbuds Truly Wireless Headphones Review

The Bose Sport Earbuds are simple truly wireless earbuds. They're a bit bulkier than many truly wireless headphones, and they protrude out of your ears a bit. You can get these headphones in three color variants: 'Triple Black', 'Baltic Blue', and 'Glacier White'.

The Bose Sport Earbuds are comfortable. The ear tips feel comfortable, and they don't go too deep into your ear. There are also stability fins to help them stay put on your ear. However, the earbuds are a bit bulky and protrude from your ear, which may be annoying for some listeners.

Update 03/05/2021: Bose released a firmware update which added volume controls. We have updated the review to better reflect these changes, and raised the scoring of this box.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have alright touch-sensitive controls. The right earbud lets you play and pause your music or end and answer your calls. You can also turn on volume controls via the companion app, allowing you to swipe up or down to adjust the volume on the right earbud. However, you won't be able to remap this control onto the left earbud. While there are no controls by default on the left earbud, you can activate or disable them by using the companion app. The app allows you to remap the 'hear battery level' or 'skip track' button onto the left earbud. While you get some audio feedback when connected, the touch-sensitive buttons aren't very clicky, so you may accidentally change a setting while adjusting them in your ear.

The Bose Sport Earbuds are outstandingly portable. Like most truly wireless earbuds, they're small and should easily fit in your pocket. Their portable charging case is a bit bulky, but it should still fit easily in your bag.

The charging case is decent. It's made of hard plastic, and it locks and unlocks to help keep the buds secure. There are also magnets inside the case to hold the earbuds in place while they charge. You can also use the 5-light LED battery indicator to keep track of their battery level.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have an impressive build quality. They're mostly made of plastic, which feels solid and durable. There aren't any noticeable weak links in their build. They're also rated IPX4 for water resistance, though we don't test for this.

These earbuds are amazingly stable. They feel more stable than the Bose Sport Open Earbuds Truly Wireless and come with stability fins to help keep them in place in your ear. They shouldn't fall out of your ears during casual listening sessions or while working out at the gym.

• Bose Sport Earbuds headphones
• 3x Stability fins/earbud tips
• USB-C charging cable
• Carrying case
• Manual

The Bose Sport Earbuds have a balanced, though somewhat warm sound profile. They're lacking a touch of low-bass, which can be disappointing for fans of bass-heavy music genres like EDM. However, their neutral, balanced mid-range makes them suitable for lots of audio content, especially vocal-centric content like podcasts or audiobooks.

These headphones have an impressive frequency response consistency. While the treble is a little inconsistent, you should get consistent sound once you achieve a proper fit and air-tight seal.

These headphones have great bass accuracy. They're lacking a touch of low-bass, so you don't feel the deep thump or rumble in your favorite EDM or hip-hop songs. However, the rest of the range is quite balanced, resulting in a present punch and boom.

These headphones have impressive mid accuracy. Most of the range is quite balanced and neutral, so vocals and lead instruments are clear and present. However, the overemphasized high-mids can make some of those instruments sound honky or harsh.

These headphones have decent treble accuracy. Low-treble is overemphasized, so vocals and lead instruments can be harsh or piercing. The underemphasis in the mid-treble makes sibilants like cymbals weak or distant.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have decent peaks and dips performance. While they're missing a touch of low-bass, the peak across the bass range adds punch and boom to the mix. The dip in the mid-mids nudges vocals and lead instruments towards the back of the mix, while the peak in the high-mids and low-treble can make those same instruments sound honky or harsh. The mid-treble is uneven, resulting in sibilants that are both piercing and lispy.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have excellent imaging. Their weighted group delay falls mostly below the audibility threshold, resulting in tight bass and transparent treble. Also, their L/R drivers are well-matched in amplitude, frequency, and phase response, so objects like footsteps are accurately placed within the stereo image. However, these results are only valid for our test unit, so your experience may vary.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have a terrible passive soundstage performance. By design, they don't interact with the outer ear, which is one of the key components in creating a speaker-like and out-of-body soundstage. As a result, audio seems like it's coming from inside the listener's head, rather than from speakers placed all around them. Also, they have a closed-back enclosure, so their soundstage doesn't sound as spacious as open-back headphones.

These earbuds don't have any virtual soundstage features.

These headphones have an impressive weighted harmonic distortion performance. Aside from a small peak in the high-treble, most of the ranges fall within good limits, resulting in clean and pure audio reproduction.

These are the settings we used to test these headphones. Our results are only valid when using these settings.

While Bose advertises an 'Active EQ' feature, we don't consider this an EQ because you can't turn it off.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have a poor noise isolation performance. They don't isolate against bass-heavy noises like bus or plane engines, and they struggle to block out background voices or the hum from nearby AC units. However, this may be preferred by listeners who want to stay aware of their surroundings, such as outdoor runners. If you're looking for a pair of truly wireless Bose headphones with an active noise cancelling feature, consider the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds Truly Wireless.

These headphones have a very good leakage performance. They leak a bit of noise, but it's mostly thin-sounding.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have an integrated microphone.

The microphone has a mediocre recording quality. Your voice sounds thin, muffled, and lacking in detail. However, the person on the other end of the line should still be able to understand you.

Update 06/04/2021: There seems to be a noise gate built into the microphone, which we couldn't turn off during our original test. However, we were able to retest the mic after fixing the noise gate. As a result, the scoring of this box has changed.

The microphone has a disappointing noise handling performance. The microphone struggles to separate your voice from moderate background noise like a busy street. If you need to take an important call, it's best to do so from a quieter environment to be heard clearly.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have a mediocre battery performance. They only last 4.3 hours off of a single charge, which may not last through your workday. However, there are about two additional charges in the case, which is nice. They also have an auto-off timer to help conserve battery life when not in use.

The Bose Music app is decent. It lets you remap the controls on the left earbud to hear the battery level or skip to the next track. You can also turn on or off the volume touch controls as well as the "In-ear Detection" feature, which automatically answers your calls when you insert the right bud, and automatically plays/pauses your music when your insert/remove the right bud. However, it lacks more premium features like an equalizer, so you can't customize the buds' sound.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have a fair Bluetooth performance. They're compatible with Bluetooth 5.1, but they don't have multi-device or NFC pairing. Their latency on PCs and Androids is likely too high to be suitable for gaming, but you should be able to use them to watch videos on iOS devices. However, some apps compensate for latency, so your real-world experience can vary.

These are Bluetooth-only earbuds.

The Bose Sport Earbuds can't be used with a wired connection. They come with a USB-C charging cable for their charging case.

These headphones aren't compatible with Xbox One.

The Bose Sport Earbuds come with a portable charging case that charges using a USB-C connection.