The Serious Bose Quiet Comfort 2 Thread

[Steve999]

Thanks, Geek.

I assume you listened to the QC2s, since you mentioned a price of $300?

ETYs are out -- not practical for my situation.

AKG 271s are out -- I tried them for a month and I just could not live with sound. I like my Senn HD280s much better than the AKG 271s. Better isolation, better sound, IMHO...

I'm holding out some hope for the Beyer 250-250s.... Lini, whose ears very reliable, IMHO, feels the 250-250s sound better than the AKG 271s but he also finds the isolation on the 250-250s to be less than the AKG271s, which in turn isolate less than the HD280s, which worries me. The QC2s isolate noticeably better than even the HD280s. So really, in a way I'm leaning toward QC2s or bust, and sticking with my HD280s if it's bust.

Agreed, the HD580s / HD600s are much better than the QC2s. I compared the HD580s to the QC2s, and it's not pretty.... OTOH, there is much that is not pretty next to the HD580s...

Both you and music fanatic agree the QC2s are not phones for audiophile listening. I respect your opinions and I think those are valuabe contributions to the thread.

With the EQ adjustment I spoke of
(actually, it's about -2 db at 240 hz, -3 db at 120 hz, and I also found -2 db at 60 hz useful) , the sound of the QC2s is improved tremendously. I feel at that point they surpass the HD280s, and they surpass mid-priced open phones such as the Grado SR60s, Senn HD497s, etc. But it's quite a dramatic EQ, it's not the "real" sound of the phones, which in some ways you describe pretty accurately, and the fine points of which would be a waste of time to argue over....

With the QC2 hump apparently centered at about 120 hz, I'm hoping that most simple bass tone controls will be useful in taming it.

I'm trying to keep an open mind though, the jury's still out, $100 more and it's CD3000 city, I have to keep that in mind.....

Anyway, thanks again, your listening impressions are valued. I need the comfort, convenience and isolation, there's the problem....

Quote:

Originally posted by Geek You should go with etys, K271s, or DT250-250s. I listened to the quietcomforts, the sound isn't bad, but it's not what a $300 audiophile headphone should sound like: It has as you said a bumped area somewhere in the midbass which makes the sound sloppy. I do think the quietcomforts have excellent isolation.... [It] did not compete with audiophile headphones in its price range (including sealed and isolating cans).

 

[Steve999]

Yes, that's interesting, I hadn't thought of it, but my beloved Sony CD780s appear to employ the same technique....

I did notice that the QC2s have more of an open sound than many closed headphones I have heard.

Quote:

Originally posted by Music Fanatic One of the advantages of these headphones is that they use angled drivers (as do some Sony headphones) and have relatively large chambers, so there the sound has a slight micro-echo thus creating an illusion of openness (which I think leads to what some people here call a "soundstage".)

 

[Music Fanatic]

From reports on this site, I wonder if the CD3000s would have enough isolation for you.

 

[Steve999]

I'm sure the CD3000s wouldn't have enough isolation. I have heard the CD3000s a few times. They really only sound semi-closed, and I've heard and read the same of the 250-250s. That's probably why those two phones are able to achieve such high sound quality.

Quote:

Originally posted by Music Fanatic From reports on this site, I wonder if the CD3000s would have enough isolation for you.

 

[Steve999]

Well, FWIW to anyone, after a lot more listening, my evolving impressions of the Quiet Comfort 2s are these:

Highs are very well extended and neutral, and mids are quite neutral, but this is hard to appreciate fully without correction of the bass hump.

By ear, using my graphic equalizer, the bass hump is centered at about 120 hz and is about 3 db, and extends to a lesser degree down to 60 hz and up to 240 hz.

My EQ settings right now are about -3 db at 120 hz, and -1.5 db at 60 hz and -1.5 db at 240 hz. With this EQ, the QC2s sound very good to excellent to my humble ears, and are very enjoyable for extremely comfortable, critical listening while there is moderate to heavy house noise (A/C, TV, kids, dishwasher, washer & dryer, shower, etc. etc.).

Bass extension is very good, as becomes evident once you EQ the bass hump.

Soundstage is great for high isolation closed phones, perhaps due to the large chambers and angled drivers.

Without the EQ adjustment for the bass hump, sound quality is good but clearly flawed. The bass does not strike me as boomy but instead just strikes me as too rock solid and too strong. It takes attention away from the well-executed mids and highs. The hump is too low in the frequency range to sound "boomy," I think.

The noise cancellation and comfort are superb.

You also get a very nice carrying case, an assortment of adaptors and a headphone extension cord. The package as a whole is great.

As I'm fairly confident the phones do employ at least some degree of active EQ (otherwise this degree of sound quality would be impossible in a high isolation headphone this small and this light, in my experience), I do wonder if the bass hump was put in there on purpose by Bose to please your average Joe.

Well, the 90-day trial continues......

 

[Geek]

One has to remember that Bose is one of the only companies actively pursuing active noise cancellation and trying to make a high-end headphone out of that.

Imagine what would happen if they created a driver/porting system on par with, say, ultrasone or beyer closed phones, and then added the cancellation circuit. Would be a $500 headphone, but it would sound excellent i think.

Cheers,
Geek

 

[Music Fanatic]

Steve999's post leads me to reassert a statement I've made often: many headphones (and certainly the QC2) would all benefit from a portable headphone equalization device.

 

[woodytone]

Quote:

Originally posted by Davie Steve, Could you do a quick QC2 vs. PX100 comparison for a potential Bose convert? Also, I assume the HN100s are going back.

px100's have way too much "hissing noise". they don't sound very good. QC2 sound nice with lots of bass. i don't think they are worth the money but they are a very nice headphone

 

[Steve999]

Woodytone -- Thanks for the feedback! I have to agree after a few weeks of listening, the QC2 is a nice sounding headphone with lots of bass, that is just what they are.

I think for many the QC2s would not be worth the money. For me, with my special needs (noisy noisy home) and my setup (with a nice EQ setup in my main rig so I can shave a few dbs off of the bass), they seem to be some pretty sweet headphones so far (I'm on the 90-day trial here). EQ down the bass just a little and they turn into some very sweet sounding phones. Without EQ-ing the bass down a little, they still sound good, but not great.

I have found that with my Sony MZ-N707 minidisc portable, they sound great if I take down the bass a notch. But I don't have any other portables that will take down the bass.

Quote:

Originally posted by woodytone px100's have way too much "hissing noise". they don't sound very good. QC2 sound nice with lots of bass. i don't think they are worth the money but they are a very nice headphone

 

[Bill1202]

I completely agree!  I have a pair of QC2s and agreewith just about everyone says.  I use them for travel and I have enjoyed them for screamming babies and gain rest from the engine noise.  I started with Shure C3 IEMs that I purchased about 6 years ago because they were cheaper then the Bose at the time (I fly a lot) and still use them today when riding my Motorcycle. I think they sound better than my QC2 but of course lack in the bass area (being IEMs) and the QC2's produce more bass and a more warming sound than my IEMs.  The IEMs provide superior noise cancelling over the bose and for general sound cancelling and for the ability to listen to music when riding especially at freeway speeds.
 
 
Now to listen comfortable around the house and by the computer, I'm planning on pulling an old 75W per channel Yamaha pro logic receiver out of storage and pairing it up to Denon AD-H2000 or 5000's.  Now that will rock it!


 
Quote:

Well, I'll bite.

The Bose QC2 is excellent for its product class, but I don't think it would replace a good general purpose headphone in non-noisy situations.

OK, first some qualifications -- the QC2 is a successor to an earlier product, the Bose Quiet Comfort (below, I call these the QC1). While they share some common design elements, the QC1 is vastly inferior to the QC2, both in terms of convenience (the QC2 is an integrated unit, the QC1 required a separate power/processing box), comfort, sound quality, and effectiveness.

Moroever, as anyone who frequents audio boards knows, it is lots of fun to bash Bose, and to some degree, they do deserve it. The usual complaints are that they are overpriced (this is true, but it is true of a great deal of audio equipment, especially special-purpose audio equipment), their speakers tend to perform poorly at low frequencies, and they have some aggressive marketing techniques. These complaints all have some basis in fact. However, I think that in some circumstances this taunting is more extreme than the products deserve (it seems to me that on audio bboards, people tend to fall to one extreme or another -- either a product is wonderful -- this is usually the case when the author owns the product -- or, as one poster has said, they "suck a**". The truth, of course, is that audio is a continuum. Now, Bose has a very active commercial business selling products including airplane pilot headsets with noise cancellation. According to my pilot friends, those products are ranked at the top of their class.

Now the first thing to know is that the headphone has a built in adjustment -- "a hi/lo" level switch. This makes a difference in the impedance/amplification of the device, so you'll want to experiment to get this right.

Next, the headphones are circumaural and extraordinarily comfortable -- only my Sony F1 is more comfortable. I fly a lot to Asia, and I can wear the QC2 for the entire flight, whereas (except for the F1) the longest I have been able to wear any other headphone is about 3 hours. They cut down on low frequency noise effectively (and are far better than other noise cancelling headphones I have tried, including the Sony V6, Sony noise cancelling headphones and the one's in business and first class on United.) Compared to the Etymotic 4Ps, the QC2 performs worse on high frequency background noise
but much better on low frequency noise (since this travels through the body and especially through microphonics in the cord.) They are far better at noise reduction than the V6 or any other noise cancelling headphone I have tried. The headphones come with a kit that includes a component for watching in flight movies on airlines such as US Air that use a specially sized plug component for listening to movies or inflight audio.

Since airplane background noise contains primarily low frequency components, the QC2 works great. For fan noise (e.g., when a noisy air conditioner or noisy computer fans are blowing), they cut out the lower portion of fan noise, but there is still some high-frequency component remaining. Since the design is basically a closed headphone design, one gets at least that level of protection on all sounds.

Like all noise cancelling headphones, these headphones produce a small degree of hiss. This is sharply reduced from the QC1 and even the Sony noise cancelling headphones. But it is still there, as you'll notice if you are in a completely quiet environment. But I wouldn't choose these headphones to listen to in a completely quiet environment.

As far as audio fidelity is concerned -- it's an improvement over the QC1. I use these headphones to listen to while travelling, so I'm less concerned about perfect playback as much as I am with convenience and noise blocking. But I find the audio quality to only be fair -- besides the light hiss, there is too much attempt to "round" the sound with some boost in the bass. I have to try running these headphones with the "high" switch turned on to see if I can reduce the bass boost that way. These, to my mind aren't especially accurate headphones, but I think the idea of audiophile listening on airplanes or in noisy environments is absurd.

No problem driving these headphones (even though they appear to nominally have a very high impedance).

Unlike other noise cancelling headphones I've tried, these headphones have no passive mode -- they always require power on to reproduce sound.

Bottom line: these headphones are outstanding at what they set out to do. They are comfortable, convenient, and effective. However, they are not designed for general listening. While I've seen posts about people desiring audiophile quality while being a passenger in an airplane, I think this is just absurd. The QC2 lets the listener actually hear the soundtrack on the airplane movie, and is good for casual listening. Unlike the Etymotics, they don't have microphonics (troubling on an airplane) and they they don't jab up against the back of the ear.

I recommend them without reservation to anyone who can afford them and plans to use them when travelling.