Bose QuietComfort Earbuds Review

As expected, the Bose QuietComfort sound great and offer excellent noise cancellation.

Sound Quality

After listening anextensive, genre-spanning playlist on repeat, our audio experts declared the Bose QuietComfort sound great but not excellent. Higher-tier Bose products are decidedly better, but you can only really tell that in close comparison.

Bose excel in creating a cinematic listening experience — drama, intrigue, it's all there. The bass is boosted, the trebles sparkle, and the mids are a solid bridge between the two. But the shine is a smidge duller. The factory EQ feels slightly off, resulting in sound that can feel overly sculpted and slightly blurred.

It's not the most detailed, precise mix, but it is fun. “F-*k a War” by Geto Boys demonstrates their playfully dramatic personality. The demanding bassline grabs your attention while warm vocals and crisp percussion samples add polish. The chorus sounds more excited than shrill at the 2:41 mark and practically demands that you dance.

Bass-heavy EDM sounds especially good. The thumping bass in “The Business” by Tiesto at 0:39 is a solid example. The low frequencies are warm, rich, and powerful, though a bit heavy-handed at times. While they occasionally lack definition, the bass is generally controlled, making for an engaging listening experience.

The highs are clean, vibrant, and exciting, adding a bit of sparkle to the bass and mid frequencies. While they are pleasant and reliable, never sounding harsh or sharp, they lack some detail and clarity, preventing them from reaching top-tier precision. They feel slightly compressed and could benefit from more prominence in the mix to truly shine.

Take “Guilty As Sin” by Taylor Swift, the chorus that follows the bridge at 3:14 is a standout moment, bursting in with a dynamic, sparkling, and powerful energy. The percussion delivers a hearty punch, while Swift's layered vocals add an ethereal quality. The earbuds handle these dynamic shifts skillfully, maintaining power without tipping into harsh or tinny territory. There's no need to adjust the volume.

These earbuds are also powerful. They reach normal listening levels a few clicks above silence. They maintain their sound quality across volume levels, delivering impressive bass lines with minimal distortion, offering a loud and full sound.

Soundstage

The soundstage of a pair of earbuds describes the sense of depth and spatial awareness they create. Our testers are split over how well the QuietComfort accomplishes this, but agree it's pretty good.

They build a relatively broad soundstage, with enough stereo spread to pinpoint each instrument and vocal note in space. However, while some find the soundstage impressively immersive, the other half experience it as relatively narrow and more compressed, pointing to Led Zeppelin's “Kashmir” as a missed opportunity to capture a dramatic orchestral experience.

The impressed half felt classic hip-hop tracks like “Public Enemy No. 1” by Public Enemy soar, sounding powerful while building a swirling soundscape. And, despite the big sound, details like the soft sneeze at the end of “The Little Shepherd” by Debussy are still audible, offering much-appreciated realism. They aren't as cinematic as the Bose QuietComfort Ultras.

We also used our Brüel & Kjaer Type 5128 Head Simulator and SoundCheck software to support our impressions.

We mapped the frequency response of the QuietComfort, and compared it to our GearLab House Curve.

The result tracks the house curve nicely, with a slight elevation, or emphasis, in the low mid-ranges and a few underemphasized areas in the treble ranges. This explains the slight lack of shine in the higher registers.

Comfort and Fit

The large size of these earbuds limits their comfort despite a pleasant and ergonomic design. Smaller-eared testers found them wildly uncomfortable, and several of our female testers couldn't wear them as prescribed. A few testers' ears weren't large enough for the design, and even large ears sometimes had difficulty.

Three silicone ear tips and three silicone wing sizes can't help with small ears. If the buds fit, the wing can twist, interrupting the seal. Most testers adapted well enough to enjoy them for short periods, but they are undoubtedly best for larger ears. They often feel heavy, stick out of the ear, and create a cabin pressure feel.

Stability

The QuietComfort feel stable, even in smaller ears — sometimes a little too stable. During sweaty workouts, they feel suctioned into the ear. Larger ears experienced fewer stability issues.

Noise Cancellation

Bose consistently offers the most stunning noise cancellation technology. You can barely hear yourself typing, and coworker chatter falls away, leaving you isolated in your buds

Earbuds lower the impact of surrounding sounds by physically blocking sounds, working best for higher frequencies, and actively canceling out lower-frequency sounds. We tested using the Brüel & Kjaer Type 5128 Head Simulator and SoundCheck software.We played cafe sounds with and without the ANC activated.

Sealing your ears with the buds can quiet a room, while the ANC turns down more distracting noise.

The QuietComfort reduces all background sounds by at least 10 decibels. In all but the highest and lowest ranges, it can lower them between 20 and over 40 decibels. It's a pretty good result, though it isn't as strong below 100 Hz. Both of Bose's bigger brothers have an edge on ANC over these buds.

Ease of Use

We tried every feature, connected to multiple devices. These buds received one of the lowest scores due to connectivity issues.

Even the case feels cheap, just a hollowed-out hull without the easy-to-use buttons on other versions. It's bulky and hard to fit in a pocket.

App Features

The app is significantly different from previous versions. It's much simpler, in a bad way. While the layout is clean, it offers few adjustments, and the instructions are hard to find and the Bose's links sometimes route you to instructions for a different model.

It offers EQ adjustments, including presets and fully customizable sliders, but nothing is intuitive. Even adjusting how the touch controls function is extraordinarily frustrating.

Connectivity

The Bose Quiet Comfort connectivity is bad. Connecting them to multiple devices, like your phone and laptop, results in random switching based on proximity. We've had issues with other Bose buds, but not this bad. They even randomly disconnected from our Brüel & Kjaer Type 5128 Head Simulator, making testing more challenging. It was equally bad with Apple and Android devices, and the worst we've ever experienced during testing.

Battery Life

The QuietComfort battery lasted 9 hours, which is longer than Bose's claim of 8.5 hours. We tested them at a 75% volume level without the ANC feature. Using ANC will result in shorter runtimes.

The case holds 2.5 charges. Be careful putting buds back in the case, as the silicone wings can interfere with the charging pins. There's nothing more frustrating than dead earbuds because they failed to engage. Bose claims the case charges wirelessly, but we couldn't get it to work. It takes at least 20 minutes to get another entertainment round, buying you 3 hours. This isn't as quick as some competitors but it buys you more time to listen.

Call Quality

We primarily test the earbuds' microphone and its ability to isolate voices from background sounds. We use male and female voices reading a script and our Brüel & Kjaer Type 5128 Head Simulator. Then we make calls in a silent room and play office or subway sounds in the background.

SoundCheck software helped us analyze the results. The earbud microphones struggle to isolate and translate voices above the background sounds.

With the jarring subway sounds, the microphone doesn't clearly transmit every word. It particularly struggles with the lower male tones. The volume cuts in and out as he speaks. The same is true for the female voice, though less obvious.

The QuietComfort fare better in an office environment, where background noises are eliminated. The man's voice varies somewhat in volume, but both voices are easy to understand.

In a quiet room, both voices can be heard clearly, but a few words are hard to hear when the male voice is speaking.

Should You Buy the Bose QuietComfort?

They sound great and are comfy enough if you have larger ears. However, the connectivity issues will drive you bonkers. The price may be enticing, but we don't recommend these earbuds.

What Other Earbuds Should You Consider?