How It’s Supposed to Be Done - Bose Quietcomfort Earbuds II Review

It's safe to say I was feeling pretty burned by my experience with the Technics AZ-60 earbuds. While they sounded great, they just didn't perform reliably enough for me to recommend them over virtually any other options. That brought me right back to Bose, who I've had plenty of experience with having used their SoundSport Free buds for several years. This is their latest and greatest offering in the wireless earbuds space: the QuietComfort Earbuds II. Let's see if they can carry the torch.

Out of the box it's immediately obvious a lot of Bose's attention went into shrinking the overall package of these earbuds. The charging case is only a little bit larger than what you'd find with most wireless earbuds, sporting a relatively flat form factor and a nice matte finish. The buds themselves have a somewhat chunky form factor with small, flat stem, but are still pretty compact and inoffensive looking.

This is all a big deal because one of the worst things about the SoundSports was that they were freaking huge. At the time, I didn't pay too much attention to the size considering they were a first-generation product and there weren't many other fully wireless offerings at the time, but the buds themselves were quite large and stuck out of the ear a good bit. That also translated to a bulky charging case, which loved to come sliding out of my pocket at the most inconvenient times.

The old SoundSport Free earbuds in their charging case.

The QCII's direct predecessor, the QuietComfort Earbuds didn't really take the whole "smaller is better" thing into account either but again; it's the first time Bose has tried cramming ANC into a set of wireless earbuds. The bulk was almost forgivable, though next to the QCII's they look pretty damn silly.

Source: RTINGS.com

The fit on the QCII's is quite comfortable. Similarly to the Technics AZ-60s, the physical shape of the buds naturally "hooks" into your ear, opposed to relying on a external silicone ear hook. This results in far less of the bud sticking out of your ear, while still having just as secure of a fit. While I do feel like the Technics and SoundSports sit deeper in the ear canal and feel more snug than the QCIIs, I found the QCII's feel noticeably less fatiguing on the ears long term. They don't seem to put much pressure on any part of my ear but since people have different sized ears, I can't speak for everyone.

So they're small, light and comfortable. Great. But you know what that means: just how bad are the onboard touch controls?

Actually, not bad at all! Bose actually managed to fit gesture controls onto the buds which helps a great deal to distinguish certain commands from the others. Volume is controlled by swiping up or down on the stem like a scroll wheel and it's surprisingly reliable. The controls are also mirrored between the buds so there's no screwing around with having to memorize which side and how many taps does what, like with the Technics. It's all the same. The only controls unique to each side are a hold to change the ANC mode or activate a voice assistant, both of which are interchangeable.

But the real reason you go with Bose is the expectation of damn good sound quality, and the QCII's don't disappoint... nearly. The tuning on these buds out of the box was questionable to say the least. With the SoundSports and the Technics, I was pretty darn happy with the out of the box performance and didn't feel like I had to make any glaring adjustments to either set of buds, even with my existing EQ settings on my phone. On the other hand, the QCIIs were so bass distorted that I immediately needed to crank the low end down in the app to mitigate it.

No joke, that's how much I felt like I needed to turn the bass down.

Once you finish fiddling with the EQ though, these buds don't disappoint with their soundstage. The bass is deep and rich while the mids and highs are plenty detailed. I feel like the Technics AZ-60s edge the QCIIs out in tonal balance and audible detail, but the Bose buds are still a very enjoyable listen and more than enough to avoid putting up with the AZ-60's god-awful connection strength.

Speaking of the Bluetooth connection strength, it's just as stable as you'd expect. You can go for a run with these in and not worry about the connection dropping out with every movement.

Call quality is fine, and honestly that's all it really needs to be. The microphone seems to have a bit of a hard time in wind, but sounds pretty bog standard otherwise. The nicest feature about taking calls on the QCII's is that, like the SoundSports, they announce the name of the caller so you don't have to pull you phone out of your pocket to see who it is. A godsend if you're constantly getting blown up by scammers.

Active noise cancelling on the QCIIs is downright impressive. Compared to my experience with the Technics AZ-60s, the ANC on the Bose is noticeably stronger. It totally deafens out everything but the highest pitched sounds in your vicinity. It's actually kind of a trip putting these in for the first time, the ANC gradually kicking in and damn near silencing the world around you. With music on, it turns trips to the grocery store packed with screaming children into a pleasant jaunt. Even without music on, it just totally mellows out your surroundings. Writing this with the buds in, and the normally obnoxious clacking of my mechanical keyboard is deadened to the point where it's no longer distracting.

Bose lets you make two additional ANC profiles on top of the two defaults, but they don't give you much in the way of actual customization.

For whatever reason though, Bose doesn't give you the option to fully disable the ANC mode. You might not think this is a big deal when you have the passthrough setting, and it probably isn't. That said, there's a really bizarre phenomenon in passthrough mode where certain low-pitched noises such as when a car door slams shut, have an almost 'concussive' sounding thud to them - like getting punched in the ear, minus the pain. I have no idea if this was intentional on Bose's part, like this is some sort of noise deadening feature that passthrough mode has, but I can't say I'm a fan of it.

Another odd decision was the removal of a 'find my buds' mode on the QCII's. This, I frankly don't understand. Having some kind of tracking feature is like a bare minimum requirement on wireless earbuds and yet Bose decided it was worth forgoing for no obvious reason. What makes it even more puzzling is that the old SoundSport's had this exact feature. What gives? Is peace of mind not a good selling point anymore?

Expect to be stuck on this goddamn screen A LOT.

The general app experience on the Bose Music app isn't the greatest either. It's an improvement over the old Bose Connect app, but it is still pretty sparse in terms of features. You have the usual selection of settings such as a three-band EQ, ANC and shortcut editing, but that's really it. There's no way to change audio codecs, you can't edit or delete the default two ANC modes, and all Bluetooth source switching is done on the app itself - not nearly as convenient as having a dedicated button for it like on the SoundSports. 

It's also frustratingly buggy. There's been a number of the times where the app won't recognize the buds are connected and I'm completely locked out of the settings until dumb luck let's me back in. Even completely unpairing the buds from my phone and repairing them fails to get the app working fairly often. Thankfully, using the app is pretty much unnecessary once you get things set up the first time around, especially if you aren't constantly switching around between devices. Even then, you're better off avoiding having to fight it altogether. 

The toughest pill to swallow with these buds though, is the price. The Bose QCIIs are not cheap. At $300 MSRP, they're easily some of the most expensive wireless active noise cancelling earbuds on the market. Even at the $249 I paid for them, that's more expensive than the Sony WX-1000XM4s (currently $198) and the second-generation AirPods Pro (currently $200). A lot of reviewers seem to agree that those two are very competitive with the Bose buds in most aspects.

And that's probably the biggest thing holding these buds back - they ain't cheap, and the competition is stiff. I still feel pretty confident in saying that once dialed in, the QCIIs feel like they're worth the premium. They're comfortable, sound great, the ANC is strong, and they're actually fairly intuitive to use. Apart from how hideously buggy the app is, these buds just consistently work the way you'd expect them to, and for me that's more than enough. Check them out.

What's Good

• Powerful ANC that blocks out everything but the highest frequencies.
• Compact size and light feeling, yet they still feel secure in the ear.
• Impressive sound quality once dialed in.
• Touch controls that actually don't suck!

What's Crap

• Factory tuning is completely out of whack, especially on the low end. 
• No 'find my buds' functionality for some inexplicable reason.
• No way to completely disable ANC and off-putting 'concussive' thuds in passthrough mode.
• Buggy app experience.

Verdict

The QuietComfort Earbuds II are expensive, but the great performance and usability makes the price tag sting a whole lot less.