Bose New QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) – Wireless Noise Cancelling Earbuds with Mic, Immersive Audio, USB-C Charging, Up to 6 Hours Battery, IPX4 Rating, Black

My New Favorite Headphones
The new Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) have quickly become my new favorite headphones. For years, I’ve struggled with three major problems when it comes to earbuds:1. Fit2. Noise Cancellation3. Outdoor ConnectivityThese earbuds excel in all three areas while also delivering fantastic sound quality.Favorite Features -Noise Cancellation: I am impressed with the noise cancellation on these earbuds – it is by far the best I’ve tried on any pair of headphones. The moment it turns on, my house becomes completely silent. I also trieed them on an airplane, and they worked fantastic there too.Outdoor Connectivity: THANK GOD for these earbuds. I’ve tried countless other earbuds, and every time I step outside, I only hear every other word of whatever I’m playing. I don’t know what magic Bose put in these, but for some reason they just work. I finally have reliable audito when I’m out and about.Passthrough (Aware Mode): With “aware mode”, I can easily hear everything around me as if I wasn’t wearing any headphones at all. It makes it incredibly easy to navigate moments where someone needs my attention and eliminates the need to take my headphones out. They are also so comfortable that I sometimes completely forget I’m even wearing them.Gestures: The gestures on these earbuds are very intuitive and easy to get used to. I especially like that the size of the buds makes it easier to swipe up and down for audio control.SimpleSync: WIth SimpleSync, I can connect my earbuds directly to my Bose soundbar. It’s a convenient way to watch something without disturbing others. It’s much easier than pairing earbuds directly to a TV and then having to switch back afterwards.Questionable ThingsImmersive Mode: I don’t understand Immersive Mode. I’ve tried it a few times and it just feels… somewhat weird? I also don’t like that it’s a gesture preset between Aware (passthrough) and Quiet (noise cancellation).EQ Controls: If you’ve used the Bose app before, you’ve already well aware that the EQ options are very limited. Please Bose, give us more in-depth EQ controls!VerdictI love these headphones, and I especially love the midnight violet color! I also like the smaller touches, such as the ear wax guard, which makes cleaning them much easier than other earbuds I’ve used. The pairing process was painless on Android, but I already had the Bose app and can’t speak to that process if this is your first Bose product. Overall, I would definitely recommend these!

Good fit and noise cancellation, huge size, poor ergonimics, flawed app inoperable in airplane mode
There is so much to like and so much to dislike about these earbuds, they are bound to be controversial. By way of background, I should say that I’ve owned and used the following earbuds: Jabra Elite 75t, Jabra 7 pro, Elevoc Clear, Sony WF1000XM5, Pixel Buds Pro 2, as well as two sets of wired passive noise-canceling earbuds with custom molded tips (from Etymotic and Ultimate ears). I use my earbuds with Google Pixel phones, a linux laptop, and a 1Mii Bluetooth transmitter, so multi-point is a big benefit to me. My ears may be unusually shaped, as I sometimes have trouble getting a good seal. In particular, Sony sent me silicone ear tips for use with the WF1000XM5s, because the foam ear tips that those shipped with did not form a good seal in my ears according to the app. For both the Jabras and the Sonys, my biggest complaint is that the microphones stopped working so I could use them only to listen, not to make phone calls. For listening at home, I favor the sound of open-backed headphones from Focal and AKG, so I don’t consider any ear buds to have great sound quality, but use them when out in public or on buses, trains, and airplanes.Now for the good: The Bose QC Ultra 2 earbuds have by far the best noise cancellation of any I have tried–wired or wireless–and fit my ears really well. There are *two* levels of seal: a traditional silicone ear tip on the inside, and then “stability bands” that seal further back in your ear. That, combined with presumably top-of-the-line active noise cancellation, makes for a qualitatively different experience. If I’m on an airplane with these, I can obviously hear that I’m not in a quiet room, but if someone talks to me and I’m not looking a them, I might not notice it because the voice just fades into the background even though I can ear it slightly.The sound quality of the QC Ultra 2 buds is good for earbuds, though I don’t love earbuds. Besides “quiet” and “aware” modes, there’s an immersive audio feature. With previous earphones (like the over-ear Bose QC Ultras) I never understood the point–it just made things sound weird and metallic. With these earbuds, I finally get it. There’s a “Cinema” mode (not enabled by default), which still sounds kind of metallic, but also makes it seem like things are happening in the room around me. So I’ve used this to watch a couple of movies on an airplane. I don’t know if I prefer it, but I can at least see the appeal. Some people may like it. In phone calls, friends report that the mic audio quality is good, though my problem is usually that mic quality degrades over time as dust and earwax gets into the earbuds, so it’s too early to tell if these will be better in the long run.Before I get into the negatives (including about the Android app), let me also say that the way multipoint works is that you pair other devices from the Bose app, which I found a lot more convenient than having to pair from the case. You can also control which device is active explicitly, which I like, though if you give control to your laptop, the app on your phone will get cut off and not be able to take it back, so it’s not perfect.Finally, I like that you can fully operate the earbuds from either ear. This is great if you ever want to listen in one ear while resting your other ear on a pillow. With other earbuds I’ve had, the right bud can only increase volume while the left bud can only decrease it, and sometimes only one of the buds can control the quiet/aware mode.Now for some negatives.The case is absolutely enormous. Of course I read the specs of 2.60″x2.35″x1.06″ before buying and knew abstractly that the case would be large. But actually holding them physically is shocking. I usually put my pixel pro xl phone, earbuds, and keys into the same jeans pocket, and that’s unconfomfortable with these buds, particularly compared to the Sony WF1000XM5s I was used to. So these will spend a lot more time in my bag (which might be long-term good for the microphones, but isn’t a desirable feature).Another negative is that the earbuds heat up quite a bit when charging. So if you were listening long enough to draw down the battery, then put them in the case to talk to someone, then put the earbuds back in, they will be noticeably warm. That’s unpleasant if it’s already hot out (though I suppose could be pleasant in a cold environment).The ergonomics are also terrible. Getting the buds out of the case can be annoying if your fingers are slippery. Everything curves inward, making it hard to grab, except the back of the earbuds, but there’s not enough of the back exposed to make it easy to grab. It can be tempting to tug on the stabilizer bands, but I suspect this would stretch them out and be bad for fit and noise cancellation in the long run. You can also kind of press the buds inward so they flip out of the case, but that feels like there’s some possibility of dropping them, so not something I’d want to do out in public.More importantly, I find the in-ear controls extremely difficult to operate reliably. It’s one tap to start/stop playing, a long tap to switch between Quiet/Aware/Cinema modes (or however you configure it), and a swipe up/down to increase/decrease volume. Multiple times I’ve accidentally activated one of the controls while adjusting the earbuds in my ear. Also, about 1 in 4 times that I’m trying to adjust the volume, the buds end up changing mode because I didn’t move my finger fast enough or something. I suspect with practice I’ll get better at it, but it’s definitely more annoying than any of the other buds I’ve had.Now the app has some truly terrible features. First, given the difficulty of the controls, you might think why not just disable the touch controls (which the app will let you do) and control the earbuds entirely from your phone? Unfortunately, THE APP REFUSES TO ALLOW ACCESS TO YOUR EARBUDS WITHOUT INTERNET CONNECTIVITY, which I find offensive. So basically if you are in aware mode while boarding a plane, and then put your phone in airplane mode and want to switch to quiet mode, you can only do it through touch controls, meaning you have to have previously enabled touch controls (because the app won’t let you enable them while in airplane phone). Even when you are on line, the app shows a persistent notification, but tapping the notification won’t take you to the app, so to change the mode, you have to dig through your apps to open the app and navigate to the earbuds and mode. Why clutter my phone with a stupid “keeping things in sync” notification if I can’t get any useful functionality from it? Maybe just for legal reasons to notify me that the app is hurting my privacy by communicating with Bose’s servers, which shouldn’t need to be the case?Finally, an even more offensive part of the app is that it permanently adds the earbuds to your list of Google “find my” devices, with no way ever to remove them. In the find hub app, most devices have a little gearwheel icon you can tap that then gives you a “Remove from Find Hub” option, but Bose devices are lacking this feature. About a year ago I had a pair of QC ultra over-ear headphones with a stuck button that caused repeated factory resets after which I had to pair the headphones again, and it stuck dead Bose devices in Find Hub that I can never remove. What’s worse, the oldest devices are shown first, so I have to scroll over dead devices to get to the live ones. I spent over an hour chatting with pixel support about this, and the best they could do was tell me the bad devices would disappear in about a week, but it’s been about a year. I can tell that the QC Ultra 2 earbuds have the same misfeature–there’s no gearwheel in the “Find Hub” app, which means I can never factory reset them without further polluting my menu.In summary, these earbuds have some uniquely good and bad qualities and are bound to be divisive. I’m still pretty happy with my purchase. In particular, I find plane rides considerably less tiring when I can block out the noise, and being able to do so with a pair of earbuds that (barely) fits in my pocket is a lot more convenient than carrying around over-ear headphones that take up significant space in my backpack. So I guess I’d strongly recommend the earbuds for anyone not bothered by the negatives. Since some of my negatives revolve around the android app, it could also be that the iOS app is significantly better, making the buds even more appealing to iPhone users.

Way better than gen1. They haven’t even burst my ear drums with crackling yet.

On pourrait dire que mon opinion est un peu biaisée :Ça fait des années que j’utilise Bose, des écouteurs à la barre de son pour mon téléviseur !Ce qui est appréciable avec cette marque, c’est qu’ils ne s’endorment pas sur leurs lauriers. Ils continuent de s’améliorer, de génération en génération.Et c’est le cas avec ces écouteurs intra-auriculaires QuietComfort Ultra 2ème génération.D’accord, ce ne sont pas les écouteurs les plus discrets quand vous les portez.De même, le boîtier chargeur reste un peu gros, bien que l’autonomie des écouteurs soient un peu inférieure à ce que propose la concurrence à ce niveau de prix et en dessous.(Ça, c’était pour le négatif !)Pour le reste, c’est un sans faute.Tout d’abord là où Bose dépasse de la tête et des épaules la compétition :La fonction de réduction de bruit.J’ai essayé ces dernières semaines plusieurs concurrents, comme le Sony WH-1000XM5 ou le très décevant Sennheiser True Wireless 4.Si le Sony n’est pas loin, ni l’un ni l’autre n’est au niveau de Bose.Aussi surprenant que ça puisse paraître, seul le bien moins cher Soundcore Liberty 4 NC s’en approche sans le rattrapper.Si vous avez choisi les embouts qui correspondent exactement à votre conduit auditif (une option dans l’application Bose – pour iOS et Android – vous permet de vérifier si vous portez correctement vos écouteurs avec les embouts qui vont bien), lorsque vous sélectionnez l’option de réduction de bruit, quel que soit l’environnement dans lequel vous êtes, vous serez assuré(e) qu’au moins 90 à 95% des sons extérieurs seront coupés.Je l’ai testé près d’un chantier de construction d’immeuble, dans le bus, en marchant dans une rue très animée, le résultat est constant – les sons autour de vous sont à peine perceptibles.Vous avez également une option appelée ‘Aware’ qui sera très utile pour bien écouter votre musique préférée ou vos podcasts tout en entendant les sons ambiants sans que ça soit gênant.C’est pratique pour entendre la voiture qui arrive derrière vous !Et enfin vous avez l’option de transparence qui vous permet de toujours entendre la musique sans qu’aucun filtre ne vous coupe de votre environnement.Depuis l’application, vous pouvez même créer votre propre mode de réduction de bruit, en plus de ceux proposés par défaut par Bose. Pratique.Vous pouvez passer d’un mode à l’autre soit depuis l’application Bose, soit grâce aux fonctions tactiles des écouteurs – que vous pouvez paramétrer selon vos préférences depuis l’application.À ce propos, quel que soit l’environnement sonore, les appels téléphoniques sont eux aussi de qualité (une grande différence avec la génération précédente), même en cas de grand vent – pour ça, vous devrez sélectionner une option ‘Vent’ dans l’application pour que les oreillettes gèrent correctement le bruit du vent.Côté son, c’est aussi proche de la perfection :Je suis loin d’avoir l’oreille absolue, mais en tant qu’auditeur de base j’ai trouvé la qualité audio exceptionnelle avec beaucoup de subtilité et un bel équilibre entre des aigus clairs et des basses profondément résonnantes.J’ai pu lire ici ou là que certains concurrents de Bose (en particulier Technics pour ne pas les nommer) proposent un son plus riche et plus raffinés.C’est possible.Pour ma part, lorsque j’écoute des podcasts, les voix sont cristallines et bien compréhensibles.Quand j’écoute du jazz, j’entends la richesse et la subtilité de jeu de chaque instrument. Quand j’écoute du classique, la puissance de l’orchestre, le détail du piano ou du violon solo se détache bien.Vous êtes dans la salle de concert, à la meilleure place.Bref, on a un son riche et immersif.Enfin, ces écouteurs ne s’appellent pas ‘Comfort’ pour rien !Avec seulement 7,7 grammes par oreillette, vous ne sentez pas grand chose quand vous les portez, même si vous les gardez plusieurs heures (en tenant compte que l’autonomie est d’en moyenne de 5 heures ‘seulement’).Jamais elles ne deviennent inconfortables, et quels que soient vos mouvements, elles tiennent bien en place.De plus grâce au standard IPX4, vos oreillettes ne risquent rien même si vous les portez un jour de grande pluie.À tout ça, vous pouvez ajouter que vous avez une autonomie moyenne cumulée de près de 24 heures avec l’étui de rangement qui se charge avec un câble USB-C (fourni), ou en sans fil (technologie Qi).Cerise sur le gâteau : ces oreillettes Bose sont ‘Bluetooth Multipoint’, ce qui veut dire que vous pouvez les connecter à plusieurs appareils en même temps.Je crois n’avoir rien oublié, tout en réalisant qu’il y a encore d’autres fonctionnalités dont je n’ai pas parlé.à vous de les découvrir ! 😉Tout ça pour dire que ces oreillettes intra-auriculaires Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2ème génération sont certes chères, mais elles valent le prix demandé.Après en avoir essayé plusieurs dans le haut de gamme, ce sont les seules et uniques que je recommande.C’est simple, au moment d’écrire ces lignes, les oreillettes Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2ème génération sont sans aucun doute les meilleures du marché.