Bose QuietComfort Earbuds 2 Review: Sony Gets Beat

Speaker 1: Hey folks, these are the Bose quiet comfort earbuds too. In case you missed it, they were announced on the same day that apple introduced the AirPods pro two and iPhone 14, and they kind of got a bit lost in the shuffle. They cost 200 $9,000. So definitely pricey. But now that I got my hands on a pair, I gotta say, they're really good. They fit my ears really well, have great noise, canceling excellent sound and improve voice calling performance. We can debate at the end, whether they're too expensive, but before we do that, let me go over what I think makes them among the top few [00:00:30] earbuds and what I think some people may find a little lacking. Here we go. Speaker 1: Okay. So for starters, you can only get them in black at launch triple black is what Bose calls the color, but to you and me, it's black sandstone is coming later in the year. Personally. I like the lighter color, a little better, but blacks just fine. And a lot of people prefer it more importantly, not only are the earbuds about 30% smaller than their predecessors, [00:01:00] but their case is about 40% smaller and truly pocketable while the original quiet comfort earbuds featured excellent noise canceling and very good sound quality. They were pretty hefty and protruded from your ears. The new Budds each weigh a little less than 0.2, five ounces or seven grams, according to Bowes, still not spelt, but significantly smaller. The other big changes to the ear tips Bowes has ditched it's one piece state ear wingtips for a two piece FitKit system that features separate ear tips and stability bands in three different size options. Speaker 1: That's [00:01:30] supposed to give users more flexibility to get a secure fit and tight seal. I did like the state ear wingtip, but after trying the new two piece system I'm sold on it, I ended up going with the large tips in medium stability band, and that really locked the buds in my ears. I can't tell you that these will fit everyone's ears equally well, but if you're someone who can't get a secure fit with the AirPods pro two, which are lighter and quite comfortable where this new two piece fit kit system may be a reason to give the bows a go over the new AirPods pro [00:02:00] a handful of new premium earbuds feature kind of auto custom two feature that takes into account the shape of your ears and ear canal. And Bose has also developed a new custom tune sound calibration system to not only optimize noise handling, but the sound quality for your particular ears. Speaker 1: Every time you place the buzz in your ears, a proprietary tone is played in a microphone, measures your ear canals, acoustic response. It takes about half a second or so, but you definitely notice that the noise canceling has undergone some optimization. It's really impressive. Just how much [00:02:30] the sound around you has. Muffled Bo says it's targeted frequencies that were previously difficult to reduce in the mid and high range, like the voices of nearby coworkers, screaming, babies, and family distractions in your home office. I use this in my home next to a relatively loud HVAC unit and the noise canceling basically completely silenced it, but I was more impressed with how much sound it reduced when I walked in the streets of New York and rode the subway. You can still hear people's voices, but they seemed to be muffled by about 60%. [00:03:00] It's a little startling when you take the buzz out of your ears or put them into transparency mode, just how much sound is being filtered out. Speaker 1: And yes, that transparency mode Boes calls it in a wear mode is also improved. It does sound more natural and lifelike the best transparency modes like on the AirPods pro make it seem as if you're not wearing earbuds and can hear the world as it would sound without earbuds in your ears. These do a good job of getting you close to that sensation while the drivers appear to be [00:03:30] the same or very similar to those found in the original, quiet comfort earbuds. Those reps told me that thanks to the custom tune technology, the sound is noticeably improved with more nuance, clarity, depth, and better accuracy. And that's pretty much what you'll hear. If you were to compare these to the originals, everything is a little bit more clear and natural sounding. Their predecessors also had relatively big sound. And by that, I mean, they have a pretty wide sound stage, but the base has a bit more definition and punch now and is a bit more detail [00:04:00] and separation between instruments. Speaker 1: So you can hear them more distinctly. I also thought they had just the right amount of warmth, particularly with male and female vocals, their tonal balances overall very good while software and advanced algorithms play a big part in the quiet comfort earbuds performance. They do feature four microphones in each bud, two of which are beam forming microphones to focus on picking up your voice. Voice calling performance was a weak point in the original quiet comfort earbuds, and Bo had clearly made an effort to improve it with better noise reduction and [00:04:30] voice pick during calls. I think it's significantly better now, but have a listen for yourself. All right. I'm in the streets of new city, Speaker 2: Right? Earbud. So tone fellow editor. Uh, how do I sound John? Speaker 3: Uh, by and large, you sound very good to excellent when you're talking. Um, it sounds more like you're inside a big room, not outside. Here's a tiny bit of background noise, but when you're not [00:05:00] talking pretty much, don't hear any background noise at all. Um, it's like the microphone go goes dead as it should when you're not talking. Speaker 2: All right. Um, there's a fair amount of, uh, street noise here. There's, uh, couple cards going by, um, I'm just talking a little bit more so that, uh, see what it sounds like when I'm talking. Speaker 1: Okay. On battery life, it's rated at six hours with noise canceling on that's the same as the new AirPods pro two, and you get about three extra charges [00:05:30] from the new trim down charging case, which features USPC charging, but not wireless charging. That seems a bit unfortunate since most earbuds in this price range, including the AirPods pro two feature wireless charging, like their predecessors, the quiet comfort earbuds two are splashproof with an IPX four rating. They also have similar touch controls with a swipe gesture for volume control that I like. I thought the touch controls worked well and they are slightly customizable. As for Bluetooth flavors. These are equipped with [00:06:00] Bluetooth 5.3. They use the AAC and SPC audio codex, but currently have no support for Qualcomm's apex, audio codec or multipoint Bluetooth pairing. I was disappointed by that, particularly by the lack of multipoint Bluetooth pairing, but there's some hope that that may change in the future. Speaker 1: That's because a Bose rep told me that these earbuds are equipped with a five series Qualcomm chip that chip supports multipoint Bluetooth pairing and has Aptex support. So I think there's a good chance. We'll see, at least multipoint Bluetooth pairing added in the [00:06:30] future and perhaps other features it's worth noting that while the noise canceling is of the adaptive variety, you can adjust its levels between three settings. The earbuds also have adjustable equalizer settings. So you can tweak the sound profile. I'll finish by saying that I did compare these to some other top earbuds, including Sony's WF 1000 X mark four, which released in June of 2021 and list for $20 less. These bows buds have surpassed those Sony buds, not only in terms of sound quality, noise canceling, but also voice [00:07:00] calling and fit. We'll have a full comparison to the AirPods pro two and a separate video. Speaker 1: I can't get into all the details on Apple's new buds just yet. But like I said, if you're someone who can't get a really secure fit from the AirPods pro these are a compelling alternative for a little bit more, but the performance improvements to the AirPods pro two, make them a pretty safe and enticing choice for iPhone users for $50, less than these. That doesn't mean you shouldn't consider these if you're an iOS user, but the AirPods pro have their own [00:07:30] set of advantages for iOS users. The same can be said for Samsung's excellent galaxy buds to pro earbuds and Samsung galaxy device owners. Those buds have certain features that only galaxy owners can take advantage of including high resolution audio over Bluetooth, if you have the right setup. But again, the quiet comfort earbuds two may offer a better fit for you. And I do think they sound slightly better than both the galaxy buds two and the pixel buds pro, and a better noise canceling. As I said, if you can get a tight seal with these buds, the [00:08:00] noise canceling is really impressive, probably the best out there right now, as always feel free to post your views in the comment section. And let me know what you think about their new design and whether you think they're worth $299 after what I've told you about them. If you found this video informative at all, hit the like button and subscribe. If you haven't already I'm David Carnoy. Thanks for watching.