Bose QuietComfort Headphones

A comfortable, easy-to-use pair with punchy bass and solid but not class-leading noise cancellation, held back by below-average battery life and poor call quality.

8.2/10

A well-rounded, lighter and more comfortable step-down option that narrows the gap with Bose's flagship Ultra, offering very good sound and strong noise canceling, held back mainly by mediocre call quality and a still-high price.

The reviewer finds these headphones nearly identical to the older QC45 but with a worse, odd-sounding tuning (overblown sub-bass and a treble peak) and no meaningful new features, so they recommend skipping them in favor of cheaper older models.

7/10

The second-generation Bose QuietComfort Headphones are very comfortable, block noise well and sound great, but short battery life, poor call quality, missing wear detection and a price close to the better Ultra model make them hard to recommend over rivals unless discounted.

4/5

A comfortable, lightweight, easy-to-use pair of noise-cancelling headphones with very good ANC and sound that make a dependable all-rounder, though the pricier Ultras are better and the battery and EQ are unremarkable.

A comfortable, well-built set of over-ears with outstanding noise cancelling, good wired/wireless flexibility and long battery life, held back by modest mic quality, limited controls and a fit that can loosen with movement.

An excellent, comfortable, good-sounding pair of noise-cancelling headphones at about $359 that fall short of the top-tier models on ANC and battery life, but which beat them on price.

The Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) are comfortable, foldable headphones with strong noise cancelling and a rich feature set, and their smooth, balanced sound is capable but less exciting than rivals, with battery life that trails the best.

A comfortable, decent-sounding pair of noise-cancelling headphones with warmer, bassier sound than the QC45, held back by average battery life, unremarkable ANC and odd call quality.