Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds Review

Introduction

The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II were one of the best noise-cancelling earbuds, so how could Bose improve on excellence?

It came up with the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, which at first glance look identical but beneath the surface they’ve been plenty of changes.

There’s now Snapdragon Sound support for higher quality sound over a Bluetooth connection, and Bose’s own attempt at spatial in its Immersive Audio technology.

That would seem a fair enough upgrade but do the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds still justify the high price?

Price

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds went on sale in 2023 for £299 / $299 / €299 / CA$379 / AU$449.

It does get discounted quite often, so in the UK it often falls to £219 which is the same as the Sony WF-1000XM5.

Design

• Same aesthetics as before
• More comfortable
• Touch controls

Bose hasn’t tampered with the aesthetics of the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds aside from giving the black variant a silver lick of paint on both the earphones and the charging case logo.

I do, however, find they fit slightly better than the previous buds, which I imagine is down to the tweaked design of the stability bands. The predecessor made me itch my ears after a while but I’ve had no discomfort with this pair.

Packaged with the earphones are three pairs of tips (small, medium, and large), alongside three pairs of the stability bands in the same sizes to best fit your ears.

Controls cover playback (taps) and volume (swipe up or down), and appear more precise than they were on the QC Earbuds II (this time taps aren’t confused for swipes). Sometimes touch controls can be hit or miss but here they’re more hit than miss.

The earphones are rated to IPX4 to cover against sweat and rain, the case is the same design as well. Colours are a choice of black, white, and blue and Diamond 60^th variant (grey).

Features

• aptX Lossless support
• Same battery life as before
• Bluetooth multipoint update

Like the QC Earbuds II the QC Earbuds Ultra support Bluetooth 5.3, with Snapdragon Sound added to this model. Depending on your device, there’s a choice of SBC through to aptX Adaptive or aptX Lossless.

When the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds first launched there was no Bluetooth multipoint support, but over the course of 2024 that feature was added. Google Fast Pair support makes it quicker to connect to an Android device.

Call quality remains an odd area for Bose earphones. An update earlier in 2024 was said to bring in machine learning to help latch onto voices but I haven’t found the overall performance to have changed much.

Before the update, the person on the other end said the call quality was the worst he had heard. Cars and large vehicles going past sounded as if they were banging and crashing past, my voice competing against the noise.

Post update and the performance remained similar, so while pick up of my voice is solid, any loud noise that came past was a distraction.

Battery life is the same – six hours per charge and 24 hours with the case included. A battery drain over two hours confirmed that with 70% of the battery left. There’s no wireless charging support – in fact like the Open Ultra Earbuds, you’ll need a buy an additional wireless charging case cover (£49.95).

The Bose app (formerly Bose Music) remains the same sleek and simple experience that enables customisation and personalisation of the QC Ultra Earbuds. You can create several noise-cancelling profiles (with custom names), create shortcuts on each bud, alter the sound with presets or the three-band EQ, perform the Earbud Seal Test to make sure the earphones are tucked in, as well as calibrate the Immersive Audio feature.

Bose’s Immersive Audio turns stereo audio three-dimensional to make it sound as if music was being played right in front of you. You can choose between Still and Motion modes, the former means music stays fixed as you turn your head while the latter allows music to shift so it’s always centred as you move. Turn your head right and music will sound as if it’s coming from the left.

Noise Cancellation

• Class-leading ANC
• Excellent Aware mode
• Bose Active Sense

When I first reviewed the QuietComfort Earbuds Ultra, I found its noise-cancellation performance to be strange. They didn’t cancel noise better than the QuietComfort Earbuds II, performing worse in pretty much every aspect.

Having received a new sample, it turns out that the previous sample I had must have been buggy, as this is back up to the same levels of performance as the QuietComfort Earbuds II.

Not many noises slip past these buds, shushing nearby conversations and they remain imperious on the London Underground where even the loudest parts of the Victoria Line are blocked out so music remains audible.

Wind noise is better managed, and Bose’s ActiveSense technology returns, cancelling noise when the Aware mode is engaged to automatically adjust the noise-cancelling performance. For it to work, the In-Ear Detection feature needs to be enabled in the Bose app.

The Aware mode is class-leading, which is about as natural and clear as any bud on the market.

So while I think the Bose offers the noise-cancellation of any true wireless on the market, the competition is not far behind, and in some cases are on par. The Technics EAH-AZ100 are virtually equal in terms of noise-cancelling (The Technics’ transparency mode is just a little less clear); while the JBL Tour Pro 3 and Sony WF-1000XM5 are not too far behind either one.

Sound Quality

• Same sound as before
• Weighty bass performance
• Spatial audio

Given how similar the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds are to their predecessors, you may wonder whether Bose made any changes to the sound. As far as I can hear, no changes have been made.

The original QuietComfort Earbuds were neutral in tone, sharp and lean in their presentation, but that changed with the QuietComfort Earbuds II, which were more mainstream. That’s carried over with the Ultra Earbuds, with bass that has a sense of weightiness but without overdoing it.

That low end presence is bigger than either the Sony WF-1000XM5 or Sennheiser Momentum True Wireless 4, the midrange supplied with clarity and detail while highs are sharply and clearly defined in a track such as GoGo Penguin’s Erased by Sunlight without overreaching. The Bose achieves a good balance across the frequency range.

They beat the Sennheiser for clarity and detail, though perhaps don’t quite offer the same levels of insight as the Sony or the Technics AZ100 – at least with the midrange, but the balanced performance the Bose offers across the frequency range ensures they’re always an engaging listen.

Listening to Benjamin Clementine’s Nemesis (made popular by The Morning Show on Apple TV+), there’s a lovely sense of detail and texture to the woodblock-sounding instruments that open the song.

Clementine’s voice is presented clearly and smoothly, the soundstage is open and spacious – the only nitpick I’d have is the Bose aren’t particularly dynamic on a major or minor scale.

Neither with Clementine’s Nemesis or Gregory Porter’s Concorde do the earbuds really capture the shifts or soaring notes in the vocal inflexions of each performance.

But they do boast a fine sense of rhythm with faster-flowing tracks – not the most energetic, but certainly more musical and flowing than the original Bose earbuds.

The Immersive Audio feature expands the soundstage and creates a sense of depth, but like on the QC Ultra Headphones and the Ultra Open Earbuds, while the performance is consistent, the levels of clarity and detail aren’t as high – music sounds a little softer with it on. But the immersive effect is fun and works – it’s just not quite an essential feature… yet.

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Should you buy it?