Since the inception of the QuietComfort brand, Bose has been the leader in noise-cancelling headphones and earphones. But the QuietComfort Earbuds are in uncharted territory for QC products, as they enter a category that already has an established leader—the $249 Apple AirPods Pro—a role Bose has typically played in the past. And at $279.95, the QuietComfort Earbuds must not only sound fantastic in order to compete with the AirPods Pro, they need to offer noise cancellation that’s just as good or slightly better in order to justify the $30 premium. From an audio standpoint, both pairs offer solid sound quality with rich bass and sculpted highs. As for ANC (active noise cancellation), the QuietComfort Earbuds offer the best we’ve heard in this category to date, edging out the AirPods Pro to earn our Editors’ Choice for noise-cancelling true wireless earbuds.
Design
Available in beige or black designs, the QuietComfort Earbuds feature bulky, but lightweight, earpieces. The fit is super secure and comfortable, though the earpieces take up a lot of ear real estate in a way the AirPods Pro don’t. This is all in the name of a secure, strong in-canal seal, however, which is the secret trick of quality in-ear ANC: A good seal takes care of much of the surrounding ambient noise passively before the circuitry even needs to be employed. To that end, the QC Earbuds ship with three pairs of combination, all-in-one silicone eartips and earfins in small, medium, and large sizes, so you can find the best fit and seal for your ear.
Like the AirPods Pro, the QuietComfort Earbuds have an IPX4 rating for water resistance. This means the earbuds are essentially protected against light rain and splashes, but can’t be submerged or exposed to faucet-strength water pressure. There are plenty of fully waterproof, IPX7 true wireless models on the market if that’s a priority—we’re fans of the $170 JBL True Wireless Flash X and the $180 Jaybird Vista. But there are fewer quality ANC options, so we’ll take any level of water resistance as a plus in this regard. The QuietComfort Earbuds should be fine for sweaty workouts, light rain, and being wiped down with a damp cloth. The water-resistance rating doesn’t apply to the charging case, however, so don’t get it wet or put wet earbuds inside it.
Each earpiece features a touch-sensitive control panel. A double tap on the left earpiece cycles between saved ANC preset modes. A double tap on the right ear plays or pauses audio. Pressing and holding the left ear’s surface defaults to a battery life readout, which you can switch to skip forward a track in the app (and which would’ve been the more obvious default setting). Pressing and holding the right ear summons your device’s voice assistant. Double taps answer or end calls. What’s missing? Volume controls and a track back option. It feels a little like Bose tried to reinvent the wheel with these controls when a simple, straightforward solution would’ve been more effective.
The included charging case works with wireless Qi charging pads, or with the included USB-C charging cable. Unlike the AirPods Pro case, the QuietComfort Earbuds case is quite large. The bulkiness is necessary because the earpieces are big, but it’s a bit of a bummer that the large frame doesn’t result in more battery life stored within the case, which holds 12 extra hours of charge.
The Bose Music App for Android and iOS walks you through the pairing process—even if you try to pair manually on your device’s Bluetooth menu, you’ll be prompted to download the app, which will complete the pairing/activation process. After a connection is established, the app walks you through an in-ear fit test, which is really just a quick how-to for anyone not used to wearing eartips.
You can control simple settings in the app, like creating quick tap shortcuts for the touch-sensitive controls, adjusting how much of your voice you hear on calls, and toggling ANC levels—more on that in the next section. You can also disable the auto-play function so you’re not surprised by music the second you put the earbuds in. In short, the app is essential and nicely designed, but it doesn’t offer adjustable EQ as many other true wireless apps do. To be fair, the AirPods Pro app doesn’t offer this either.
The QuietComfort Earbuds are compatible with Bluetooth 5.1, and support AAC and SBC Bluetooth codecs. Bose estimates battery life to be roughly 6 hours, with an additional 12 hours from the charging case, but your results will vary with your volume levels.
Performance
The QuietComfort Earbuds deliver excellent active noise cancellation. The first thing to note is that they have adjustable ANC, and the AirPods Pros don’t. You can easily dial the ANC all the way up (10), go into full transparency mode (0), or any blend of the two on a scale of 0-10.
We always put ANC headphones and earphones through the same tests, both outdoors and inside. We listen to a variety of frequencies and recordings at high volumes to recreate everything from plane and train rumble to the cacophony of a busy restaurant. We also listen to ANC at ultra-quiet levels, in a sound-treated room with no hint of ambient noise. The first test tells us, obviously, how well the ANC handles intense and/or common noises. The second, quiet test tells us how much high-frequency masking the ANC adds. This is a common issue with lesser-quality ANC—faint, white noise-like hiss can often be heard with the circuitry activated. The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds offer the best performance on both of these tests we’ve experienced in the true wireless realm to date.
The QuietComfort Earbuds outperform the AirPods Pro when it comes to deep bass and low-mid frequencies. Whether we blasted intense low-frequency rumble like you’d hear on a plane, or electronic music with powerful low-frequency content and thumping drums, the QuietComfort Earbuds eliminated more of the bass frequencies than any other pair we’ve tested. The AirPods Pro are quite good at tamping down lows as well, but the most obvious difference between the two models is in the low-frequency realm. Perhaps in part because of their more involved in-canal seal, the QuietComfort Earbuds are able to block out more sound. Low-frequency rumble, loud music, a boisterous restaurant crowd—all of these sounds are dialed back to a greater degree by the QuietComfort Earbuds, with the AirPods Pros coming in a close second.
Neither pair adds any obvious hiss, which makes them both top-notch options for flights.
As mentioned, the main screen in the app has faders for volume and noise cancellation. At top levels on the ANC fader, you get the most intense ANC, and at lower levels, there is more transparency to hear your surroundings. At the lowest level, you’re in full transparent listening mode. There is no way to switch both modes off, which is annoying, but being able to blend the two is a cool feature that most ANC models lack. It may seem counterintuitive, but there is some usefulness to blending the modes—you don’t always need or want to block out all of the sound around you.
You can also set “favorite” ANC settings in the app, and then use a quick double tap to toggle between the modes. (The obvious settings would be 0 for transparency, 5 for a blend, and 10 for maximum ANC, but you can adjust these.) The transparency mode is particularly impressive—there’s no hint of delay, nor does the audio feed sound tinny or unnatural—it’s probably the best transparency mode we’ve heard thus far.
As for audio performance, the QuietComfort Earbuds deliver a predictably bass-rich, sculpted sound signature. Most users will likely find the bass response rich and full, and the clarity in the highs crisp, with the lows and highs balanced nicely, but this isn’t a sound signature for audio purists.
On tracks with intense sub-bass content, like The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” the QuietComfort Earbuds deliver powerful low-frequency response. At top volumes, there’s no distortion, and at lower, more moderate volumes, the bass still sounds full, delivering a serious thump.
Bill Callahan’s “Drover,” a track with far less deep bass in the mix, gives us a better sense of the general sound signature. The drums on this track get some extra bass boost, but things don’t veer into overly thunderous territory. The drums sound rounder and fuller than they might without the boosting, but many listeners will prefer this sound. Callahan’s baritone vocals also get an extra helping of low-mid richness, which is counterbalanced by a crisp high-mid presence, allowing the vocals to stay clear and the acoustic strums to remain bright and cut through the mix.
On Jay-Z and Kanye West’s “No Church in the Wild,” the kick drum loop receives an ideal amount of high-mid presence, allowing its attack to retain its punchiness. The sub-bass synth hits that punctuate the beat are delivered with solid depth—not in-your-face bass boosting like we sometimes hear, particularly in exercise-focused models. The balance between lows and high here is solid, and the vocals don’t suffer from the sculpting—all three vocal performances are delivered clearly and without much hint of added sibilance.
Orchestral tracks, like the opening scene from John Adams’ , sound excellent through the QuietComfort Earbuds. Sure, things are a little sculpted, but not to a wild degree—the lower-register instrumentation steps forward a bit in the mix, but never overwhelms the higher-register brass, strings, and vocals. The key here is balance: The QuietComfort Earbuds may dial up certain frequencies and cut others, but the lows and highs aren’t at odds.
The mic offers solid intelligibility. Using the Voice Memos app on an iPhone 8, we could understand every word we recorded, though there was some typical Bluetooth distortion in the mix. The mic signal is strong, and on a clear mobile signal, callers should have no trouble understanding you.
Conclusions
The Bose QuietComfort Earbuds offer excellent audio performance and the best active noise cancellation we’ve tested in the true wireless realm, earning them our Editors’ Choice. That said, the AirPods Pro shouldn’t be dismissed, especially if you prefer their more elegant design and intuitive controls. We have yet to test a truly inexpensive pair of in-ears with great noise cancellation, but at $130, the Amazon Echo Buds offer decent ANC and have Alexa built in. But if you’re looking for the absolute best, the category has a new leader—the top true wireless noise cancellation technology belongs to the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds.
