Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds Review

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra buds are a significant improvement over previous Bose QuietComfort II. Their sound quality is extraordinary, especially in immersive mode, which transports you to center stage. It doesn't hurt that the active noise cancellation is incredibly effective, allowing the world to fall away. These aren't our top choice for active pursuits, but we haven't found better-sounding audio in a pair of wireless earbuds.

Performance Comparison

Sound Quality

The QuietComfort Ultra earbuds offer exceptional sound quality. The bass, mid, and high frequencies are all outstanding and on par with the highest-rated competitors. The frequency mix is clean and balanced, sounding natural rather than overly engineered, helping these earbuds deliver a highly adaptable sound profile that beautifully showcases a diverse range of genres.

From country rock ("Do Me Wrong" by the Red Clay Strays) to Americana ("Dust" by Dylan LeBlanc) and classic pop ("Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?" by Carole King), these earbuds consistently polish our favorite songs to a new level of shine. Atmospheric and emotive songs like “Wildfire” by Cautious Clay sound spectacular. As the guitar syncs with the tambourine at 0:09, the earbuds create a sonic environment that envelops you in the moment, and it's a good one.

The bass frequencies are warm, resonant, and fully developed, present without overpowering the mix. They can sound slightly overemphasized on occasion, but it rarely detracts from the experience overall.

In “Money” by Cardi B, the sparse piano is punchy and prominent without ever booming or blowing out, which is common with less capable earbuds. The simple beat and bass maintain a powerful presence without ever challenging Cardi's voice for center stage.

Mid-tones have a full and rich timbre but are slightly less emphasized than the bass and treble ranges. The treble tones can dominate at times, but their rich and velvety characteristics elevate the music so beautifully that we rarely mind. Pieces like the celestial “Clair de Lune” by Claude Debussy played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, sound revelatory as the piano transitions into the violin at the 1:05 mark.

These earbuds are also among the most powerful we've tested, maintaining exceptional sound quality at both low and high volumes. Even when you raise the levels, the high notes maintain a crystalline brilliance, and the sound quality holds across the board. Orchestral arrangements, hip-hop, and sparse singer-songwriter tracks all sound incredible, no matter your volume preference.

The only issue we noticed is that the levels can be inconsistent between tracks, which can be harsh when transitioning between songs. This issue may be more related to the production process than the earbuds since it's not a common occurrence.

Soundstage

An earbud's soundstage describes where the listener will perceive the music coming from in the space around them. We're used to hearing music coming at us from the front, which is the case with most live performances, or from all around us at a party or movie theater. The in-ear design of earbuds makes it hard for them to create a broad, expansive soundstage, which often results in a more internalized listening experience.

That may not matter much to you if you tend to multitask while wearing your headphones. If you're an avid gamer, or love to sit on the couch and let your favorite songs transport you, an expansive, surround-soundstage experience can make all the difference. If that's you, you've come to the right place, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra offers the most expansive, and therefore immersive, soundstage of any earbud we've reviewed — it's breathtaking.

The crisp sound quality and multi-dimensional listening experience allow us to place each instrument and vocal riff in time and space. It makes the music feel vast, rich, and real.

Bose's much-hyped spatial audio feature enhances the sensation. It's a sound bath and the closest you can get to having a live concert experience at your fingertips. The music sounds like it's emanating from beyond your earbuds, placing you inside the sound studio with the band. The feature works better in these earbuds than in others with similar effects.

Expert audio listener Dave Berkman noted, “The vertical and horizontal frequency planes are enhanced and expanded, and the sound has a third dimension as well, giving the listener a live-like experience.”

To compare our experiences to objective data, we brought in our Brüel & Kjaer Type 5128 head simulator to record the frequency response for the QuietComfort Ultra earbuds. Soundcheck then takes that information and calculates the curve to compared with our GearLab House Curve. The Bose mix closely mirrors our preferred curve, although with slightly more emphasis on bass and treble frequencies, indicative of our experts findings, but they provide a similar profile overall that reaffirms our stellar listening experience with these buds.

User Experience

The QuietComfort Ultra earbuds are a pleasure to use, offering a helpful app, a secure fit, and a reasonably comfortable feel. Over a dozen people tried these earbuds out to gauge their comfort and fit. The results were mostly positive. Our dedicated test team also wore each pair for an entire workday and in a number of commuting and recreational situations.

Comfort

These earbuds come with three silicone tip and stability band sizes to help you customize their fit. It's worth spending time sorting out which of the nine resulting configurations works best for you.

The stability bands tuck into your external ear cartilage. They are soft and flexible, providing stability without causing pain or pressure points.

While everyone on our team found a good combination, these earbuds are large, and our ears do get tired of them. Several testers prefer not to wear them for more than an hour at a time. Others don't mind them.

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Bose Ultra Open

Stability

The Bose are secure enough for everyday activities while working and commuting. They rarely fall out, and almost passed our headstand test, but rolled free after a few moments of inversion. Given their high price, we're cautious about wearing them for active, sweaty pursuits that involve a lot of bobbing and weaving, like a run.

With an IPX4 rating, the QuietComfort Ultra earbuds can handle sweat and light rain, so you can wear them for more active pursuits if you'd like. But our favorite activity while wearing these earbuds is, well, nothing. Lying down on the floor of a dark room, cocooned in pillows and blankets, maybe with a few candles flickering, and lost in the music — it's bliss.

Customization

A standout feature of the QuietComfort Ultra earbuds is their adaptive Bluetooth connectivity, which aims for “lossless” transfer rates. Achieving them preserves the original sound quality of your music across the air gap, resulting in high-fidelity audio.

If you have a phone that's capable of transferring lossless data and a good Bluetooth connection, these earbuds can achieve that goal. If you don't, they'll use the AptX Adaptive codec to give you the best experience available. Bose markets this system as Snapdragon Sound and it works with compatible Android devices.

The Bose app lets you customize your experience by providing manual EQ adjustments and a variety of listening modes, including active noise cancellation, immersive audio, and an “aware” mode that allows environmental sounds to break through. The app is compatible with both Android and iOS devices, though some users find it trickier to pair with iPhones.

A CustomTune feature auto-adjusts the sound profile and noise cancellation particulars based on your ear shape, and an ear fit test ensures the earbuds are properly sealed for optimal performance. Touch controls let you skip tracks, cycle through settings, adjust volume levels, or pause and play your music.

Connectivity

The QuietComfort Ultras did not have the best performance in terms of connectivity. In-house, we experienced some problems pairing the earbuds with our devices, particularly when using iPhones. The problem was less noticeable when using the Ultras with an Android device. We performed an analysis of data from 1-star Amazon user reviews to investigate connectivity issues further. Unfortunately, we found that the Ultras had one of the highest complaint rates in the group of tested earbuds, at 3.79%.

Noise Cancellation

To quote one tester, “Woooooaaaahhhhh! The noise blocking is crazy good!” The rest agree. The active noise cancellation (ANC) in these earbuds is stunning. They block out distractions so effectively that we can melt into our music like never before. They also help us improve our focus and productivity at work, even when plagued by noisy distractions.

Unlike its predecessor, the Bose QuietComfort II, these earbuds support Bose's CustomTune technology, which automatically adjusts the ANC based on the shape of your ear. It seems to work well. They easily block ambient chatter and reduce the hum of AC units splendidly.

Like all good noise-canceling earbuds, the Bose earbuds are quite effective at blocking out low-pitched and consistent sounds, like the hum of an airplane or the rumble and rattle of a bus engine. You can see how well they perform those functions in the table above. What sets them apart, is how well they cancel out higher frequencies.

In our ANC testing, we could barely detect the clattering of cups in the cafe recording above. The Bose earbuds also do an excellent job of softening lower-pitched background conversations, creating a barrier between you and the most annoying sounds in a coffee shop.

SoundCheck charted the results of the test in the chart above. It displays how many decibels the earbuds are able to cancel in each frequency range. It also charted how many decibels they physically block, a feature known as noise isolation.

The results are interesting. Usually, earbuds block most high frequency waves physically and rely on active noise cancellation to deal with the lower registers. These earbuds perform exceptionally across the spectrum, blocking over 20 decibels in nearly every frequency range, with peaks up to 40 decibels. The performance crowns them king of noise cancellation.

Battery Life

The one area where these earbuds fall slightly short is battery life. During our tests we played music at 75% volume until they died. These earbuds lasted around six hours, which is a bit less than average overall. What is impressive, is that the case offers five full recharges before you need to find a wall outlet. If you need a quick refill, five minutes of charge time grants you another hour of listening time.

While the six hours and ten minutes we tested is less than average for the test, it exceeds the manufacturer's claims of six hours flat. Keep in mind that we test battery life with the ANC feature turned off since it drains more power. Since the ANC function is so good, we use it often, further reducing playtime.

If you don't need your earbuds every hour of the day and maintain solid charging routines, this battery life may work for you.

Call Quality

Calls with the QuietComfort Ultra earbuds are clear, whether you're navigating busy streets or chatting at your desk. To add rigor to our real-world tests, we conducted a series of tests with our audio simulator. We played recordings of both a female and male voice through the speaker positioned on the front of the Bruel and Kjaer 5128-B head simulator and recorded the output with the earbuds. You can hear the results below.

These earbuds performed well overall, but they aren't the top performer in the most difficult call quality test — the Subway.

We challenged the earbuds by mimicking a Subway, complete with loudspeaker announcements and screeching trains in the background. Like most earbuds, they struggled a bit with some sounds bleeding through but were heavily dulled in comparison to other earbuds. The voice recording is clear, with the man's voice very easy to understand, but you have to concentrate a little more to comprehend the woman.

We repeated this process with typical office sounds playing in the background. You can still hear a little bit of the chatter, hum, and clacking keyboards, but you can clearly hear both voices, too.

In a quiet room, the call is clear and easy to understand. We did notice an amplification in the woman's voice that isn't present with other high-quality options, but it didn't obscure communication.

Should You Buy the Bose QuietComfort Ultra?

If you're looking for earbuds that sound great, are capable of quieting the world, and offer an incredibly immersive experience, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra are worthy of serious consideration. While they don't boast the longest battery life or the best voice isolation for phone calls, the high quality audio and ease of use make them a standout choice. There are less expensive and more comfortable choices, but if you want the most captivating earbuds on the market, these buds are for you.

What Other Earbuds Should You Consider?

Both the Bose QuietComfort Ultra earbuds and the Apple AirPods Pro 2 offer top-of-the-line sound quality and innovative features. Either pair is an excellent choice, but you can only unlock the full benefits of the AirPods with Apple products. The Bose buds work with Android and Apple devices, although they can be tricky to pair with iPhones and only offer adaptable connectivity (and potentially lossless transfer rates) with Android devices. So, your decision largely depends on which tech ecosystem you're committed to. Feature-wise, the Bose earbuds provide superior noise cancellation and surround-sound audio quality. The AirPods excel in phone call clarity and have a slightly longer battery life. If you don't need impeccable, immersive soundscapes and are fine with comfortable, great sounding earbuds that can handle the rigor of a workout, we highly recommend the Jabra Elite 10 or Jabra Elite 8 Active.