Bose has long been recognised as a company that has both produced very stylish headphones/speaker systems, but not always had the backing of real audio lovers. I have to say that I have never been a person who could spend anything over £100 of my own money on headphones for my iPhone/Android or Windows Phone device, let alone the £269 that these headphones are priced at, but I was very interested to see if I could hear a real difference here.
I love music and my range of genres is very mixed so I’m able to test out a range of different sounds here, not only that I wanted to see how the Bose QuiteComfort 25’s perform in games too.
Unboxing the Bose QuietComfort 25’s you could feel the expense, the box was small and neat and the headphones themselves were already packed into a very good looking and compact case. Unzipping the case showed off the great looking headphones all neatly place inside. There is enough room in the case to contain the headphones, in-line remote and mic, airline adapter and a compartment for an additional AAA battery (needed for the noise cancelling system).
Taking the headphones out of the case the main ear cups fold out so they can be placed over your head. I know it is a simple thing, but even the folding mechanism of the headphones felt expensive, there was no locking up or tenseness to them at all. Another really good and simple feature is that inside the earcups there are very large printed R and L for left and right ears – simple but prevents flapping around working out which cup goes where.
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A great light design hides some excellent noise reduction and some really good sound reproduction
Once you have taken them out you can put the included AAA battery inside, the battery compartment is tiny and hardly noticeable thanks to the superb design of the headphones. The battery is needed as it provides the noise cancelling system to be activated. Believe me when I say that this works unbelievably well. The battery lasts around 35 hours and even if it runs out you can use the headphones without them.
Firstly you turn the headphone noise cancelling on via a tiny switch on the right side of the headphones and even without having any music playing you notice how surrounding noise is taken away, I have no idea how it is done but it works and makes a huge difference when playing music.
Attaching the inline microphone and remote is as simple as plugging it into the headphones and then directly into your iPhone, iPad, Android phone or any other device. Do take note that while the remote and microphone work with nearly every Apple device under the sun, there are only a few other Windows Phone and Android devices which can make use of all of the features and they are listed on the Bose website. I tried it with both my iPhone 6 and my Nexus 6 and sadly the only part that worked on the Nexus was the Microphone, pause, play and skip song button, but the volume buttons didn’t.
As I stated, my range of music on my devices is pretty big, from lots of Alternative Rock to Country, Pop and acoustic tracks. I didn’t hold my breath when putting the Bose QuietComfort 25’s on my ears simply because I thought the pair of Nocs in-ear headphones I was using for my long daily bus journeys was fine, how wrong could I be!
They might be expensive but they are some of the best headphones that I have ever used
Instantly I noticed what a difference the Noise Cancellation makes to your ears and how much sound around you can interfere with what you are hearing. The first album I played was Royal Blood, and I could hear all the guitar riffs and little vocal parts that I didn’t even notice with my old headphones, it really was a big step up for me.
Next I decided to play some simple piano music and again I really felt close to the sound as if I was there in the studio it was being recorded in. The low ends were beefy but were never too much or drowning out other sounds. The top has a real crisp feel to it which I love too while the midrange feels smooth.
I tried out some games, despite the fact that these headphones are designed for music use and I was pleasantly surprised by it. I tried games on both the iPhone and Android and the stereo sounds were very clear, it perhaps lacked a little punchy bass here but it worked fine for the most part.
As the name suggests, these are comfortably headphones, probably the most comfortable I have ever worn. They are very light and even with the AAA battery inside you don’t notice much weight to them when they are on your head and over your ears. These weigh just 6.9 ounces or 196 grams which when compared to many other headphones in the same price bracket is far lighter than nearly all of them.
I can safely say that I haven’t ever used any headphones that can do noise cancelation the way that Bose have done here. It works really well and although some people will prefer life with noise, I love it to be taken away from my listening experience when out and about. The design is really great too and the lightness and comfort of the headset is great for long journeys and when just walking around town.
If I had any issue with these, it would be with the price; but after trying these out I can understand why people pay out this kind of money for both a quality design and a great noise cancelling sound. I can easily recommend these to anyone who loves music as much as me and who wants to just sit back and enjoy the sound without any noise interfering with it.
A big thank you to QVC who provided us with the Bose QuietComfort 25 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones for review. They are available to buy now from QVC for £269