QuietComfort Headphones - Moonstone Blue

UPDATE 02/09/26: it’s been nearly 1 1/2 years since I bought them and I still love them. I have bought many new pairs since my review (I’m obsessed with headphones), and I’ll put the QuietComfort up against just about anything in the $500 price range. The QuietComfort are one of my all-time favorite headphone purchases. First, let may say that I bought them during Prime Days, when they were only $199.99, which was a discount of $150! So, they are an incredible value. I own many pair of headphones, including AirPod Max, Sonos Ace, Bose QC 45, and the Sony XM5’s. I also owned and sold the QuietComfort Ultra, which are way overpriced, and the main selling point (their spatial sound or whatever they call it) is a joke. I don’t think it enhances the sound at all. In fact, music has a hollow quality when using it. Additionally, I prefer the QuietComfort’s buttons to the Ultra’s touch controls, which seemed awkward. Additionally, the Ultra utilize a 35mm driver, while the QuietComfort use a 40mm driver. While the Ultra may be more efficient, I think the low end frequencies suffer compared to the QuietComfort. The Bose QuietComfort are quickly becoming my favorite. The sound quality is second to none. It is noticeably better than the QC 45. The bass is definitely deeper and punchier. The highs and mids are also discernibly better. The highs are brighter and more crisp, though the highs are never harsh on my ears. The 45’s require a lot of equalizer use (+6, 0, -3), while the QuietComfort still require some tinkering, they require a lot less of it to achieve optimum sound (+1, +2, +1). Even at -3 on the EQ for the highs on the 45’s, the higher frequencies feel like they need to be reined in. Indeed, the QuietComfort just sound more refined. The noise cancelling has also improved, though I would say both the Sony XM5’s and the Sonos Aces are a touch better at cancelling most noise. I run an air purifier at arm’s length away from my chair, and a window a/c to supplement the central air, which is directly behind my head. With the XM5’s I can completely eliminate the noise from both while they’re simultaneously running. With the new QuietComfort I can just barely detect the a/c, while with the 45’s I can easily pick up the a/c. The difference here between the Sonys and the new QuietComfort is marginal at best. I should mention that part of Bose’s way to cancel noise is to pump low-volume white noise into the headphones, which seems counterintuitive, but I don’t mind it. Others may mind it, however. The QuietComfort are the most-comfortable to wear, though they are no different than the 45’s in that regard. They are extremely lightweight (though sturdy), and clamp down perfectly tight. I can shake my head back and forth without them shifting, yet they’re not so tight as to prevent wearing them for an extended period of time. I don’t work out, but I would imagine they’d maintain their fit during exercise. They also offer multi-point connectivity, and they (and the 45’s) are the only two pair to switch seamlessly between my LG TV and my iPhone. The XM5’s require using the app, the Sonos don’t do it as easily as advertised while using my tv for some reason and the AirPods Max don’t even offer multipoint functionality. Bose states that you get 24 hour battery life on a full charge, and I’ve found that to be accurate. While that’s less than the Sonos and Sony’s battery life (30 hours), it’s more than the Apple’s (20 hour). I have found the battery life to be sufficient. If you own a pair of 45’s and are looking for an upgrade, then I would say there’s not quite enough of a performance gap to justify the $349 price tag, however, if you catch them on sale for $199 like I did, then I would definitely recommend upgrading. If you’re looking for your first pair, then I would definitely recommend the QuietComfort over all the others I mentioned, even at $349. I hope that helps. Happy Listening!

I was a little apprehensive about spending the money on these, let's be honest they are on the upper side... My daughter has some Beats, and they're not bad at all, but but nose cancelling and I used them for a flight and was a little disappointed. I desperately wanted some noise cancelling ones. I did consider buying a (much) cheaper pair with great reviews, and I did consider the nose cancelling Beats, but went with these instead. Now I can't say that these are better than the cheap ones or the Beats because I just don't know. What I can tell you is that these headphones are EXCELLENT. They are surprisingly light to wear, and are actually very comfortable (my daughter now prefers wearing my BOSE to her Beats). These can be worn for a long time with little to no discomfort. Now, to the noise cancelling. Incredible. If you have nothing coming through the speakers, they still reduce outside noise e.g. a t.v. by I would guestimate 90%. It's difficult to hear someone speaking at a normal voice level. With something playing, you don't hear outside noise. Or I haven't all least. The sound quality. Blew my mind. I had always heard BOSE has excellent sound quality, and my car speaker is BOSE so I did have some good expectations. But the sound is truly amazing. Rich, and creamy like melted chocolate. It literally wraps your body in sound. I'm not sure if it's because of the noise cancelling, but I've never had this level of sound excellence period, let alone with headphones. The sound is also completely customizable on the app, for which downloading and pairing was easy also. I currently have mine set on default setting, I haven't needed to change as I'm really happy with that as it is. Are they expensive? Yes. Are they worth it? Absolutely. My daughter said this will be her next pair. I bought the blue, it's a really nice color too!

I have had lots of $40-60 headphones in my life and a few that did noise cancelling, and these blow them all out of the water by a huge margin. I have never experienced music like this before, I was a cheapskate, have never been to a concert in my life, don't have other speakers, have never had non-computer type speakers etc. These are a new world for me. The sound is so true and the bass so good I am now a speaker snob I think, I don't know the audio details of that but everytime I listen to our JBL 3 on a good loud song I turn it off and use the headphones now and can't go back. If you have some music on and noise cancelling enabled you will absolutely not hear your kids/wife in the same room unless they yell very loudly or happen to speak sharp/loud/quick at a perfect break in the music. These should be more heavily marketed to fathers everywhere to allow them to get 30 minutes of peace after work. Even without the music on it still blocks out as much noise as an average set of shooting earmuffs. I just can't speak well enough of the headphones for the above purposes and I should note that my wife sometimes hates when I put them on while she is complaining about something to me, but I believe that that is a feature of these headphones as opposed to a bug. In the "aware" mode you'll hear everything in your life just as good as you would with a single headset off your ear and the other one on, playing music. The bluetooth works great, connecting to multiple devices (phone and PC etc) at once with no foolish rules/policies that make it annoying. The other reviewers saying you have to have an app to use these are definitely wrong. You can install the app if you want extra features but you can also just pair it to your phone/tablet/pc like any other device and use it as-is. Just manual bluetooth connect it and don't install the dumb app it is that simple. That's exactly what I did and it works great with all the standard features you would expect. Haven't noticed an issue in any way in a full year of daily use. Excellent hardware/buttons etc: - L side button switches between NC and "aware" mode, great feature to have in an easy to hit button - R side main button: single tap pauses whatever is playing, double tap jumps to next song, triple tap goes back - R side volume up and separate volume down buttons intuitively located - On button is also slide-and-hold for pairing: great feature that is impossible to do accidentally - USB-C charging - port to use hardwire cable to connect directly if you cannot understand the blueteeth thing or want to play something from a device that has no bluetooth or won't pair. Favorite feature: plug in the 2' hardwire cable (which has a tiny but good inline mic on it) and let it dangle or tuck in a shirt pocket: you now have a top quality, silent, noise cancelling headset with a good mic (without changing any mode, hitting buttons etc) that allows you to talk on the phone in bliss. Now instead of yelling at my kids to be quiet every 5 minutes that I'm on the phone, I just put these on and have a great phone call. In the small house that we live in these have made my life a lot better and allow me to let my kids run around loudly having fun at times when I just want some quiet, and when I would have otherwise made them tone it down. The only downside to know about is that these are effective enough to where you need to be careful not to use the noise cancelling when you have much going on that you need to pay attention to. For example: you would not hear your sink overflowing or a pot boiling over, I didn't hear my woodstove fire getting too hot the other day, you won't hear early warnings of kids having trouble (probably wouldn't hear choking etc but would still notice actual screaming nearby). You would still hear something break or a loud whack etc, but probably wouldn't hear a vehicle pull up in your driveway. It does to some extent take away a major "sense" so you can't use it as often as you might like. For those other times, like if your wife is cooking and can hear the kids for you if there is trouble, and you just want to relax, I feel like I would almost pay the purchase price of these per week that I got to use them it is so awesome.

I’m a layperson, so let me first say I purchased these after much research but based on a “general audience’s” needs. What I mean by that, is my boyfriend mixes music, and while these are high quality this review isn’t for those types of people. This is for more layperson type of needs. 1. I actually used chat gpt to compare and contrast numerous headphones based on my desires so if you’re needing help choosing that was very helpful to me. 2. My needs were as follows: light, comfortable, noise cancelling, color, Bluetooth across devices, and ease of app use. 3. I discovered that these headphones outdo their Sony competition specifically because they’re lighter and they don’t drop Bluetooth when you move to your computer from your phone for example. I found Sony has issues trying to switch back to your phone when on computer. Bluetooth is very important to me and a top need. I switch between devices enough for that to be a serious issue for me. 4. I have a tiny head and am a 5’2 woman. I don’t have large proportions. For example my boyfriend is 6 foot with a large head and headphone weight won’t affect him the same way. For me headphones can literally be too heavy and fatiguing so my other main qualifier was that these are lighter than all but 1 of the top 7 brands out there. 5. The cushion on these is shockingly luxurious and an added bonus. 6. I get a mean case of sensitive ears, I always have. When I run my ears ache, in the cold my ears ache, if I am in a plane they ache. I am part of a certain population percentage (I’ve googled it’s around 30% but fact check me- this is for you though if you are like me) who have ear canals that actually can be very painful with the wrong pressure. For this reason I’m fairly picky about headphones which apply a significant amount of pressure. These headphones have not triggered this issue for me. 7. I wanted good plane headphones and these will be great if I lean my head on the window area. The band doesn’t dig. 8. They look really nice. 9. The color options are cute 10. The case is nice 11. I heard for Sony there was popping on phone calls and it therefore became between these and Apple however apples are very very heavy. I ended up going with these for that reason. I have used them for numerous phone calls and haven’t had the issues, and people hear me easily and have had no issues hearing me. I did have popping once but I think it’s on the end of the person you’re on the phone with. My cousin was in his car shouting into his Bluetooth and I feel if he had been quieter it wouldn’t have happened. The popping has never occurred with music and is specific to a loud shout from someone on their own CarPlay so no biggie. Otherwise zero pop 12. The noise cancelling is exceptional, I put them on and don’t play anything, but can no longer hear my AC at all. You understand generally the sound of constant AC. Like vrrrrrrrrr. It’s completely gone. 13. Soothing without music to just make things less loud. Suitable for autistics who want a quieting incognito headphone that changes, also more comfy than alternative ear covers. (I am AuDHD.) 14. Music can get really loud and nice lots of depth (layerperson opinion but my boyfriend said the sound quality is great and the next step up is just studio mixing headphones) 15. If you wait for prime day or other sales they’re 150$ off usually (better than every other competitors prime or Black Friday deals) 16. They seem durable and collapse in many ways so you can’t easily break them. 17. The app has had no issues for me. Online there’s some app complaints and I have not run into them at all. The app seems to me very easy to navigate.

These are really, really good! Firstly, I’ve never owned a pair of Bose headphones before! I always knew these had to be my first pair to see if I would consider buying others in the future. Okay! For starters, I bought these when they were on sale for only around $160 which is the main reason I finally got them, lol. Paying the regular full price wasn’t something I felt comfortable doing since I wasn’t familiar with the Bose QuietComfort headphones, for the price I bought these for is perfect for what you get out of them! Since these don’t have too many features! And are very simple, easy to use, battery life so the regular price of these…I personally find to be too much, lol. They are nice, standard noise-cancelling headphones! (Obviously, other than the popular brand name tied to them would explain the price!! ) These have the two main features that come with most noise-cancellation headphones, if not all: quiet mode and adaptive mode. These also have an option to set up a wind reduction mode! Setting them up was very easy for me personally; I didn’t really need the walkthrough. I could tell what each button controlled, but I also understand I needed to do it to set up my account, which was also pretty easy for me. They are really comfy and lightweight I can see myself having these on for hours without discomfort Also, the sound quality is really good. I love the quiet mode because I don’t always need music on; I just need help drowning out noise around me The only thing I don’t like is the robotic static voice I am forced to hear when I change controls.. It’s weird, like it’s broken or something!?! Everything else is very nice; they look amazing and are very easy to use— everything I would expect Bose headphones to be!

My husband bought me the green pair as a gift in April and I absolutely love them! They work really well, they have excellent battery life and I love the noise cancellation feature, it really helps during loud nights with my infant. I do think they’re a little pricey, but he bought them on sale and I think they’re worth the on sale price :) I love how soft the ear pieces are, it helps me not get headaches and ear aches like I was getting with AirPods. I was about to connect them to my phone without any issues! The only issue I’m starting to notice, I got these in April and it’s only July now, but as I’m listening to anything using the headphones, it’s started to cut out for a second every couple of minutes and it’s been getting frustrating. I’ve taken good care of them because I want them to last. I haven’t tried resetting them yet, but I’m going to try to do that then give an update later.

I bought this after peppering Gemini for the best possible over the ear headphone to tune out the electric drills for an upcoming root canal. I’m sensory sensitive & have always avoided over ear headphones as they seem like “ear prisons”, but due to my inflamed tooth, I cannot tolerate my trusty AirPod pros to do the job for this procedure. Please enjoy my overly detailed review of my workaround found in the Bose QuierComfort headphones. COMFORT: These are so comfortable I was able to try them on even with a symptomatic molar 😮 the top band has a nice soft dense but still lightweight padding on the bottom of the head band as well around the ear cups. I immediately thought “oooooh I could probably even sleep in these!”, which is great for those of us who go on family or group vacations where one might get stuck with a snorer!! On the head & ears these headphones feel very reminiscent of the old corded headphones you would get or later rent on plane trips in the 80’s & 90’s, if those headphones had evolved into the most robust & cushiest form possible. SOUND: Since I’m used to a simple 2 mode setup of noise cancellation and transparency from my AirPods, having the same modes on these headphones works great for my needs. The noise cancellation is quite good. When wandering around my house testing these they easily drowned out my iPad playing podcasts at 50% volume, water from a hand sink faucet, a antique door closing in it's antique framing, & a 1500BTU portable air conditioner at close range. The aware mode works similarly to Apple’s transparency mode, but the overlay of someone speaking to you, as well as the music or sound playing in the background seems to work much more smoothly & provides a more organic sound without the jarring juxtaposition you sometimes get in transparency mode on Apple earbuds. FUNCTIONALITY: I love how these headphones are sort of “floppy” versus rigid, none of the joints lock or pop into place, they pivot & glide. These are perfect for comfort and lower level exertion, but might not be right those looking for headphones that will clamp down tight enough to complete a heavy workout or high output activity w/o falling off. That being said, I absolutely believe I could sleep in these headphones when sharing rooms or on long flights which surprises and absolutely delights me; Normally I can’t tolerate anything on my head while sleeping, including jewelry. The headphones also have a very nice bulk & weight to them. They’re not filmy feeling & quite sturdy, but still lightweight without feeling cheap or flimsy. The texture of the hard plastic of the headphone band and ear cups is pleasant, it’s not gloss smooth so your fingers stick to it, but it’s also not so textured that your fingers have no traction, nor overly hard or bumpy feeling. I also like that the control buttons are on the back of the ear cups, avoiding the feeling of pressing in on the ear canal when applying pressure to manipulate front of ear cup control buttons. STYLE: I LOVE the sandstone color!!! I love white brown & sand colors, & sandstone is a beautiful sandy medium beige. I love this type of color so much but with light-medium neutral olive complexion & medium dark ash brown hair it sometimes can look really off or terrible on me. Happy to report Sandstone is a beautiful neural beige that does not go sideways on olive or neutral skin!! The sandstone color is so classy, & a nice neutral complement. I am extremely pleased with these headphones, they work well, they’re not bulky or oppressively tight, & oh so beautiful. I will update this review after using these headphones to drown out the root canal to better illustrate practical application utility. 😊

Important Considerations Before Buying: First things first: The Bose QuietComfort does not have a standard "ANC Off" mode. It is either "Quiet" (ANC On) or "Aware" (Transparency) mode. Additionally, while it features Bluetooth 5.2, users should be aware of the connectivity limitations regarding multi-point pairing. First Impressions & Unboxing: Out-of-Box Sound: When you first wear the headphones and play music via Bluetooth, the bass is quite heavy. However, once you install the Bose app and adjust the EQ modes to your liking, the audio is flawless. Sound Quality: The soundstage is very open and rich. It captures fine details beautifully across the treble, mids, and bass. Bass Performance: The bass is deep and well-tuned. It gives a "Dolby Atmos" feeling, almost like a movie theater sound effect. Physical Controls: The headphones feature manual volume and pause/play buttons, which are extremely helpful when managing music or watching movies. App Compatibility: The Bose app is designed for mobile devices and is not available for Windows/macOS. Consequently, when you connect to a PC or Laptop, your custom app settings (EQ) will not carry over. ANC Sensation: Using Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) for long durations initially caused some dizziness or a feeling of pressure. I may just need some time to get used to it. Wired Connection: Surprisingly, there is a 3.5mm jack for wired connections. Using the cable seems to turn the ANC off (which provided some relief from the dizziness mentioned above). It appears that ANC/Transparency is active only during Bluetooth connections, though I am still confirming the exact mechanics of the wired mode. Wired Limitations: As noted in point #5, when you use the 3.5mm wired connection with a PC, your equalizer settings will not be active. Verdict: Overall, these are flawless headphones. I purchased them at the $159 price point, which was a really good deal. While I really wish Bose provided a simple "ANC Off" feature, I am very happy with the sound quality and features after making a few adjustments. Edit: After using it for a while below are some new observations 1. Its possible to use multi connect using bose app. You can connect your mobile as well as your lenovo laptop and switch between them for example: You can receive a call in mobile and pause hte movie in laptop and then continue movie without the hassel of changing or pairing headphone. Now thats a plus even if its not bluetooth 5.3 2. I realized after using for a while the amount of details that is available while hearing songs or movie is just unmatched with any other headphones I have used so far (Most of them were economical headphones though. ) 3. Noise cancellation is way too good .sometimes feels very strong. I have created custom Home mode where I kept noise cancellation at 30% 4. Calls are more clear when making whatsapp or facetime calls. from mobile or laptop... The other end of the family told that its better than tlaking normally from mobile. 5. Battery drains bit faster. I dont have exact measure but will update once I have more data. Once again Bose QC has been the only headphone with such a price range to provide amazingly rich voice footprint. in Musics , youtube videos and movies... (Caveat: With help of equalizer )

Great sound, internal partitioning of the case is a waste of time, I discarded mine, I’m surprised Bose didn’t address this. However, I didn’t buy them for the case and I’m very happy with the actual headphones.

Sounding

Los tuve poco tiempo ya que me los robaron. Pero puedo decir sin lugar a equivocarme que son los mejores auriculares que me he comprado nunca. Un aislamiento físico muy bueno, y un aislamiento por software de lo mejor del mundo. Cómodos, tienen una enorme calidad de sonido excepcional. Allí donde estéis espero que hagáis disfrutar a vuestro nuevo dueño aunque fue una rata que me robo. Sin rencores amigo.

Moi j'adore ce casque. C'est bose

These headphones are awesome. purchased during amazon prime day deals and was tossing up between these and Sony. I watched heaps of reviews on TikTok and decided on these. extremely happy with my decision. Noise cancelling 10/10. Sound 10/10. comfort 9/10 (can get sweaty when exercising). if you're concerned about how you look in them - I will say make sure you choose a colour that you think will give you colour in the face. I chose the blue and they make me look washed out but luckily I only wear these at home for now! black was not on sale at the time so I wasn't too fussed.