Bose noise cancelling headphones have a strong reputation for removing background noise, being comfortable to wear, and accurately reproducing recorded sound. Right now, I’m going to specifically review the Bose QuietComfort 2 model.
The QuietComfort 2 Bose headphone sets ARE comfortable. First, they are extremely light for a full size headphone (they weigh in at just 7 ounces, including the battery). The earpieces go completely around your ears to seal out outside sounds, and are made from a soft form fitting foam wrapped in leather (The leather on my Bose head phones is extraordinarily soft). I’ve comfortably worn these phones for hours at a time at home on my computer and traveling.
Bose noise cancelling utilizes two methods to squelch outside sounds. I’ve already mentioned the earpieces and how they surround your ears to seal out external noise (this is called passive noise cancelling). The other method is active noise cancelling which works by monitoring outside sound and creating an inverse to that sound effectively cancelling that sound out. The technology they use for noise cancelling on the Bose headphone sets is exclusive to Bose and it’s arguably the best active noise cancelling system in use today. I’m not saying they’ll block out all external noise (only uncomfortable canalphones can do that), but they do effectively eliminate the constant hum of computers, jet engines, fans, air conditioners, etc…)
As far as sound quality goes. I have yet to find a pair of active noise cancelling phones that rival the QuietComfort 2 s. I can’t say they are the best sounding phones I’ve ever heard, they’re not. The Bose head phones are however, the best sounding phones in this category IMHO. You can hear a slight hiss from the active noise cancelling and the upper frequency range isn’t as crisp as I’d like it to be but the bass and midrange are nice and punchy thanks to the three ports Bose has designed into the earcups (TriPort® acoustic headphone structure). Overall, the sound quality is much higher than I would have expected from earphones in this category.
Are these Bose noise cancelling headphones for you? That depends.. If sound quality means more to you than comfort, you might want to look into a pair of good quality canalphones. If you expect to be wearing your headphones for long periods of time, comfort is a priority, and you’re willing to sacrifice some sound quality than these QuietComfort 2 Bose head phones are just the ticket.