These wireless earbuds live up to their billing with sound quality and best-in-class noise cancellation, though lack some features you’d expect at this price

What we love

• Best in class noise cancellation
• Incredible sound quality
• Impressive Immersive Audio mode
• Decent battery life

What we don’t

• Occasional Bluetooth issues
• Case can’t charge wirelessly
• Not the best fit for small ears
• No multipoint connectivity

When the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds are firing on all cylinders they sound as good as any wireless earbud on the market. With the best noise cancellation we’ve ever seen and a new spatial audio mode that truly improves music listening, there are times when these buds spark pure joy.

The secure fit ensures the excellent sound seal with your ear, though those with smaller ears be warned, as the buds can start to hurt after a couple of hours if you have small ears. We also experienced some Bluetooth connection and interference, particularly in crowded areas with lots of other wireless devices.

Yet we can almost forgive these downsides thanks to Bose’s new Immersive Audio feature and top level noise cancellation. The former takes any audio and turns it into a soundscape that feels more like you’re in a room where the music is being played around you. We were sceptical, but it is very good indeed – though it shouldn’t be used for talk radio, podcasts, or audiobooks as it makes solo voices sound odd, and switching between the modes using the buds’ touch controls is tiresome.

Overall these are top-sounding noise-blocking buds that work well with iPhones and Android phones, but a few caveats might stop them being the ones for you.

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Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds review

Bose is back with its QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds just one year after releasing the QuietComfort Earbuds II. The Ultras look practically identical but bring a new spatial audio mode that enhances the sound of any music played through them.

This is coupled with the best noise cancellation of any earbuds we’ve ever tested, making these pricey buds very tempting indeed. But some fit and connection issues stop them from being a five-star product.

Design and fit

• In-ear and wing tip fit
• Slightly tight for small ears
• Touch controls

The QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds have an in-ear design with three tip sizes in the box along with three sizes of rubber stability bands that help wedge them into your ears. We found a decent fit with the smallest tip size, though after a while the buds began to hurt due to pressure on our relatively small ears.

The buds come in black or white and are stored in a fairly chunky charging case which unfortunately doesn’t have wireless charging. We feel that’s a bit of an oversight considering these earbuds cost 300 quid.

On the outside of each bud is a matte finish touch pad that you can use to control play, pause, and volume as well as cycle between audio modes. This works pretty well but you’ll have to make sure not to ram the earbud painfully into your ear when you tap or swipe.

We quite like the design of the earbuds but they are not the most subtle and nor are they the most slight, and they look quite chunky compared to Apple’s AirPods Pro.

We quite like the design of the earbuds but they are not the most subtle and nor are they the most slight

Sound quality and noise cancellation

• Excellent sound
• Immersive Audio is mostly great
• Best noise cancelling of any earbuds

The most important thing about a set of premium earbuds is how good they sound and luckily the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds are some of the best in the game, matching the latest effort from Sony. They have very similar sound quality to last year’s QuietComfort Earbuds II which is to say they have excellent bass and a balanced soundstage that replicates all genres of music very impressively.

New to this model is what Bose calls Immersive Audio, a mode that uses spatial audio technology to create a live surround sound effect to music no matter which app you’re playing them from. Whether it’s a track already produced in spatial audio (like many tracks on Apple Music) or just a regular stereo recording, the tech manages to put the music in front of you rather than right in your ears as though you are watching a band.

There are two options, ‘still’ and ‘motion’, with the former keeping the audio in front of you where the source device is and the latter for when you’re moving around. We much preferred motion mode and for the most part enjoyed how music sounded using it. However it doesn’t make all music sound better, with some recordings sounding quite tinny and losing a lot of the production that makes them good in the first place. Immersive Audio is nice to have here and it is impressive, but we wouldn’t recommend buying these earbuds purely for the feature.

It’s also worth noting that the mode is not good to use with podcasts, talk radio, or audiobooks because it splits voice tracks and makes some sound like a weird robot. Worse was that I experienced some Bluetooth issues with some dropouts in connection. This particularly happened in crowded areas where there was other wireless interference from phones and other devices.

The most important thing about a set of premium earbuds is how good they sound and luckily the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds are some of the best in the game

What you may want to buy the Ultra Earbuds solely for is their incredible noise cancellation. The ability of these earbuds to cancel out sound around you, putting you right in a little audio bubble of your own is unmatched by any headphones from Sony, Apple or any other competing brand at this premium price point.

You can cycle between Quiet, Immersion, and Aware mode, the last of which lets you hear the world around you while you’re wearing the buds. This also has an ActiveSense mode which can quickly down loud sounds around you such as sirens so they don’t deafen you but still keep a certain level of transparency to the outside world – it’s clever and works well.

The buds are also able to play Hi-Res audio files using the AptX codec but this doesn’t work with iPhones and only works with Android phones that are compatible with the Snapdragon Sound platform. If that sounds confusing it’s because it is, and makes some of the features of these earbuds inaccessible for many.

Smart features

• Middling call quality
• Good EQ options
• No multipoint

The earbuds can take phone calls or video calls when connected to your smartphone. testing them in London on an iPhone we found that the audio was far too quiet particularly when outside and we had to turn the volume the whole way up to be able to hear anybody. That said, the mics are quite good and people we call didn’t have an issue hearing – except when it was windy. 

Compared to Sony’s latest WF-1000XM5, the Bose aren’t packed with smart features. The Bose music app that you connect them to allows you to change audio mode as well as play with EQ to tweak music output to your preferences. And while you can pair the buds with several different devices there’s no multipoint connectivity so you can’t stay connected to more than one at a time and have to switch manually. This is a feature we usually expect in this price bracket.

Battery life and charging

• 6 hours battery life
• 24 hours battery life with case
• No wireless charging

We didn’t have to charge the buds much while testing as they can last six hours on a full tank, with the fully charged case able to top them up three times for a total of 24 hours battery life. That’ll have you covered for most longhaul flight, but you’ll get less when using Immersive Audio as it tended to drain juice faster than normal.

You can fully charge the buds in the casein two hours from dead via the included USB-C cable. It’s criminal the case can’t charge wirelessly at this price – and even more insulting that Bose sells a wireless charging case cover accessory that adds the feature for £50.

Price

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds cost £299.95 which is at the high end for wireless earbuds. That’s £70 more than Apple’s latest AirPods Pro 2, and £40 more than the Sony WF-1000XM5.

You can buy them from Bose, Amazon, Argos, and Currys.

Verdict

We’ve really enjoyed using the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds thanks to incredible sound quality and the best noise cancellation on any earbuds. The new immersive audio mode improves most music, upgrading it to spatial audio, which differentiates these buds from some of their rivals.

If you have small ears you may have trouble with fit though, and there are fewer smart features here than we would expect for the premium price. But that doesn’t stop us recommending the Ultra as some of the best wireless in-ear headphones you can buy today

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