Discuss Technology

Bose® QuietComfort® 2 headphones Review

I post in response to a review my colleague made about a different pair of Bose Headphones - (The Tri-Port On-Ear Headphones).

I am however in this review, the proud owner of a pair of Bose QuietComfort® 2 Headphones. These Headphones brand themselves on the fact that they can “remove” the background noise from the environment whilst providing some comfortable ‘cans’ also. These means that you can concentrate on listening to your music without any annoying interruptions for hours upon end. They are the around-ear variety of headphones, so have quite large ear cups as a result, and the overall size is also quite large to (due to the battery and the circuitry required); so people concerned about this - stay well clear!

Noise Cancelling Features
In a nut shell, the noise cancelling technology works with two microphones placed near the ear and some electronic circuitry which generates an “anti-noise” sound wave. This is where your music and the background noise in reverse polarity are combined. This results in some destructive interference with the background noise and the reversed polarity background noise, and thus the background noise can be ‘cancelled’ out. This technology works quite well in the QuietComfort® 2’s. If you have been into a Bose shop recently, they have a demo area where they play you some music through the Headphones at the same time as creating ‘Aeroplane’ styled background noise. Headphones on - the music sounds impeccable, and this is all you hear. Headphones off - there is a relatively loud ’swooshing’ sound combined with what sounds like engine noise. This noise cancelling technology works well!

So how well does the noise cancelling work?
That demo at the Bose Shop was performed in a controlled environment where the people at Bose knew that the headphones would stand up well to the noise cancelling feat. In practice however, the background noise is often much more complicated than a load of predefined frequencies found in the Bose demo. Therefore, you are still likely to hear some background noise upon listening to some modestly volumed audio on a plane. Still, I would rather be listening to these headphone in a plane compared to the complimentary ones often offered!

Audio Quality
The audio quality in these headphones is actually quite surprising considering that there is all kinds of doctoring to the sound that you’re listening too. At low volumes you will hear that infamous hissing noise, where the noise cancelling circuitry is interfering somewhat; but at modest levels you don’t notice this at all, and these headphones actually have quite a good sound to them. The full frequency spectrum of sounds seems to be very well reproduced, and for you bass lovers out there - that’s pretty good too. Overall I am very impressed with the audio quality, as I was expected at least some compromise as a result of the noise cancelling technology.

Comfort
Incredible. These have to be the most comfortable headphones anyone can wear. The soft leather cups are nothing like the cheaper varieties found in most other brands, these are actually quite soft and comfortable. An other important comfort feature is the amount of pressure that these headphones exert on the sides of your head. The QuietComfort® 2’s seem to have a happy medium between comfort, not a lot of pressure, and enough pressure as the headphones can’t fall off your head easily. This also nicely links into the fact that this model in the Quiet Comfort range has an ‘around-ear’ approach in which the ear cups fit around your ears as opposed to sitting on them. I personally have had issues with headphones in the past in which the pressure build up on my ears over a period of time has effectively caused some discomfort. I gather that this is a personal preference, and that different people will most definitely have different opinions as to which they find the most comfortable style. The down side to this distinct lack of pressure ironically means that the effectiveness of the noise cancelling is much reduced. However, with differently shaped and sized heads, this may not be a problem for some.

Strengths
- Sound quality at modest volume levels
- Ability of the noise cancelling technology to cut out >50% of the background noise
- The AAA battery (powering the noise cancelling circuitry) seems to last forever
- Really comfortable
- Accessories provided. (Extension cable, 3.5mm to 1/4 inch converter, plane adaptor, hard carry case for protection)

Weaknesses
- At low sound levels you do tend to notice this hissing sound, (down to the noise cancelling technology)
- Quite large on your head, not entirely discrete if that’s what you’re looking for
- They require power to operate, no AAA battery - no sound. It’s not the case that if you have a battery the noise cancelling works, and without the battery the cancelling doesn’t work. If you don’t have a sufficiently charged battery the headphones don’t operate at all. (My advice would be to always carry additional AAA batteries in the carry case, just in case).

Conclusion
If you’re looking for a pair of quality headphones that happen to cancel out background noise pretty well, then I strongly suggest you get a pair of Quiet Comfort 2’s. The price is steep, but as one come’s to expect, this money buys quality that you won’t receive from a cheaper pair.

The Bose QuietComfort® 2 Acoustic Noise Cancelling® headphones currently retail for £225.
Link to the Bose QuietComfort® 2 web site