Bose QC Ultra Headphones Review: Superior to Sony?

Speaker 1: Hey folks. I've got Bose's new flagship noise canceling headphones here, the Quiet Comfort Ultra Headphones. They cost $429. That's a lot to pay for headphones and not surprisingly, they're very good, but are they better than Sony's WF 1000 X mark five Apple's, AirPods Max, and some other headphones in this price range? Let's get right into the review so I can try to answer that for you. [00:00:30] So as you can see, the design of these headphones is totally new. It's sort of a cross between Bose's previous flagship model, the noise canceling headphones, 700 and the Quiet Comfort 40 fives, which have morphed into a new $350 model that Bose has simply [00:01:00] named The Quiet Comfort Headphones. The headphones 700 had some metal parts, but the QC Ultra headphones incorporate an aluminum yolk and arms that slide into the headband. Another upgrade is their dual hinge design, so they both fold up and fold flat. Speaker 1: Just be careful not to get your finger caught in the hinge, which I did a couple of times and got an unpleasant pinch. The headphones feel durable and are surprisingly lightweight at 254 grams, which is just a couple of grams more than what the headphones 700 weigh. The Sony [00:01:30] Exum fives weigh 249 grams on the much heavier AirPods Max tipped the scales at 385 grams. Bose reps told me the QC Ultras are designed to fit a wider range of head types and like other Bose headphones, they're quite comfortable to wear. They did clamp slightly more than the Sonys, but I was able to wear them for a couple of hours straight without a problem. Like other over your headphones, they will steam up your ears if you wear them around in warmer environments. It's also worth mentioning that the black version of the headphones can end up showing some smudges [00:02:00] if you have any grime on your hands or just have oily skin. Speaker 1: The white smoke version doesn't. I did like the controls. The QC Ultra headphones feature a mix of physical control buttons along with a raised volume strip on the right ear cup. That's easy to reach and use by feel alone. There's also a touch and hold gesture for that strip that's customizable as a shortcut. You can choose to map it to one of four functions. The main button on the headphones allows you to pause and play your audio with a single tap. Skip tracks forward with a double tap and skip back with a triple tap. [00:02:30] Holding the button down lets you toggle through full noise canceling and awareness mode and an immersion mode that activates full noise canceling, along with Moses's new spatial audio feature with head tracking that it calls immersive audio. The awareness mode is equivalent to Apple's transparency mode and it sounds quite natural with almost no audible his. Speaker 1: There's also a new active sense feature that kicks in some noise canceling. Should the sound get too loud around you. That's similar to the new adaptive audio feature on the AirPods Pro. Two. That feature [00:03:00] isn't available for the AirPods max because it requires Apple's H two chip thanks to ear detection sensors inside the Air cups. When you take the headphones off your ears, your audio will pause and resume playback when you put them back on. Beyond that, if you set your headphones down somewhere and forget to turn them off, they'll go into a sleep mode to conserve battery life. If they aren't used within a certain amount of time, you can actually set the time anywhere from five minutes to 24 hours. They will completely turn off on their own. That's similar to the AirPod Max's Power Saving [00:03:30] Features. While Bose mentions that both this over-Ear Ultra model and is new QC Ultra Earbuds feature world-class noise cancellation, and they certainly do, the real feature is hyping this go round is immersive audio. Speaker 1: It's custom version of a spatial audio. BAU says that immersive audio goes beyond special effects and creates a wider, more spacious sound stage so your content becomes multidimensional and layered regardless of the audio platform or device. Like other headphones that feature spatial audio apple's latest AirPods, for instance, [00:04:00] the QC Ultra Headphones and QC Ultra Earbuds have two spatial audio modes. One still mode without head tracking engaged, and a motion mode that uses head tracking and allows the audio to move with you. So it's always in front of you. Bose says it works with movies and any stereo track, but it's really designed for music listening. Using the immersive audio feature does widen the sound stage a bit, creating the illusion that your audio is more outside your head. It works better with some tracks than others, but it does open up the sound a bit, giving it an area [00:04:30] quality. Speaker 1: Most people will probably choose to leave it on, but the downside is that engaging, it does impact battery life significantly. The headphones are rated for up to 24 hours of battery life at moderate volume levels with noise canceling on, but that number dips to 18 hours. With immersive audio engaged, I spent some time comparing the sound quality to the QC Ultra headphones to that of the Sony W 1000 X mark five, and the AirPods max. While the QC Ultra headphones have the same drivers as the headphones 700, the ultrasound [00:05:00] has improved. It's not a huge improvement, but the ultra seems slightly cleaner sounding and more revealing with deeper but well-defined base. Since they feature the same drivers. Most of the audio quality gains come from the more powerful chip set with improved digital processing. Both the Sony XM five and AirPods Max are excellent sounding headphones and sound quality is subjective as everybody has different ears and different musical tastes. Speaker 1: But I'd say this Bose is a touch ahead of both the Sony and AirPods Max for sound quality. The Sony has a slightly [00:05:30] warmer sound profile and the Bose just comes across as slightly more natural sounding than the AirPods max. By that, I mean it sounds slightly more accurate. All that said, I was slightly disappointed that headphones don't feature U S B C audio. You get a headphone cable for wireless listening, which will come in handy for air travel, but with most smartphones now missing a headphone jack, it'd be nice to be able to plug a U S B C cable directly into your phone and have an all digital wire connection realing the Lossless audio tracks. It'd be Geo Pro and some other headphones offer that feature. I have one [00:06:00] other small gripe. Bose says that both the QC Ultra Ear Buzz and QC Ultra headphones feature the Snapdragon Sound Technology suite, enabling support for the latest Qualcomm Apdex Adaptive Codec for audio streaming, including lossless and low latency capabilities. Speaker 1: Google fast pairs also on board, but you may have prompts actually getting aptex to work with your device. I paired the headphones with a Google Pixel seven, which supports Aptex audio, but it defaulted to the a c Audio Kodak for HD audio even after I access the developer mode. [00:06:30] When I paired them with a Samsung Galaxy Flip five, which is supposed to be Snapdragon Sound enabled. The same thing happened. However, when I connected them to a as row phone six, another Snapdragon enabled phone, I was able to use appdex Adaptive. I found the whole thing a little bit irritating, and I do think there'll be some confusion around the APPDEX support. I had better luck with multi-point pairing while the QC Ultra earbuds still lack multipoint, which allows you to connect to two devices simultaneously and switch audio between them. The Ultra [00:07:00] headphones have it. Speaker 1: I was able to switch back and forth between the Asus Rogue Phone six and the iPhone four Team Pro and switch the audio easily. I'll finish by talking about the noise canceling and voice calling performance. As I said, Bose isn't talking up the noise canceling as much as it usually does. Maybe that's because it's as good as it is and speaks for itself. You can argue over whether Sony or Bose has better noise canceling and Apples is also excellent, but I wore these in the noisy streets in New York and the headphones really muffled everything [00:07:30] around me, including people's voices. It's top notch voice calling performance is also excellent. I was told they have five microphones in each ear, cup four external and one inside the ear cup that help drive both the noise canceling and voice calling performance. While I was slightly disappointed with how much background noise the QC Ultra earbuds led in, that wasn't an issue with these full-size ultras, even in noisy environments, callers said they only heard minimal background noise while my voice came through clearly. Alright, I'm on a test call [00:08:00] here with fellow C Editor John Speaker 2: F Co. John, I'm chief to New York City. A lot of traffic going on behind me, so I'm just going to talk a little bit longer to have you hear my voice with the background noise. Let me know what you think. So from the listener's point of view, this sounds very good. Your voice is nice and clear and I don't really hear much background noise whatsoever. Speaker 1: Alright, there is indeed a lot of cars Speaker 2: Going on some buses, [00:08:30] so some pretty good background noise expression suppression. Alright, thanks. Speaker 1: So here's what I like and don't like about the QC Ultra headphones. What I like, they're lightweight and comfortable, and their new design is an upgrade over Bose's headphones 700 and the standard Bose Quiet Comfort headphones. They sound excellent. The new immersive audio mode does offer some sound quality enhancements. The noise canceling is great, and their voice calling performance is top-notch. What I don't like, they're higher price tag. [00:09:00] They're $30 more than the Sony, which is already seeing meaningful discounts. They don't have U S B C audio. Also engaging immersive audio impacts battery life, which already isn't quite as good as what you get with some noise canceling headphones. And lastly, their support for the Aptex Audio Codex seems limited. Despite those small downsides, you can afford their higher price tag and hopefully they will go on sale at some point. I do think they are very worthy alternatives to both the Sony XM Fives and the AirPods Max. [00:09:30] As always, let me know what you think in the comment section. I'm David Conner for cnet. Thanks for watching.