QuietComfort 20 headphones

I bought these having left my Sony active noise isolating headphones in the lounge of an airport much to my wallets dismay. However, looking upon the bright side I figured this was a good excuse to look for new - and therefore hopefully better - solutions. Previously I've had two pairs of the Sony digital headphones which were excellent to be honest. The main disadvantage being that being over ear they are larger and therefore bigger to carry around in limited cabin baggage as well as being in the way if I nodded off during the flight. However, given previous in ear solutions which had always been a bit of a let down I stuck with them. But, as ever technology moves on and needing a replacement for my stupidly lost pair I decided to check out the reviews for in ear active noise cancelling earphones and by a country mile these Bose ones came out on top in most top ten lists. And, whilst I'm a bit sceptical of so called professional reviewers - and a slight bias against Bose which I associate with roll neck jumper wearing cobblers - the volume of positive reviews swayed me. So, here I am in possession of a swanky pair of Bose active noise cancelling headphones that in comparison to anything I've used before blows them all into the weeds. Really. Firstly, they are really comfortable to wear even on a long flight. They fit perfectly despite the ear buds being odd shaped. Clearly a well researched and considered design for the human ear. When you first push them in think that they are not secure because the pressure is so low compared to a more conventional pair of ear buds but, in fact they are very solidly in place despite the initial feeling. Sound quality is superb. Really superb for in ear items. Deep base and a great soundstage to use the poncey kind of gobbledygook used in What HiFi. Simply put I haven't heard a pair of in ear speakers sound so good full stop. Then when you switch on the noise cancelling the reason you've just shelled out 250 quid becomes clear. I tried these without any sound input when I first used them on an Airbus 321, sat behind the wings and therefore in cattle class on a budget aircraft in the noise line of the engines. Clearly it was pretty noisy where I was sat and yet as soon as I switched these on it felt as if I'd gone deaf. Honestly, almost all of the ambient sound vanished instantly. It was so startling I tried the effect three times for laughs. Once you then put on the sound from whichever thing you are using as the source the final tiny bit of external sound vanishes into the background. Its frankly, startling. So without a doubt these are fully worth the 250 quid if you travel by air regularly, because they make the whole experience slightly less miserable. Now, like all things in life there are a couple of niggles. Especially given that these are not actually resident at the cheap end of the market. Firstly, if you buy these chances are you are looking at the noise cancelling for the hell that is flying and as such if you buy these you would expect them to be geared to working with aircraft systems, In other words the weird twin plug fittings that are still in place on most aircraft. But, Bose don't supply the adaptor which means that you might buy these unknowingly and then find that once ensconced on board you can't use them. This is a bit penny pinching when you consider the upfront cost when far cheaper items come with everything you need. So factor in another fiver for the adaptor. Most of all, make sure you get one. The other slight irritation is that the carrying pouch is a bit low rent, but most of all quite small. And I can see this being a bit of a long term problem because the USB charged power supply has the cables fitted into each end of the unit and when in the pouch they are bent over quite hard which I'm sure is putting strain on the wires. I can imagine that if you regularly take them in and out of the carrying pouch and do so without being careful the long term effect could be broken wires. Overall though, for what these are made for they are superb. Best noise cancelling earphones I've ever come across.

My experience. If, like me, you are buying them mainly for sound canceling, then they are the best I have tried for the in ear style of headphones. I believe the very best experience is with the over the head headphones, but I don't like them for every day use, so I haven't got them. These earbuds will not eliminate all sounds, car tires, seagulls and people talking loudly, can still be heard, but there faint and will definitely soften them, this is with just sound canceling on and no music playing. Put music on and then they can not be heard. Loud sounds like a car horn or similar levels you would still hear, which is good for safety. Speaking of safety, theres a button on the side of the volume control that lets you turn sound canceling on or off and then enhance the surrounding area sounds. This nice, mainly use it for when I am going to cross the road so I can hear better. But for the majority, there great and all continual background noises will be gone. But, there is some downsides to them. So much so that I would wonder about recommending them. That is the price, for the cost I don't know if there worth it, still unsure. On one hand, I bought them for sound canceling, and for that there great, very happy. But on the over hand, the price is high and my main problem with the headphones is the cable rub you get when walking. It drives me insane. Seriously, it is sometimes quieter for me to take the headphones out and listen to the would around me. If you are not listen to music and have the sound canceling on please be aware the loudest thing you are going to be hearing is the cable as it rubs on your clothes, hate it. If you have music on, no problems. Also, they are useless in the wind. But to be fair most earbuds are bad in the wind. My other downside would be the sound quality, it's fine. That's the problem. For high end, high cost earbuds, I expected better. I have some £40 earbuds that sound better. But like I said, there fine, just don't expect to have them sound like your in the room with the band when they play. If you are mainly after sound quality, I wouldn't recommend them. If you are mainly after sound canceling, I would. But just take into consideration the previously mentioned points. Pros • best sound canceling I have tried for earbud style of headphones. • Good build quality. Cons • High price • Sound quality is fine, but nothing special • No good in the wind • OMG! The cable rubbing sounding, I hate it.

Bought these headphones on Black/Cyber weekend 2015 for £150(!) for flying long haul, mostly Joburg, 10-11 hours overnight. Wife bought Bose over ear noise cancelling a couple of years back, and recommended them, but these were on offer, and I find over ear a bit bulky, esp. for overnight/sleeping. Three sizes of swapable plug for ear. Middle size is fine for 6ft male (how that determines ear size I have no idea), unusual design keeps them in place and sound sealed. Cuts out white noise very well. Lets in a little more deep engine rumble than I would like. You can also just about hear cabin announcements (if listening to own device) which is probably a good thing, on balance, however frustrating they might be. Certainly good enough to make conversation with cabin crew impossible, mercifully have not managed the crying baby test yet. Have also used successfully on inflight systems with twin plug converter. Sound quality is very good, but obviously dependent on source. Haven't tried with HD audio sources. Designed to work with Samsung - I have Tab S2 8in for movies and TV - but not all apps respond to full set of commands from the in-line controller. Google music and Amazon video are good, BBC iPlayer appears less responsive - volume up/down OK, but no pause/play. Having said that, I can never remember all the combinations of how many taps, whether to release or hold, etc. My (android) Google Nexus 5x also works pretty much as well as Tab S2, in terms of the controls. Without testing all android phones, I suspect it should/could be marketed as Android rather than just Samsung. On overnight flights, I tend to flip to my old iPod nano 3, and put on an album of classical piano music, to fall asleep to. The ear phones continue to shut out the (white) noise after music finishes, which I find leads to more restful sleep. The ear pieces are more than comfortable enough to sleep with for 6-8 hours. Battery life more than adequate for 11 hour flight. Recharges in a couple of hours. BTW I am still trying to work out why sometimes the Tab S2 doesn't recognise the headphones, and plays thru the speakers, a bit annoying on a plane, or train. Restarting the Tab2 without moving the headphones seems to fix the problem, so I suspect the problem may be more with the Tab2 than the Bose.

After trying quiet a few in ear headphones for my daily commute on the train, which either where super uncomfortable, or simply not good enough to let me listen to Netflix while the trains rattle along, I decided that it was time to get a decent set and went for the Bose QuietComfort 20. I had them for a week now, and I have to say, that these headphones are by far the most comfortable ones to wear that I ever owned. You can barely feel them once they are fitted and I can see why some reviewers say that they can wear them all day long. When it comes to sound quality, I am surely not an expert, but to my untrained ear they sound excellent. The active sound cancellation is also working very well, nearly all of the rolling and wind noises of the train are removed, also I can still hear my fellow passengers to a small extend. The only issue with the noise cancellation that I have experienced so far is that whenever a train passes my train at high speed, the control algorithm overcompensates, which leads to some rather unconformable popping in the ears (hence the 4 stars for sound). With regards to battery life I have not really pushed them to their limits, but there was no issue with them lasting all week long for my commute (about 5h in total). The Bose QuietComfort 20 are great, and I can finally enjoy music and movies without having to push the sound level from my phone to the maximum, so I can highly recommend them to everyone that is willing to invest in a good set of in-ear headphones.

Got my pair today. The noise reduction is quite impressive. Tried to simulate airplane noise (main purpose of my purchase) by playing cabin noise recording from Youtube at 80db. They worked quite well for that enabling me to listen at lower volume snd not be bothered by the external noise. I hear a quite distinct hiss while music is off and ANC enabled. The quiet feeling you get is not really natural and I could not use them for sleeping for example or creating a quiet space for focusing without any music on. I have used Sony MDR-EX650AP gold healdphones as my main pair. The disappoing part it the sound quality of the Boses on my Note 3 Android phone. The max volume is much quieter than the Sonys. Also, I find the sound richer with the Sony. Of course this changes if you have background noise as you need to blast regular pair with max volume while the Boses can be used on long flights on more comfortable volume levels. Luckily, it is not the headphones. After connecting them to my MSI gaming laptop, the sound quality truely impressed - beating the Sonys in all aspects. Sonys got really good bass, which seemed to be missing on Bose while using the phone but this also improves on my laptop and I also get very fine and clear details not muffled out by extensive bass. 3 stars for Android performance - seems that the amplifier of the Note 3 is not powerful enough to fuel this pair. 5 star if you have a more powerful device. Might be worth investing into an external headphone amplifier if used only with a phone or should be tested first with specific phone model. This is first impressions - I will update after my first real flight with them. I suspect that they will still make the cabin noise more bearable, even though the phone will not bring the best sound quality out of them. For long flights, running a laptop on battery might not be an option.

UPDATE: The build quality is poor and they just don't tolerate everyday use - even with the most careful of handling. I've had to abandon using them due to damage and odd noise. Very disappointing considering how expensive they are. If you plan to replace them every 6-12 months, then go ahead - but if this is a long term investment, sadly keep on looking. Good. Works for snoring! Not the most comfortable and hard to sleep with as they are bulky. Build quality is okay, but again, overnight wearing will take it's toll. Sounds quality is good too.

I bought these to use whilst motorcycling, hoping that the active cancelling system would reduce the Wind noise, and that this along with them being "Bose" would deliver a good and clear sound quality sound at a reasonable volume. The result - I cant praise them enough !. I can leave the music volume on at a lot lower level that I would if i was using a non active noise cancelling earphone system, and now I don't have to turn the volume up as my speed increases, the active noise cancel deals with all that, so - most problems solved. The battery has lasted me 6hrs + for me after a full charge, and it would most likely do more if needed. They will still work if the battery goes flat (or if the NC is turned off ) but as you'd imagine there is no Active Noise cancelling in this situation. I plug a small Blue-tooth receiver into mine, and then drop the lot into my pocket, so not only do i get my music, but i cana answer my phone an well as getting my Nav directions through, sorted .! You can have the noise cancel on with the music turned off - and it cancels the wind noise /or another noise, which is very useful... In this mode you can still hear what's going on, but only just...if that's not enough then you can turn the noise cancelling off. Not cheap, but in this case i got what i hoped would...an excellent product, for on or off the bike.

I have been saving up over past couple of years to get my hands on the bose QC20. I was impressed by the noise cancellation when I tried it once at office when a colleague brought it in. Over past so many years, I have listened to Sennheisers and A-Jays mainly. I am surprised how well they sound even after years of use. Finally when I saw the QC20 prices dropping down to 149 mark over during black friday deals, I knew it was the time. Got my hands on the earphones the next day. Let it go through the usual audio burn-in period (a bit old fashioned in my ways sometimes). Ear Tips My biggest worry was the eartips before making the purchase. I have always been a fan of the in-ear ear buds and was worried whether the QC20 would stay in. Trust me, they do. It feels slightly off place if you are like me, used to the deep in-ear ear buds. But the QC20 eartips stays on like in magic. Just find your knack at plugging those in, which you will find in a few days time naturaly. Noise Cancellation & Audio Quality A lot goes to personal preferences here. But coming in from decent pairs of Sennheisers and A-Jays, the QC20 failed to impress me to be honest. These do sound alright with noise cancellation turned on. Without it, they leak so much noise in that listening to any good audio is practically impossible. This is the other thing I noticed- when there is no audio bing played, if you turn the noise cancellation off, it sounds like the ocean waves in your ear. Not natural. Leaving the audio quality behind, I must say they do pretty good in cancelling out most of the noise around. I am a regular commuter on London Underground. It makes the journey so much better that sometimes I turn on the noise cancellation without any music played. Build Quality The cable feels flexible, but appears to be prone to abbrations- think hoodie zips etc. This hasn't been a problem for me with Sennheisers etc, and haven't had any issues so-far with Bose, but these cables always make me feel an accidental tear is possible anytime. The small length of the cable that runs from the battery pack to the 3.5mm jack is thinner than the rest and has a lot of flex. Once again, it doesnt shout the quality and resistance to external materials that I am used to with other earphones I have been using in the past. And I am planning to return it for this one reason The biggest surprise and let-down for me was the wind noise off the earbuds. When you have plugged these on with noise cancellation turned on, even the smallest amount of wind makes so much noise off the earpieces that it destroys the listening experience completely. This is evident even if you are walking into a slight breeze. I have never seen any reviews highlighting this ever, which makes me wonder if my ears are somehow a different shape to most other that it catches the wind more!! This beats the whole purpose I bought a noise cancelling earphone. Would I recommend it? Yes, if you can shell out a coupld of hundred quids (prices are back to their normal £230 mark now) to buy another pair of earphones that you would lose interest in a few months time until something else catches your eyes. Yes, if you are prepared to exchange audio quality in favor of some great external noise cancellation Yes, if you are ok with the delicate feel of the cable and ear tips. No, if you are a bit like me, weighing up the economics of a couple of hundred pounds spent on these against the already better audio quality of your existing pair of earphones and the prospects of accidental damage that can happen anytime, making you dount the longevity of your investment.