Hey there folks, I've got Bose's new more affordable Quiet Comfort earbuds here. They cost $179, come in three color options, and I'm going to tell you what's good about them and what's not so good. Let's do this. Okay, so if you did a double take on the name of these earbuds, I did too. And by too, I mean that Bose released the Quiet Comfort Earbud 2 a few years ago, and now it's gone backwards by naming these the QC earbuds. But the idea going forward is that this will be the more affordable mid-range model, while the Ultra earbuds will be the flagship. These new QC earbuds have a totally new design. Their shape reminds me a little bit of Bose's old Sports wireless earbuds, which didn't have active noise cancelling, while these do. They also have a similar ear tip and stability band system to the Ultras that really helps you get a secure fit, and that fit is one of the strengths of

these earbuds. Those earbuds tend to be a little larger than a lot of buds on the market, and they typically offer a comfortable, secure fit with three sizes of ear tips and stability bands to choose from. I got a seal and really secure fit using the largest ear tips and the medium-sized stability bands. I had no problem running with these buds; they didn't budge in my ears, and their IPX4 sweat-proof and splash-proof rating held up well. As I said, they have active noise cancelling, and it's really good, very close to what you get with a flagship Ultra. They also have a transparency or aware mode, as Bose calls it, and I found it to be natural-sounding with only a very faint hiss—no problems there. These buds also sound quite good, like Bose's other earbuds and headphones. They're designed to work well with a variety of music genres and offer generally smooth, punchy sound that's very pleasant to listen to. While some competing buds offer a little more detail and clarity, the bass has

good kick to it without sounding boomy. These don't sound quite as good as the Ultras, which have a tad more depth and extension to them, but I did think these buds play loud, and most people should be satisfied with their sound quality. You can also tweak the sound a bit, as Bose has added a customizable five-band equalizer to its new QC earbuds app. That app has been designed exclusively for these buds; it doesn't work with the Ultras but uses different firmware and a Qualcomm chipset that supports Qualcomm Snapdragon sound and its aptX adaptive codec. These support the AAC and SBC audio codecs. The buds have a few features not found in the Ultras. For starters, the charging case has wireless charging. The case is a bit big and feels a little cheap in comparison to the ultra case, but Bose has finally added wireless charging, and the battery life is good. You can get up to 8.5 hours of playback time at moderate volume levels; that's with noise cancelling on the

second new feature is the ability to toggle between noise cancelling, aware mode, and a new off setting. Some people really wanted that off setting, which does help conserve battery life. These don't have the ultra immersion mode that widens the sound stage a bit and is kind of a spatial audio mode, but Bose says the immersion mode is coming soon, though it could be months before we see it. The buds also have some interesting voice control features, including the ability to snap a selfie using a voice command through the buds. I found the voice commands to be a bit hit or miss. You have to say hey headphones to activate the voice command mode, and sometimes it kicked on and sometimes it didn't when I said the command. When it's working, it allows you to skip tracks forward and back and raise and lower volume, among other things. There are also the more standard customizable touch controls. Other features include ear detection sensors and multi-point Bluetooth pairing. You can't have multi-point on to use those voice commands because if you're paired with two devices simultaneously, the buds

don't know what phone to issue the voice commands for Bose. Says the earbuds have three microphones for noise cancelling and voice calling. I was a little disappointed with the voice calling performance. The buds do a decent job reducing background noise, but caller said my voice sounded muffled at times or went in and out while I was talking. All right, I'm on a test call here in the streets of New York City with fellow editor Josh Gold. Josh, I've got uh in my usual PL Bic, got a little bit of wind. How do I sound? Uh, your voice quality is okay. It's a little muffled and not really clear. Uh, but for the sound behind you, the noise cancellation is really good. I can't hear anything on the street. Uh, if there are cars passing, I wouldn't know it. I tested them in the noisy streets of New York City, and under those harsh conditions, they just didn't quite perform up to love of other premium buds I've tested recently, including the AirPods 4, Samsung Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, and

Google Pixel Buds Pro 2. Hopefully, my review sample wasn't wonky, but I thought the voice calling performance could be better. Hopefully, we'll get a firmware update that tweaks the algorithm so my voice comes through more clearly in noisy environments. Those are the Bose's Quiet Comfort earbuds in a nutshell. To sum things up, I think they offer a comfortable, secure fit, they sound very good, and have top-notch noise cancelling. I like the new features, particularly the voice commands, but the voice control doesn't work as well as it does with the Galaxy Buds 3 Pro, for example. I do think the buds in case are a little big compared to other earbuds, and the voice calling performance wasn't great with my review sample anyway. The long and short of it is I came away liking these QC earbuds. They have some definite strengths and are certainly worth considering, especially when they get discounted to $140 or less, but they do have some small shortcomings, a few of which may be able to be addressed via

More upgrades as always. Let me know what you think in the comment section, particularly those of you who own them already. I'm David Car for cet.com. Thanks for watching.

Bose QC Earbuds Review: Same Price as the AirPods 4 but Better Sound and ANC

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