Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones Gen 2 review: the best wireless headphones for travel
Super compact headphones you’ll never have to turn off
🏆 Review score: 4.5 out of 5
🏅 Editor’s Choice Award
✅ Pros
💤 Improved sleep mode saves you from having to turn off your headphones ever again
🗣️ Crystal clear vocals and mid frequencies
👨🎤 Immersive sound mimics watching a concert
🎥 Cinema mode boosts dialogue and highs
🎧 Lossless audio through any USB-C connected device
🔌 Supports charging while playing
🔋 Greatly improved 30-hour battery life
❌ Cons
🎚️ EQ bass and treble increases are basically necessary
🎬 Cinema mode only mildly enhances spatial audio for movies and TV
👝 Travel case requires exact positioning for everything
📈 $449 price is slightly higher than the $429 first-gen model
The Shortcut Review
The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones Gen 2 are easily the best wireless noise-canceling headphones for travel. They block out aircraft and train noise, fold up compactly, and you never have to worry about turning them off. Bose has made plenty of sound improvements to the QC Ultra Headphones Gen 2, but its killer feature is that these headphones can sleep for months on end. They’ll power off once you lay them flat or put them in their case, then as soon as you put the headphones on, they’ll power on and reconnect on their own. Forget about having to turn on/off these headphones ever again.
Bose has upgraded the QC Ultra Headphones Gen 2 in almost every way, including better ANC that blocks out sudden loud noises, a more natural-sounding Aware Mode, cinema sound for watching movies regardless of how you connect your headphones, and longer battery life. The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones Gen 2 won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, especially if you’re looking for a more energetic and warmer sound profile. This pair of Bose headphones has a very neutral and flat sound profile out of the box, but a little EQ tweaking helps make them sound more dynamic.
The biggest barrier to entry for these headphones is their $449 price. That slots it into the higher price bracket for wireless noise-canceling headphones like the $459 Sony WH-1000XM6 and $499 AirPods Max, both of which arguably offer better sound quality and ANC. However, for travel, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones 2 can’t be beat; they fold smaller, you’ll never need to turn them on/off, and Cinema Mode makes airplane movies sound way better. For all that convenience, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones Gen 2 are well worth their $449 price.
Full Review
⏻ Always-on. I haven’t turned off the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones Gen 2 since I had them. Thanks to improved on-head detection and a low-power state, you can simply lay the headphones flat on a surface or put them in their case, and they can last for months on end. One night, I stopped using the headphones with 40% battery life, and when I pulled them out of the case two days later, they were still at the same level of charge.
I’ll be testing this further, so check back in a week, a month, three months, and six months later as I continue to test the QC Ultra Headphones Gen 2’s impressive standby time. This new Sleep Mode is also perfect for anyone tired of turning off their headphones or constantly forgetting to do so. It ensures you’ll almost never put on these headphones only to realize they ran out of juice because you left them on the last time.
🎚️ Neutral sound. Out of the box, the Bose QC Ultra Headphones Gen 2 sound incredibly flat. You’ll hear crystal clear mids for vocals most prominently, but the highs and bass suffer until you start tweaking the equalizer. With +6 bass, -4 mids, and +10 treble, the sound curve sounded much more dynamic and complex.
Still, even with those tweaks, the Sony WH-1000XM6 delivers a deeper, more exciting, and warmer sound profile right out of the box. Sony’s app also gives you a more in-depth seven-band EQ rather than the simpler bass, mids, and treble adjustment on Bose’s app. If you want a purer and more neutral sound profile, you’ll like the Bose QC Ultra Headphones Gen 2.
🔊 Immersive Audio. If you want an even more in-your-face listening experience, turn on Bose’s Immersion Audio. This spatial sound feature essentially puts the soundstage in front of you, so it feels more like the music is being played on a stage, and it works startlingly well. I’ve been listening to Don Troliver’s “Lose My Mind (feat. Doja Cat)” and Nine Inch Nails’ “As Alive As You Need Me To Be” on repeat for over a week now simply because of how good the Bose QC Ultra Headphones make these songs sound. Immersion Mode even adds reverb, so bass hits with that initial beat, washes past you, and then bounces back from behind. The only downside of Immersive Audio is that it cuts battery life by up to seven hours.
🎥 Cinema mode. Bose also has a new cinema mode to get you even more immersed in movies. The new cinema mode essentially gives you a wider sound stage while raising the mids for crisper dialogue. In practice, I found this mode mostly helped elevate dialogue, similar to how AI Speech Enhancement works on the Sonos Ace. Cinema mode also raises the highs, so the sound of pew-pew special effects in superhero movies like Superman has a greater impact.
However, I didn’t feel an especially enlarged sense of spatialization. Watching Mr. Terrific fly over me with his T-sphere lacked an added sense of height audio, for instance. Cinema mode, however, is still a straight upgrade over just stereo sound, and you can even enjoy it while you have these headphones plugged into an airplane TV set.
Features
🎚️Lossless audio at last. Hallaluh! Lossless audio has finally come to a pair of Bose QC Ultra Headphones, arriving at the perfect time, as Spotify added lossless streaming just a month ago. Lossless audio requires a wired USB-C connection, but it’s easy enough to connect these headphones to a phone, tablet, or laptop. Once hooked up, I could easily hear a difference from the higher fidelity 16-bit (44.1kHz or 48kHz) sound. There was just more depth and nuance, especially for complex tracks like Bad Bunny’s BAILE INoLVIDABLE, which can get muddled from the compression of Bluetooth codecs.
🔕 Improved ANC. The Bose QC Ultra Headphones Gen 2 do an almost complete job of blocking out the world. I can walk around Manhattan without hearing the constant beeping of horns and brake squeals from traffic. These headphones can even block out the cacophony of sound from an NYC subway train pulling into the station. The only thing that leaked through these QC Ultra Headphones Gen 2 was the blaring background noise at the bar in Penn Station, where the music was so loud it overpowered Bose’s noise-canceling.
🔋 Battery life. You can get up to 30 hours of battery life from the Bose QC Ultra Headphones Gen 2. That total battery life goes up to 45 hours with ANC off or down to 23 with Immersive Audio enabled. It’s a fantastic improvement from the 24 hours of battery life on the Bose’s previous flagship headphones, putting the new model on par with the Sony WH-1000XM6. Charging is fast; within 15 minutes, you’ll have three hours of play time back. However, the headphones will keep bothering you with low battery warnings. After 30 minutes of charging, the Bose QC Ultra Headphones were back to 30% battery. You can be fully charged in three hours, and these headphones also support playing while charging.
👂 Aware mode. Bose’s Aware Mode is fairly natural-sounding on the QC Ultra Headphones 2. It’s not quite as good as the AirPods Max at making me feel like I’m not wearing headphones, but it’s on par with the transparency mode on the Sony WH-1000XM6. There’s also a new ActiveSense that blocks sudden, loud noises, so that random noise spikes don’t deafen you.
📞 Great call quality. The Bose QC Ultra Headphones Gen 2 microphones do an equally great job of picking up my voice even in noisy environments. I called my partner from the same noisy Penn Station bar that overpowered the headphones’ noise-canceling, and she heard me clearly despite all the background noise.
Design
👝 Smallest case. The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones Gen 2 are easily the best headphones for travel. They fold small, and their case is almost the smallest out of all wireless noise-canceling headphones – only the Beats Studio Pro is smaller. The only thing I don’t like about the case is how it fits everything together so snuggly that you need to pack it in one very specific way.
✨ New and shiny. A pair of shiny, polished yokes is the only thing that visibly distinguishes the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones Gen 2 from the originals. It’s a subtle change, but this is the only change that makes these wireless headphones look more premium, which they should with their higher $449 price. Tucked behind the right earcup, there’s also a new touch-sensitive volume slider that doubles as a customizable shortcut for your voice assistant, starting Spotify Tap, or checking your battery life.
😌 Comfort fit. The 0.58-pound QuietComfort Ultra Headphones Gen 2 are 0.02 pounds heavier than the original Bose wireless noise-canceling headphones, but you’ll hardly notice that difference. The headphones clamp onto your ears – but without pinching them – to help distribute the weight away from just the headband. The overall fit of the headphones is snug, whether they’re on your head or around your neck. If you have a larger-than-average-sized head like me, you’ll have to fully extend the headphones’ adjustable arms, but it’s still comfortable enough to wear for hours on end.
Should you buy the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones Gen 2?
✅ Yes, if…
⏻ You always forget to turn off your headphones
🎧 Wireless noise-canceling headphones
🧳 You want the most compact case for travel
📻 You want to hear Spotify and other lossless audio at full quality
❌ No, if…
🕺 You love an excited and warm sound profile (get the Sony WH-1000XM6 instead)
🔕 Canceling out all the noise is essential (get the Sony WH-1000XM6 instead)
Kevin Lee is The Shortcut’s Creative Director. Follow him on Twitter @baggingspam.