Headphones and earbuds · Bose
Owners keep the Bose Ultra 2 for long sessions and flights, where its light, comfortable fit and strong noise cancelling earn their place, even as they debate the sound.
Comfort is the clearest praise: owners who compared it side by side with Sony and Apple rivals say it is lighter and easier to wear for hours, without the clamping force or ear gaps they felt elsewhere.
Customer support is the clear complaint: owners describe escalation calls that never came, no way to roll back a firmware update that removed features they paid for, and earbuds made useless when a lost case could not be replaced separately.
The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) are wireless over-ear headphones with active noise cancelling. They are for people who want to block out noise on flights, commutes or at work, and who want long battery life. "Ultra 2" could also mean Bose's QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen). This page covers the over-ear headphones.
| Type | Over-ear (around-ear), wireless |
|---|---|
| Noise cancelling | Yes, adjustable active noise cancelling |
| Battery life | 30 hours |
| Charging | USB-C; 3 hours for a full charge; 15 minutes gives 3 hours of play |
| Bluetooth and codecs | Bluetooth 5.4, 30 feet range; codecs not listed in the specs |
| Weight | 0.583 lb |
| Water resistance | Not water resistant |
| Warranty | 1 year |
From the maker's spec page, checked October 5, 2026. A blank row means the maker does not state it.
30 hours of battery covers several long flights or about a week of commuting before you need to charge. If the battery is empty, 15 minutes on a charger gives you about 3 hours of listening. They weigh about 264 grams, a normal weight for large noise-cancelling headphones. They have no water rating, so don't use them in the rain or for sweaty workouts.
Pick up to three. You get a page with just those, side by side, on the subjects owners raised.
Once the novelty passes, comfort is what keeps coming up. Owners who bought these for commutes, flights and the gym say they forget they are wearing them, and several who tried the Sony XM6 first switched because of pressure on the head or a gap at the jaw. A few do call the fit merely normal rather than special.
Sound is where owners divide. Some prefer the vocals and find the sound better than rival pairs out of the box; others say the Sony tuning is more fun, treat these as travel headphones rather than serious listening gear, or dislike the three-band EQ and the app. Noise cancellation is also divided: most rate it on par with or ahead of the XM6 and AirPods Max, but a share of owners note it takes longer to adapt to changing surroundings, responds poorly to sudden noise, and produces a faint white noise some cannot tune out.
The most serious long-term story is the firmware update. Owners who had the headphones for months say an update removed features that were the reason they bought them, with no rollback offered, and that Bose escalation contacts did not follow through. Build quality is divided: the hinge gets credit, but one owner is on a second replacement for a crackling earcup that persists even when powered off, and an earbud owner found a lost case rendered the buds unusable because the two are paired.
Long-term accounts beyond the first year are thin. Most reliability comments come from owners within the first weeks or from the firmware episode, so how the pads, hinge and battery hold up over several years is not yet something this page can say.
Counted from the owners who raised each subject, not from everyone. A subject is judged once at least 4 owners raise it.
26 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.
Two questions: how long you have had it, and anything you would like to say about it. Then we ask again as it ages. This helps our mission.
More in headphones and earbuds: Sennheiser Momentum 4, Sony xm5, Sony xm4.
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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