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- Peerless noise cancellation
- Fantastic fit
- Top-notch feature set
- Average battery life
- No audio upgrades
After almost six years at Expert Reviews, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve written or read something to the effect of “Bose is class-leading for noise cancellation”. That unknown tally is going to grow during this review, as the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds 2nd Gen are undoubtedly the best wireless earbuds available for attenuating external sound.
They’re not notably better at it than their predecessors, the QC Ultra Earbuds, but the gulf between Bose’s active noise cancellation and the chasing pack is big enough that they don’t need to be. They do, however, need to go some to dethrone the Technics EAH-AZ100 as our favourite all-rounders.
And go some they do. Improvements to call quality and the Aware Mode, along with the addition of wireless charging and new in-app options, elevate what was already a compelling package. But with a higher price tag than the Technics, and no obvious audio upgrades, do they have to settle for second best?
What do you get for the money?
The 2nd Gen Ultra Earbuds cost £300, the same price as the first-gen model cost at launch, though those buds can now be picked up for under £200. You’d expect excellent build quality and a fancy finish for that kind of outlay, and that’s exactly what you’re getting here.
To ensure a stable and secure fit, Bose includes a choice of three eartip sizes and three pairs of stability bands. There’s also a USB-A to USB-C charging cable included in the box for those who don’t plan to use wireless charging. It takes roughly three hours to charge the case from empty, and an hour in the case will fully charge the buds. Those numbers are pretty standard; battery life, on the other hand, could be better. The buds will last you around six hours with ANC engaged at moderate volume, but this figure drops to a paltry four hours if you want to enjoy Bose’s Immersive Audio technology. The case provides three full charges of the buds, so you’re looking at total playtime between 16 and 24 hours.
In addition to spatial audio technology, noise cancellation and wireless charging, you’re getting several other premium features. There’s an Aware (transparency) mode, support for high-resolution audio courtesy of the aptX Adaptive Bluetooth codec, customisable touch controls, in-app EQ options and wear detection. The only worthwhile omission I can think of is the Bluetooth retransmission functionality found on the charging case of the Bowers & Wilkins Pi8 and JBL Tour Pro 3.
What do they do well?
The QC Ultra Earbuds 2 do most things very well, but their noise cancellation is head and shoulders above the competition. They remove more noise from your external environment than any other buds on the market, and by a decent margin. Not only do they tackle low frequencies effectively, but they also mitigate the impact of sounds further up the frequency spectrum. At home, they managed to silence my noisy fan and successfully nullified the rattling windows, chirping birds and planes flying overhead.
Their noise-cancelling capabilities make them incredible for journeys on public transport; I’d often wear them and not listen to anything, just so that I could read my book in peace. In fact, they’re so good at blocking out external sound that I found myself disengaging Quiet mode when crossing roads for fear of not hearing a car coming around the corner.
In situations such as this, I switched to Aware mode. This is equally effective at achieving its aim of heightening your sense of what’s going on around you. It does so in as crisp and natural a way as any earbuds I’ve tested. I was able to converse freely with Aware mode engaged and always felt like I was getting the full picture of my surroundings.
One of the key areas in which the 2nd Gen model improves upon its predecessor is the adaptive element of Aware mode: ActiveSense. This optional feature is toggled on or off in the Bose app and selectively applies noise cancellation to combat loud noises. Think of it as Bose’s take on adaptive noise cancellation.
It was handled in a slightly heavy-handed fashion on the first-gen version of the QC Ultra Earbuds; here, it works more smoothly. I was less cognisant of the short periods of attenuation applied to dampen sounds, such as a whirling blender, and lengthy tannoy announcements, which made the Aware experience more consistent and less jarring.
The QC Ultra Earbuds 2 are also better for making and taking phone calls and attending virtual meetings than their predecessor. Bose has leveraged AI to suppress background noise and isolate your voice more effectively, and I found this had a noticeable impact on how well others could hear me. The buds still don’t have the clarity of a professional headset, nor do they operate on quite the same level as the Technics EAH-AZ100, but they’re certainly closer than Bose’s previous effort was.
Elsewhere, the buds share the strengths of the model that came before them. I found their fit exceedingly comfortable and never anything less than reassuringly secure. The combination of eartips and stability bands held the buds in place perfectly during exercise, while also creating a passive noise-cancelling seal to give ANC a strong platform to work from.
And the buds look and feel every bit the premium purchase they are. They’re not the most svelte of their breed, but the reflective surfaces of the flattened stems are an eye-catching canvas for the Bose logo. Audio expert Simon Lucas often references the pride of ownership attached to Bose products; it’s pretty much inescapable when wearing these buds. I particularly like the Deep Plum variant; it’s a strikingly colourful alternative to the black and white smoke options that avoids straying into garish territory.
The touch controls activated by taps and long presses on the stems work very well, too. The default control configuration is easy to memorise, commands are executed quickly and consistently, and there’s a reasonable level of customisation available via the Bose app.
On the audio front, the buds ooze confidence in the way they reproduce sounds across the frequency spectrum. Low-end frequencies hit with a forceful punch, but, unlike London in a heatwave, the warmth was comfortable rather than stifling. The crashing drums on Darude’s Sandstorm remained congruous with higher frequencies throughout, ensuring a satisfying balance to proceedings despite the track’s relentless forward momentum.
More sedate arrangements reveal that the earbuds have precision, detail and rhythmic astuteness going for them, too. A Hi-Res recording of Love’s Enough by David Ackles was rich in texture, with the buds able to articulate the reflective, bittersweet sentiment of the song with appropriate nuance.
I enjoyed Bose’s Immersive Audio (its first venture into spatial sound) on the QC Ultra Earbuds, and its ability to expand a soundstage impressed me again here. The various elements of the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s rendition of Berlioz’s La damnation de Faust, Op. 24 H111 Pt. 1: Marche Hongroise were coherently and cohesively arranged in the virtual space around my head, creating a convincing sense of being present at a live performance.
As was the case on the first-gen model, Immersive Audio works a lot better with certain tracks than others, so it’s not something you’ll want engaged the whole time. This is just as well, given the impact it has on battery life, which I’ll discuss below.
Finally, I want to praise a couple of new features in the Bose app. You can now switch off touch controls entirely, which will be greatly appreciated by those who tend to accidentally trigger them, and view the case’s last known battery level. Minor as they may seem, these are welcome additions.
What could be improved?
Although I highly rate how the QC Ultra Earbuds 2 sound, I expected Bose to make an effort to push the envelope where audio performance is concerned. Rivals like Bowers & Wilkins and Technics have had great success bringing innovative driver tech to bear on their latest true wireless releases, so it feels like Bose has lost a little ground here.
I’m not suggesting a radical overhaul was required, but I am slightly surprised Bose has left this not insignificant area of the QC Ultra Earbuds untouched. To my ears, the 2nd Gen earbuds sound identical to the originals.
One easy way in which Bose could have improved the audio experience is by adding more customisation options. As it stands, there are just four EQ presets and a basic three-band equaliser. I really dig the strongly emphasised lows and treble that characterise the QC Ultra Earbuds 2’s default sound signature, but if you don’t, there’s not much you can do to meaningfully change it. Audio tinkerers will find the tools available on most of Bose’s major competitors a lot more useful.
The brand has also neglected to implement any improvements to battery life. Six hours of in-ear stamina is passable, but if you’re an Immersive Audio enthusiast, that figure falls to just four, which is pretty shabby by modern standards. Granted, four-hour listening sessions are rare outside of long flights, but considering how good the noise cancelling is on the QC Ultra Earbuds 2, they’re exactly the kind of buds you’d want to be able to last a trip across the Atlantic.
Should you buy the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds 2nd Gen?
I described the original Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds as a “compelling package” that wasn’t “quite complete”; the absence of Bluetooth multipoint and wireless charging left them short of a couple of key features, and they were prone to occasional connection dropouts.
The 2nd Gen model addresses all of those issues while also upgrading call quality, improving how the buds adapt to changes in ambient sound in Aware mode, and throwing in some handy new in-app functionality to boot.
An obvious step up in audio quality would have been the cherry on top of the icing on the cake. But as it is, the QuietComfort Earbuds 2nd Gen more than hold their own in a competitive field and are fully deserving of our Best Buy award.
Their biggest strengths lie in different areas from the Technics EAH-AZ100 (the only other premium earbuds I’ve given that accolade to in the past 12 months), so you’ll want to work out your priorities before choosing between the two. As someone who places great value on escaping the world around him using ANC, however, these are my new go-to take-everywhere earbuds.
