Bose Quiet Comfort Ultra 2nd Gen Headphones Review, or how I was Converted

Hi everyone,

It looks like 2025 is the year for ANC (active noise canceling) headphones. Sony, B&W, Sennheiser and Bose all have new products introduced this year.

While Dore lent me the first generation QC Ultras to try, I wasn't impressed with the sound. But the other thing I was mad about was that it would distort while plugging wired into my Babyface Pro FS. So when I first heard about the 2nd generation of the QC Ultras, I was like "meh!"

Then I read this review. This person has an audio engineer background, which interested me very much. When he said that this was an all rounder best, I changed from "meh" to "ooh."

Then, watching various Youtube reviews and demos, liked the noise canceling improvements, and knew how much this would be an improvement over my Sennheiser Momentum 4. And now with Bose also getting the wired USB lossless audio support, I changed from "ooh" to "why not?"

So… After Sweetwater gave me a deal and a refund promise if Bose decides to have a sale later this month, I decided to buy a pair. And now, my reaction is "wow!"

Of course, the stock sound isn't to my liking. But no worries, there's a 3-band EQ in the app that I immediately took to exploring. The Bose app is very VoiceOver accessible, so it didn't take long for me to get all set up with my favorite settings. Of course, finding the right EQ curve for me took a while, but now I've arrived at 2 options that I enjoy:

Option 1, bass and mnid at -5, treble at -4. If you don't want the over all gain to be lower, choose this option.

Option 2, bass and mid at -7, treble at -6. The over all gain will be lowered, but the sound will be a bit warmer. The treble can be lowered to -7 as well for taste.

Now, listening to orchestral, piano and vocal music using these headphones, I can achieve a similar unfatiguing sound as the Momentum 4s. Of course they can't be compared to my Focal Shape 65 studio monitors, but they have their own bit of fun and class. And I'm proud that I was able to tame the stock tuning so it doesn't sound weird to my ears.

So, is this pair of headphones worth it all? For me, this is my first pair of bose, and I do have to say, without this deal, I wouldn't have continued waiting. But in the end, I feel I made a great purchase, and enjoyed improvements in noise canceling, and all the other basic features are solidly executed. I think this will be a great pair of headphones for me for traveling.

So much for initial impressions. Happy listening!

David Lai I stick with my industry standard Sony MDR 7506's. Pretty flat and very good for piano.

Jay Lane Those are great! I don't use the Bose for piano, rather, I use them for listening to music on-the-go (especially on a flight), or sometimes if I want some little privacy with my speakers turned off. These ANC headphones are bad for piano, as audio is sent to the DAC chip to process. Audio over USB-C doesn't have ASIO driver, so out of the question.

David Lai Right now I understand. Not voiced correctly for piano but good for music. I have some Nothing Ear 2024 buds with noise cancellation and the very latest codecs. They sound very good for music.