Bose Quietcomfort Ultra

Just found your excellent review. I recently picked up a pair of QCUs open box at Best Buy. I have been comparing them with my older NC700s (bought on sale at the outbreak of Covid to get me through lockdown) and my APMax. I agree with many of the points you put forward.

Compared to the NC700s, the ANC is improved, although at the expense of a slight white noise “hiss” which was absent on the 700s. I don’t find in intrusive, but it is there. The mids are improved in clarity, although the soundstage is quite narrow, and the bass needs to be turned down on the EQ in the app, otherwise it’s far too intense and bloated. I have it down to -5. I feel Bose missed a beat here by simply reusing the drivers from the 700s, rather than coming up with something new.

I usually listen to my 700s wired through an external dac/dongle, either my Fiio KA11 or iFi Uno. This bypasses the internal processor and massively improves the overall sound quality. When I do this on the QCUs, there is little change in sound quality.

As far as overall build quality goes, it seems to be a step backwards from the 700s. They’ve replaced the stainless steel in the headband with aluminium, and on the 700s the earcups were made of glass fibre reinforced nylon, where these seem to be made of a polymer plastic like polycarbonate. Comfort, to me at least, is unchanged, but they feel a bit flimsy compared to the 700s.

Compared to the APM, they can’t come anywhere close to the build quality, but little can. I find myself using them more than the Apple cans simply as the APM are too heavy. The Spatial Audio on the APM is far superior. I agree with your assessment about the Spatial Audio on the QCUs. It’s like pulling something with a flexible tether rather than a rigid one. Again, there is no ANC hiss on the APM at all. The APM have a much wider soundstage, but the mids are less forward and seem to blend into the music, where mids on the QCU are more forward and prominent. Bass on the APM is much better, being far clearer and less bloated. The controls on the APM are better as well. The Digital Crown for volume control is far more precise than the capacitive strip on the QCU and again, the quality of the buttons leaves the Bose in the dust. They feel like they’ve been properly engineered, and not added simply because they’re needed.

You may have seen it, but have a look at @Resolve’s review of the Bose QCU on YT.



Thanks again for a great review.

I had to return my Momentum 4, as the comfort just wasn’t there for any time period over 5 minutes. Therefor I started researching which ANC over-ears had the best comfort, without sacrificing too much on sound quality. I also wanted to try out the ANC of Bose and Sony, as they are consistently touted as having the best implementations as far as noise-cancelling is concerned.

The comfort of the Bose QC ultra is certainly quite good, though not as flawless as I expected based on other reviews. The earpads feel very soft, and don’t generate as much heat as others. The clamp force is quite high though, and while the cups are spacious, my ears can still touch the sides of the pads which can get uncomfortable for long sessions. The amount of clamp also can lead to hot spots on the sides of my head where the frames of my glasses are. However, overall comfort is very good due to the plush pads and lightweight build.

The ANC is excellent, but again not as good as I thought it would be. I had read many reviews that stated it simply made everything virtually silent, but things like a TV (even in another room) are still audible. It does a fantastic job, no doubt, but there is also a constant hiss of white noise in my ears, and the cabin pressure can be intense at first.

I haven’t tested it on a plane or anything, but it does work better than anything else I’ve tried, just with a noticeable white noise hiss (it’s quiet, but I still have tried a few that don’t have this hiss).

Sound quality is very good to great, it’s got a truly excellent tonality in the midrange and it’s wonderful to finally find some ANC headphones that don’t totally scoop the mids out of the box. The bass is awful and bloated, but I’m used to this with ANC cans, and I immediately lower it completely as much as possible in the built in EQ. The good thing is the EQ settings get baked into the DSP of the cans, and it will keep this EQ across all sources and connection types until you change it again (even wired).

The soundstage is average but accurate, intimate songs sound small and in your head, but orchestral tracks are able to be more spaced out as intended, and show off depth and spatial qualities impressively well. Detail, dynamics and timbre is also a bit better than I expected, the mid range is very clean and resolving, and these do an AMAZING job at the textural aspects of orchestral strings and woodwinds- really beautiful tonality and richness to them. I would honestly say the timbre of these is truly excellent, with beautiful mids reminiscent of the Senn Momentum 3, on string instruments especially they can sound downright beautiful.

My least favorite aspect is the bass, but it also makes them fun in a way- I’m making this statement based on my EQ settings where I reduce the bass ALL THE WAY… as low as it will go… and it’s still got a massive sub bass rumble that makes heavy footsteps in games sound thunderous. Inaccurate, a bit silly, but fun. Amazing for EDM, of course.

Will update further as I use them more in the coming days.