Bose QuietComfort Ultra review: The best ANC earbuds you can get
As long as you’re willing to try something different (and spend a little more), I can’t recommend these earbuds enough
🏆 Review score: 4/5
Pros
✅ 👂 Best ANC ever on a pair of earbuds
✅ 🎧 Excellent sound quality with lots of clarity
✅ 📐 Comfortable design that stays put
✅ 🔋 Solid battery life
✅ 👆 Handy touch controls
✅ 📱💻 Multi-device connectivity
Cons
❌ 🪫 Immersive Audio burns too much battery
❌ 🌫️ Occasional strange static noises
❌ 💲 You have to pay extra for wireless charging
❌ 📲 The Bose app isn’t as great as others we’ve tested
Shortcut review
The Bose QuietComfort Ultra are some of the most impressive earbuds I’ve used, but not because of some flashy feature or a lack of competition. Rather, it’s the opposite; these master the basics so well that they easily beat out tough competitors like the AirPods Pro 2 and Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro. While the QC Ultras aren’t a massive upgrade compared to the older QC Earbuds II, anyone who picks them up nowadays will be treated to a great set of buds with the best ANC I’ve heard on headphones of this caliber.
These premium earbuds cost $300 at launch and are now $228 on sale, which makes some of the scarce issues I had easier to swallow. Still worth mentioning, you can’t charge them wirelessly unless you buy a $49 case for them, which makes no sense in 2024. Bose’s Immersive Audio mode can burn through your battery fast, and the companion app is fine at best. I’ve also had some weird issues with static noises and Bluetooth cut-offs.
By and large, the Bose QC Ultra earbuds are the ones to get if you want killer noise cancellation, sound quality, and reliable battery life. They’re pricey whether you’re paying $300 or $228, but sometimes, you have to pay for luxury, which is the feeling you get each time you put these earbuds on.
Full review
🔇 Top-tier ANC (for earbuds). The #1 reason you should buy these Bose earbuds is because of the adjustable active noise cancellation. I can’t stress this enough, the QC Ultra buds are nearly on the same level as some of the best ANC over-ear headphones I’ve used. Since these are buds, the seal around your ears isn’t as closed off as you’d get with traditional cans, but for a pair of earbuds, these are damn impressive.
🤫 Silence of golden. I used these buds in some of the most extreme environments I could find, like the New York City subway system and next to a jet engine on a trip to Nashville. Compared to my AirPods Pro 2, the QC Ultras performed spectacularly well. I could barely hear any external noise at all, and the only times I had issues was when I didn’t properly insert them into my ears. Once you get the right fit, these buds will never let you down. I don’t know what sorcery Bose uses for ANC this good on a pair of earbuds, but it needs to keep using it because it works beautifully.
🎧 Vibrant, detailed audio quality. Another huge perk of using these earbuds is the audio quality itself, which is vibrant and abundantly enjoyable. Bose’s 9.3mm drivers deliver spacious, clear audio that packs the right amount of punchy bass without overpowering. Morgan Wallen’s “Love Somebody” sounded fantastic, with its Latin-inspired guitar pattern accentuated well by the earbud’s wide-open mids and highs. Meanwhile, hip-hop tracks like Travis Scott’s “Antidote” and “Lost in Thought” by Funkdoobiest were fun to jam out to thanks to the punchy bass.
🪄 Custom sound sorcery. Bose uses its CustomTune technology to adjust the sound profile and noise cancellation levels to your ear canal each time you put them on. There’s an orchestra sound effect that plays when you slot them in which the buds use to figure out the shape of your ear canal and adjust the settings. In my experience, this has worked well; sound quality has been great across all kinds of formats. Once again, it’s more sorcery that Bose is relying on to deliver a great experience, and I’m here for it.
🎛️ Immersive Audio can be fun, but it depends. One of the flashy features of the QC Ultra earbuds is Immersive Audio, which is Bose’s version of spatial audio. Turn it on and the buds will make the music, movies, and podcasts you listen to sound like they’re playing all around, mapped to the position of your head. In my testing, the feature didn’t work quite as well as other spatial audio and Dolby Atmos systems I’ve used (like Apple’s Spatial Audio on AirPods), but it’s fun to mess with nonetheless.
🫥 Transparency mode and mics are great. I tested the transparency mode a lot on the QC Ultras, and it worked really well. The microphones did a good job of making it seem like I wasn’t wearing earbuds at all, and having conversations through transparency mode was effortless since I could hear the person speaking to me so easily. Everything sounds natural and clear, avoiding the pitfalls of other earbuds’ mics that can make external noise sound damp and mumbly. In addition, folks I spoke to on the phone using the buds said I sounded great.
📱 💻 Thank goodness for multi-point. When the QC Ultra earbuds originally launched, Bose didn’t include an option for multi-point Bluetooth connections, so you couldn’t pair them to your phone and laptop at the same time. Thankfully, that’s changed. In a software update, the company added multi-point to the earbuds, removing a pain point many reviewers had about the buds at first. I hate using headphones that I can’t pair to my laptop and phone simultaneously, so it’s great that Bose got around to adding the option.
📐 A comfortable design that stays in the ear. I didn’t realize how chunky the QC Ultras were gonna be when I unboxed them, but I’m not mad about it. Bose engineered a design that sits comfortably in your ear canal and stays secure for hours on end. I’ve run around Nashville and NYC, spoken to a million people, eaten some good lunches, and chewed a lot of gum with these buds to see if they’d fall out, and they never did. I used the pre-installed silicone tips and they worked well for me, but if you feel like you need a tighter fit, there are other sizes in the box.
🪶 Light, yet secure enough for the gym. Despite the chunky appearance, the QC Ultras are light and easy to forget about when you’re wearing them. There are small silicone wings on the edges of the buds you can use to hook into your ear, which I did before working out. Speaking of which, they come with an IPX4 rating so they’ll be fine if you start sweating or walk out into the rain.
🔘 Touch controls that actually work. The buds also come with touch controls that you can use to cycle through Quiet, Transparent, and Immersive settings, adjust volume, answer calls, play/pause music, and more. They work reliably well and didn’t cause any issues in my testing.
🛅 On the case. The QC Ultra’s case is pretty big and not as sleek as other buds I’ve tested, but it’s not too big that it doesn’t fit in your pocket. It’s just larger than normal, but it’s easy to deal with considering how good these buds are.
🔋 Good battery life… as long as you don’t use Immersive Audio. The QuietComfort Ultra earbuds are quoted to last up to six hours on a full charge with Quiet mode on, and in my testing, that’s roughly what I could get. Usually, they’d die after about five and a half hours, but there were a few times when they lasted a bit longer. The case supplies another three full charges so you’ll have plenty of battery for traveling. The one thing you have to keep in mind is that if you use Immersive Audio a lot, endurance dips to a maximum of four hours, so you’ll want to keep it turned off if you need extra power throughout the day.
❌ No wireless charging? Really? These are $300 earbuds, yet Bose decided they don’t need wireless charging. That’s a little insane. There’s nothing more convenient than coming home after a long day and just setting your earbuds on a wireless charger until the next morning, but I can’t do that with these Bose buds. You can buy a $49 silicone case that’ll give the earbuds wireless charging, but that’s obviously a terrible investment. If Bose adds nothing else to the next version of the QC Ultras, let’s hope wireless charging makes it.
🧑🏫 They don’t feel as smart as other buds. While the QC Ultras are impressive in terms of noise cancellation and sound quality, they aren’t as smart as other buds. There’s no voice assistant integration, any sort of AI features, any head-tracked gestures, Find My Device support, or other features that make earbuds like the Google Pixel Buds Pro 2 and Sony LinkBuds Open stand out. It’s not a dealbreaker, but worth noting nonetheless.
⚡️ Random static and Bluetooth issues, anyone? During my testing period, I noticed a few bugs with the QC Ultras. When no music is playing and Quiet mode is enabled, I can hear a weird static noise in the left earbud that doesn’t seem to fade away. I’ve also noticed that the Bluetooth connection can dip out for no apparent reason, and there have been times when the two buds don’t sync up and I have to reconnect them. These issues have only popped up on occasion and don’t seem to be a widespread system issue, but they line up with the experience of other QC Ultra buyers.
Should you buy the Bose QuietComfort Ultra earbuds?
Yes, if…
✅ You want the best ANC in a pair of earbuds you can get
✅ You want stellar sound quality
✅ You want long battery life
✅ You want comfortable buds that’ll stay in your ears
✅ You like messing around with spatial audio
No, if…
❌ You want wireless charging
❌ You like using “smart” features
❌ You don’t like dealing with occasional bugs
Max Buondonno is a writer at The Shortcut. Follow him on X @LegendaryScoop.
The bose are amazing for noise cancelation as long as you are the one wearing them. The person on the other end of the call hears every little bit of sound around you. To the point everyone complained to me. I replaced them with another set, same thing. Bose had no answer. I tried the latest Sony’s, they were above and beyond better for the person on the other end of the call, but their noise cancelation was far far below the quality of the Bose. So, now i use both one for airplane rides and one for walking around and making calls.
These are truly amazing and shockingly quiet, functional and comfortable. I work in loud industrial manufacturing facilities and these neutralize everything except voices and alarms. Also the multiple connection capability is fantastic, I am connected to both my personal and work phone simultaneously and it is awesome. Music and calls are clear, full and with great bass.
Well worth the cost.