Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2: Problems & Best Features After 2 Months

[00:01] best pairs of headphones this year, and I've been using them for about two months now to test them out thoroughly and make this in-depth review. These may look similar to the original Bose Quiet Comfort Ultra headphones, but these are

[00:13] the second generation, and honestly, Bose kind of nailed it. They added some new features, they fix some of my biggest complaints, and they deliver an incredible experience. The video, by the way, is not sponsored. No brands had any

[00:25] editorial rights here and no brands saw this before launch. So I'll be covering both pros and cons. And I actually want to go through this video in that order like procon procon format. So before I mentioned the&c while traveling, I want

[00:39] to start off in my most common use case which is wearing these at my desk. I did that a lot over the past two months. And the first positive is that you can do that with these headphones. These are extremely comfortable. I can wear these

[00:51] all day and basically forget they're on my head. And I don't say that lightly. A them 2 hours and it's it starts to get really uncomfortable. I can wear these for a very very long time and they're just the best feeling headphones I own.

[01:05] They don't get hot on my ears. The soft foam really minimizes ear fatigue and they have a gentle clamping force that means it doesn't feel like your head's in a vise. It's also obviously adjustable. So you could, you know, have

[01:17] length should also affect how much clamping force there is. But I find that like I said, I could just wear these for hours and hours on end and it just it feels very spacious and and airy and they're not uncomfortable at all. But a

[01:30] downside is that if you have a small head, these may have insufficient clamping force. My head is by no means small. Absolute watermelon head. So, uh, positive then. These have excellent onhead detection, but not just detecting

[01:45] rather going to sleep when they're off your head. So, I never turn these on or off at my desk. I just put them on, they wake up, they connect to my laptop, they I just take them off and hang them up on my little headphones hook and they'll

[01:59] automatically go to sleep. So, I'm not draining my battery when I'm not using really well to multiple devices. Multipoint connectivity went from a Bose strength here. These will connect to two devices at the same time and seamlessly

[02:14] switch between them. So, I'm working on my MacBook, watching videos, editing videos, listening to music, whatever. If I get a phone call on not even Apple ecosystem, Pixel 10 Pro here, it'll seamlessly switch over to my phone. I'll

[02:26] answer the phone call. When I hang up, it'll switch back to my laptop. But if you have a third device, maybe you have an iPhone as well or maybe a work phone or some other device. You can have you can choose on the headphones which

[02:38] the Bluetooth button. When you press it once, the Bluetooth button, by the way, press it once, it's going to tell you what you're connected to. Now, press it device you have connected with these headphones. So, it's more than just

[02:53] multi-point connectivity. It's switching between all the devices you own, which I find incredibly useful. However, getting into a negative, I think we need to talk a little bit more about the controls on these. It could be a little bit better.

[03:05] of like the slider, but the two buttons, the one button on the bottom is going to already explained. And if you press and hold it, you can add more devices. The other button is going to be kind of everything else. Press it once to play

[03:19] and pause. Press it twice to go forward, three times to go back a song, and press and hold to toggle between A and C, transparency, and all the different modes you have. The volume slider, then you can slide it up and down. It's it's

[03:31] pretty cool. It's pretty subtle and honestly a very sleek way of doing it. Um, but it is a capacitive touch sensor. So, if you're wearing gloves, if your hands are sweaty, it might not register your touches nearly as well. And also in

[03:44] the middle of it, if you touch and hold it, there is a little special action you the app later, but I could like open Spotify, for example. The controls are by no means bad. They definitely get the job done, but they are very small and

[03:57] they take some getting used to for where everything actually is. And it's a you can actually customize them. So, as far as headphones go, these are not my least favorite controls, but certainly far from my favorite controls. Moving

[04:09] it's a little bit of a pro. I'll call it a neutral here. These have a 30 hour battery life allegedly, which is sort of the standard in the industry. That's why lean towards positive here because it's actually, I think, better than that. I

[04:23] find that I rarely need to charge these and I feel like I'm definitely getting more than 30 hours per charge. But your mileage may vary based on volume, A&C, how you use the headphones. A positive with these though, when they do die,

[04:36] huge positive here, we now have wired audio playback in two different ways. Of millimeter, so the classic, you know, audio cable there, or we can do is plug in by USB type-C. In the past, one of my biggest complaints about the Quiet

[04:49] Comfort headphones is that they didn't have this feature. Now, we finally do headphones are dead and you have to join a meeting, you plug in USB type-C to it'll not only charge it, but you can also play audio, lossless audio through

[05:05] that cable. I think that's awesome, and I'm so glad Bose finally added that. A small complaint, if you want to call it that, is uh it's not the most common half millimeter. I know I said 3 and a half millimeter, that's like the other

[05:18] side of the cable that's plugging into the headphone jack on your laptop, for the headphones. Not particularly uncommon, but definitely less common than having a cable that is just 3 and 12 mm on both ends. So, summarizing

[05:32] first category of just using them while working at my desk. Super positive. I liked a lot about these headphones. But moving into the next category of travel, which is probably the biggest one for why people would be buying these

[05:44] headphones, I think we need to start off with the ANC. And active noise cancellation isn't just is it more or less powerful. It's kind of more nuanced than people realize. So, I like to break this down in several different styles.

[05:56] listening to these in a very quiet room, do you have a lot of artifacts, a lot of really don't. They sound quite impressive. Very, very quiet. And if say maybe an HVAC or something, they do

[06:10] an excellent job. If you're blocking out louder droning sounds, so a jet or a bus you're really commuting, then again, these are probably the go-to for that. They are definitely S tier, way up there with Sony XM6s, AirPods Max, Sonos.

[06:27] excellent job. And I actually will be making a comparison between these and you want to see that video, please subscribe to my channel. I'm very excited to make that full video and do a very detailed breakdown of the ANC

[06:42] between all of them. But focusing back on just these right now without comparing them, they get two thumbs up. These do a fantastic job with ANC. And then the third kind of category, like I said, quiet room, very loud droning

[06:55] more like sporadic, higher pitch sounds, people talking, for example, crowd noises, different things like that. These don't have the thickest foam, so not the best passive noise blocking on them. Still does a pretty decent job,

[07:08] but the ANC engine inside again kind of makes up for that. And these once again do an excellent job in that aspect. And as I mentioned before, the comfort still You can wear these for a very long time. And I've actually fallen asleep on a

[07:22] plane a number of times wearing these headphones. And uh yeah, they do a great your side. You're on a plane. um but very comfortable and very easy to wear for a really really long time. Another big positive for travel that not

[07:35] wearing them. The carrying case with these is a nice compact hard shell case. Uh so sometimes headphones come with a soft case that's not great for travel and sometimes they have a hard case that's absolutely enormous. Bose did a

[07:49] get them in. Like you have to remember the exact way that you put them in. Uh it's only one way they're going to fit in the case. And I do like that on the the cables. You've got your charging cable or USBC audio cable. You could use

[08:03] it for that. And of course your audio cable, the 3 and 12 mm cable that is. Additionally, the aesthetics of these headphones are pretty great in my opinion. There's some kind of minimal more understated design colors or

[08:15] there's some flashier ones with gold on them. I think not just the overall design and the build of them looks good, but also the colorways. There's so many them on the screen right here. the different ones you could buy. Uh, leave

[08:27] think looks best. But I really like this one right here. Like simple, minimal, looking with that that kind of copper color on the on the accents there. Kind really say it's a downside. It feels like it would be a downside, but so far

[08:43] I have not had any durability issues. I'll preface with that. But what I was going to say is it doesn't feel the most premium. Feels very plasticky. Kind of rattles around a little bit. Holding them. you wouldn't expect that they're

[08:55] the most premium headphones when you're when you're really looking at them. That said, as I mentioned, they have not had any damage yet and maybe the plastic is actually a better design choice because it keeps them light and comfortable on

[09:07] bit cheaper and for the price, I'm a little disappointed they're not more metallic, but I mean the comfort and the the performance is really pretty good. into a microphone test and see how these perform. Maybe you're traveling and

[09:21] microphone test using the Bose Quiet Comfort Ultra second gen headphones. I'm inside in the studio, so should probably be as easy as it'll ever be for these good. Um, I want to go outside and see how it sounds out there. But one thing

[09:35] that I want to mention, by the way, is when you're on a phone call using these, because, as I mentioned, the transparency on these is really quite not wearing any headphones at all. All right, so this is an outdoor microphone

[09:49] test. I'm in front of a busy road. There's a lot of cars behind me, so let me know how these microphones filter out my voice compared to the background thumbs up. Moving on to the next category, which is just like listening

[10:02] out, playing games, sitting on your couch, listening to music, whatever it with sound quality here. This is definitely a step up from the previous generation. I think the bass is probably the biggest improvement in this

[10:15] generation. It's powerful. Uh, pretty deep subbase, very controlled, and uh, it's not overpowering. It's not overpowering the mids or the trebles, and the bass is just nice, deep, punchy. They did a pretty good job on this. The

[10:28] vocals are also clear and articulate, and the sound stage is pretty nice. There's decent instrument separation, and it doesn't feel too claustrophobic. of my favorite aspects of these headphones. the upper mids. One kind of

[10:41] sometimes be missing a little bit of texture and micro detail. Even though these do have obviously USB type-C lossless audio, they also have some nice codecs like Snapdragon Sound if you have a phone compatible, you get not only SBC

[10:56] and AAC, but also AEX adaptive and AEX lossless. A bit of a con with the audio is the EQ in the app is kind of limited. that, and I'll show you the app in a minute, but that's a downside. A huge

[11:09] to be the transparency mode. It's among the best in the industry. It just sounds so natural and you have really a full spectrum. It doesn't sound too frequencies very well, especially low-end, which for some reason a lot of

[11:22] transparency and it just sounds so compressed. This does a good job. You don't have a ton of customization in the app for the transparency. So, it can be a tad quiet at times, but otherwise, I really have to say it's very positive.

[11:35] In a really quiet setting though, my only complaint is there is a little bit of white noise. Like I don't hear it as much when I'm talking, but if I sit quietly, it's just a small amount of white noise there. Otherwise, again,

[11:47] among the best in the industry. These do also have Bluetooth 5.4, so it's a little bit more futurep proof. We already have Bluetooth 6.0 and 6.1, so futurep proof, but it's nice to see 5.4,

[12:00] looking at the app, it automatically knows the color of your headphones. You little feature thing, whatever. They'll tell you some new features. You've got add your own modes. I do wish you could kind of delete some modes. Like, I never

[12:14] if you go and tap on the three buttons or three dots right there. You can't anything about that. It's just locked. That's what immersion mode is. Let me go myself talk. Here you've got source, so you can toggle between all the different

[12:28] choose which two you're toggling to. because we have multi-point connectivity on. You can choose which two it's going to be switching between. You've got noise control down here. Um, which kind

[12:40] modes and set your modes like that. You've got immersive audio, which is your spatial audio. These have that 360 audio that I mean they do a great job. It's just I'm not a big fan of it, so I always keep that off on all of my audio

[12:53] equipment. You've got the EQ, which as I said is very, very limited. You only have three bands. There's not a whole lot you can do. So, that's a bit of a And you have the shortcut as I mentioned before where you can choose if you want

[13:06] see like the battery level or something like that. Otherwise, if you tap on the couple extra things. You can see Bluetooth kind of uh Bluetooth shortcut touch control. You could just disable that if you don't want that all

[13:21] voice prompts and in-ear detection. Otherwise, the app is very very simple, little bit of a downside with these. I wish there was a little bit more to the category I want to talk about using these in the gym. If you're paying a lot

[13:37] they're working out. These are not designed to be workout headphones by any think that's a bit of a downside. And it's a fairly light clamping force on these as well. So that means if you're doing more dynamic workouts, they may

[13:51] not be the best choice. But if you're just running with them or walking on a weights, they they could be fine. They do a pretty good job then. And a positive is that the ear cups are replaceable. So if they ever wear out or

[14:04] a little more, I don't know, better than you can from the outside. You just pop pull, they come off. Uh you shouldn't have to worry about them breaking. And I've tried other ear cups as well. You can buy thirdparty ones. I tried the

[14:16] comply foam ones uh that do potentially give you a better passive noise block as I think these are just so comfortable. I went back to the original ones, but if I just have some separate ear cups that I use just for working out that are a

[14:31] might be a little more durable for that kind of activity. These do lack some features that a lot of other headphones do have. For example, the like uh speak Everyone has their own different name for it, but when you have music playing

[14:45] and A&C on, if you just start talking on other headphones, Sony, for example, does this, AirPods do this. Um, it'll automatically turn your volume down, turn on transparency, you can have a conversation, and when it detects you're

[14:57] done talking, it'll turn the music back up. These don't have that feature among to see on these, but otherwise, these are really good headphones. The only other downside I want to mention is, of course, the price. They're flagship

[15:10] you're going to be paying a very high premium price tag. These are I think $450 MSRP, but I'm already seeing them at $3.99 and you're likely to find description so you guys can see the latest price on these. But yeah, they're

[15:25] right and I absolutely love wearing them. They seem to be my go-to testing them just for this video, but I find that I wear them absolutely all the I would highly recommend them. I would say that of the four categories we

[15:40] discussed in this video, these are absolutely perfect for travel and for desk work. They do an excellent job for so many reasons in those two the house and listening to music. Definitely, you know, pretty solid

[15:53] for workouts. They could get the job done, but if that's your main priority, Also, a lot of people are probably wondering, should you upgrade? If you have the first gen headphones and you're looking at the second gen here, what's

[16:07] actually different? Should you upgrade? They're probably about 85% similar headphones. So, if you have the previous generation, probably not worth it for most people to upgrade unless you really want some of the new features on here,

[16:19] like that USBC wired playback, for example. Otherwise, for new buyers, if Definitely just buy the second gen, I would highly recommend these over the originals, unless you see some kind of crazy sale on them. So, those are my

[16:31] Gen 2 headphones. I kind of just gravitate towards them. I grab them really like them overall. But let me know what you think in the comments below and like I said, subscribe so you can see that full comparison.