Headphones and earbuds · Bose
Owners keep the Quiet Comfort for flights, travel and quiet listening at home, mainly for its sound, while putting up with a companion app and Bluetooth pairing that draw repeated complaints.
Sound quality is clear praise. Owners call the sound excellent, including one who moved over from several generations of Sony flagship earbuds and found the Bose sounded better, and a couple who use theirs on flights and describe them as sounding wonderful.
The companion app is a clear complaint. Owners describe it as slow to load and prone to forgetting earbuds they have already paired, and one owner whose buds connected with no sound found that opening the app to fix it took far too long.
QuietComfort is Bose's line of wireless noise-cancelling headphones and earbuds. Bose's site currently lists the QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen), the older QuietComfort Headphones, the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen), the QuietComfort Earbuds and the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen). The line is for people who want to block out noise from planes, trains, offices or the street while they listen.
Several models, specs differ.
The main split is between over-ear headphones and in-ear earbuds, and between the standard models and the higher-priced Ultra models. The standard QuietComfort Earbuds ($179 list price) cost much less than the Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen, $299), which add spatial audio. In headphones, the QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen, $359) now include the spatial audio modes that used to be only on the Ultra models and play lossless audio over a USB-C cable, while the Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen, $449 list price) remain the most expensive model.
Pick up to three. You get a page with just those, side by side, on the subjects owners raised.
Once they are part of the routine, owners tend to give them a set job. One keeps a travel pair and a separate home pair. A couple bought theirs mainly for flights and the odd quiet evening of listening. Others rotate them with AirPods or wired earphones depending on the situation. The sound keeps them reaching for it, and some use the 3 band equalizer in the app to adjust it. The owners who raised comfort were positive about it, though only a few did.
Owners are divided on noise cancelling. Some rate it above Sony and AirPods, and one valued that it handles sudden noises as well as steady ones. On the other side, one owner of the standard model found there was no way to switch the noise management off over Bluetooth or on over aux. A few owners also had to adjust to a ceiling on loudness and lighter bass than they expected. Pairing is a repeated complaint: owners describe connection problems as an ongoing hassle, and one said it put them off Bose earbuds for good.
Owners are divided on reliability. One couple who own both the Quiet Comfort and the Ultra say both have been flawless. Other owners describe repeated faults. One had an Ultra replaced under warranty three times and still had problems after the warranty ran out. Another went through two pairs of Ultra 2 with anti wind mode failing in the left ear both times. An owner of an older Quiet Comfort said it barely worked. When things go wrong, owners have used warranty replacements or returned the product.
The long-term picture is thin. Few accounts describe more than a short period of ownership, some come from people who had only just received theirs, and several mix in experiences with the Ultra models rather than the standard Quiet Comfort. There isn't enough here to say with confidence how the standard model holds up over years of use.
From 0 owner accounts that said how long they have had it. Own one? Add how long yours has lasted.
Counted from the owners who raised each subject, not from everyone. A subject is judged once at least 4 owners raise it.
17 more subjects came up from fewer than 4 owners each, which is not enough for a fair reading. To see how it stacks up, compare it with another machine.
The same owner, asked again at each point. Fills in as owners answer.
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More in headphones and earbuds: Sennheiser Momentum 4, Sony XM6, Sennheiser M5.
Among the 0 owner accounts here that gave a duration, 0 described a failure.
Before you buy one used, ask the seller: how old it is, whether it was ever repaired and by whom, and whether any of the parts above have been replaced. Ask to see it run. A receipt tells you the warranty start date; most makers honour the term only for the first owner.
Public discussions we read and summarised in our own words. Nothing here was submitted to Still Kicks.
Counted from public accounts by people who said they own it, and summarised by Still Kicks in its own words. Not a manufacturer claim, a lab test or an estimate.
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