Quick review
The good
The not-so-good
There’s clearly no shortage of premium noise cancelling earbuds, but what happens when a big brand finds a way to make a mid-range pair? You get the 2nd-gen Bose QuietComfort, a pair that delivers value in big way.
It has taken a few years, but noise cancellation technology is finally making its way to more price points, as the premium isolation technology becomes available for budgets of all kinds. Everyone has options these days, and you typically don’t need to spend up unless you want the best from the most established brands.
If you’re happy to spend in excess of $350, you’ll typically find the best tech available to your ears in a small scale, but if you want to spend less, there are options. Plenty of options.
Little brands tend to make up these choices, but more recently, we’ve begun to see bigger names make their tech more economically priced. And that’s where Bose comes in.
With its latest pair, the company is trickling the technology from a previous recommended offering, and making noise cancellation a little more affordable for all.
Design and features
A first glance at the newly updated 2024 edition of the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds certainly makes them seem familiar with the pair we checked out four years ago: there’s a definite resemblance from what Bose delivered back then.
Since that model first appeared, Bose has made some changes.
The current QuietComfort flagship “Ultra” Earbuds model follows on from the “2” model before it, which slimmed the style down to be more of a thin bar that you wear, compared to the chunky circle covering up your ear.
The model we’re reviewing? That’s back to the chunky circle, as Bose refreshes its 2020 flagship and trickles the tech to a new audience: one happy to pay less.
Technically, that hardware is still good, it’s just not as good as the more premium offerings Bose now has, so the strategy makes sense. Release a new variant of the same, while keeping the more flagship hardware in a higher price.
Design-wise, very little has changed in the four years. The look is similar — we wet with the lighter colour this time — but the approach is still the almost barbel-styled earpiece where the circular pad blocks up your ear.
It’s an in-ear fit, but a light one — these are classed as earbuds, rather than an earphone, per se — and the plastic buds feature three microphones in each ear, hardware for noise cancellation, support for a transparency hear-through mode, Bluetooth multipoint, IPX4 water resistance, and a large case for storing the buds that can be charged either via USB-C or Qi wireless charging.
In-use
Like other Bose earbuds, there’s a touch panel on the QuietComfort Earbuds, though it’s one that is less touch-and-swipe focused, and more just a touch panel.
There’s also an app available in the Bose QCE app, a new piece of software distinct to Bose’s regular app for its other models that pretty much just focuses on what the QuietComfort Earbuds do versus everything else.
It does include some interesting usability features, such as slight customisation of those touch controls, Bluetooth multipoint, an equaliser you can tweak, custom voice control to specifically control music by say “Hey Headphones”, and the ability to trigger selfies on your phone’s camera using your earphones. We’re not sure why you would want that, but it’s definitely a feature.
Bose’s QC Earbuds site suggests immersive audio is on the way for the pair, much like it is in the QuietComfort Ultra, but it certainly isn’t there at launch and during the review period.
Wearing them is easy enough, thanks to Bose’s combination of tips and stability bands. The tips go in the ear as shallow earphones, while the stability bands provide a bit of silicone resistance to hold the earbuds in place in your ears.
It’s all easy enough, but the buds are big. Much like the original QC Buds, these buds are on the larger side, and can stick out of your ears a little bit, but they’re definitely comfortable.
Find the right tip. Find the right band. Pair them and wear them, and you’re pretty much good to go. They’ll even auto-pause when you take them off.
Performance
Tested with the Pickr Sound Test, which you can hear for yourself, we jump straight into that typical Bose delivery of balance.
Electronic tracks from Tycho and Daft Punk deliver solid balance with an earthy bass that doesn’t impact too much. In “Contact”, the bass punches and booms where it needs to, offering a great sound overall.
It continues across the likes of Carly Rae Jepsen, Ariana Grande, and Mark Ronson, where the snap of the bass is clear, but never loses out to the mids and highs, and everything just sounds great.
We’re reminded of the balance from older Bose QuietComfort headphones, where balance was the point, rather than the warmer (and more speaker-like) definition of balance the company’s newer products look to today.
You won’t always get the same level of punch across everything, but the delivery was genuinely balanced and comfortable across rock, jazz, and classical, too. It’s a great sound.
Noise cancellation
The approach for noise cancellation hasn’t changed dramatically in this incarnation, but because the app has, you may see it a little differently.
Your choices for ANC are basically are off, quiet, and aware, which translates to no noise cancellation, all noise being cancelled, and transparency mode.
It’s not the same level of control you get on either the QuietComfort Earbuds II follow-up, or even the current “Ultra” generation, where you can tweak the sound cancellation levels to match new profiles. That said, the cancellation is still solid Bose quality.
Flying may well be where Bose made its name as the innovator in this category, but we found the tech on the second-gen QuietComfort blocked out a reasonable amount of environmental noise walking about, as well as a certain amount of car sounds.
Wind can be a bit of a problem, something only a few ANC earphones do well with, but for the price Bose is pitching these at, the noise cancellation is some of the best around.
Battery
One area that delivers a huge win is the battery life, which nails a good eight hours of use, with an extra two and a bit charges in the case.
Bose officially rates the 2024 QuietComfort Earbuds for 31.5 hours, but that includes the 8 of the earbuds. That means you should have around 20 to 24 more depending on how much use you get out of the earbuds.
Value
Bose’s re-established and refreshed QuietComfort Earbuds are interesting, if only because they bring back a great pair from a few years ago and make them available for a new price.
When the original QuietComfort Earbuds came out, they were $399.95, and we recommended them in 2020.
Four years later, the same tech isn’t quite as good as the latest, but the earbuds still do a great job, and for less money. Roughly a hundred dollars less, in fact.
Available in Australia for $289.95, Bose’s standard QuietComfort Earbuds — not the second-gen or the Ultra — are great value overall.
What needs work?
Provided you can get over the massive case, which is indeed massive.
We complained about the case in the old pair, too, and Bose has kept that issue in this refreshed generation, which feels very much like a repurposed older model. It basically is.
That’s not a bad thing, it’s just a thing. And it’s a thing that comes with wireless coating for the case, something that’s an optional extra on the flagship Bose models. It’s just standard here, so that’s nice.
What we love
We love the price, though. It’s difficult to get over the value delivered with these earbuds, especially when you start comparing them to what’s out there.
Bose QuietComfort Earbuds vs the competition
In the past few months, we have seen quite a few options available in noise cancelling earbuds. The market is getting really crowded, and while that can make picking a pair more difficult, the upside is there are plenty of great choices around.
One of those options has sound tuned by Bose, but isn’t made by Bose. The Moto Buds+ are that curious example, and deliver great sound with similar features, complete with a custom app, as well as a $249.95 price tag.
Basically, they’re $40 less than the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds, the 2024 QCE, and yet are similar. There are clear differences, but one is that the Moto Buds+ are focused on Android only, while the 2024 Bose QuietComfort Earbuds work on either iOS or Android. We tested both.
They’re also better value than the $349 Sennheiser Accentum True Wireless, though Sennheiser has a more compact option in that pair.
For under $300, they’re a compelling option, especially given the brand name Bose represents.
Final thoughts (TLDR)
There’s so much competition in noise cancelling earbuds it can be all too easy to forget that premium offerings can be built for good prices, too. We’re starting to see more of it, albeit in slightly cut-back ways.
Models that are similar enough, but do always with one or two features so there’s still a compelling reason to consider the expensive model.
Bose’s 2024 QuietComfort Earbuds aren’t technically that. They’re still outflanked by the seriously premium and best-in-class QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds, but they also not a restrained variant by any stretch of the imagination.
If anything, their only major fault is that they’re an older generation of Bose noise cancelling earbuds revived and refreshed for a new generation of buyers. One that is specifically focused on price, kind of like how Bose has turned its older QC 45 headphones into a new generation of “standard” Bose QuietComfort headphones.
They’re a value-driven refresh. It’s what makes the 2024 QuietComfort Earbuds so compelling.
Instead of needing to fork out more for something flagship, Bose is repackaging what worked four years ago in a slightly newer box, and it’s not a bad result.
The sound is great, the tips are stable, and the value is excellent. This year’s take on the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds is a win for anyone buying on a budget.
If you don’t want to spend on features you don’t need, the return of the standard Bose QuietComfort Earbuds makes a lot of sense. Recommended.
