Did not expect it! 😲 Bose Open Earbuds Ultra Review vs QuietComfort Ultra
Written by Aaron, 03 March 2024
Openfit earbuds give you full awareness of your surroundings while letting you enjoy your audio. But compared to all other other openfits I’ve seen, the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds look weird. And to be honest I was skeptical about this design. Typical openfits hook around the ear while this one pinches on the sides, so I was worried about it being either too tight and painful, or too gentle that it falls out super easily.
But somehow, Bose has managed to find the goldilocks region here. It’s neither too tight, nor too loose. In fact, it’s secure enough that it feels like it wouldn’t fall out when I’m running, or working out.
Another problem I’ve encountered with openfits that made me declare that they’re the stupidest earbuds design ever, is that they’re either not loud enough for noisy environments, or too annoying to wear because most of them use bone conductors, which would vibrate heavily with bassy music, which, for lack for a better word, tickles.
Thankfully, instead of Bone conduction, the Bose uses Air Conduction - which is basically little speakers positioned just outside the ear canal, designed to deliver what they call “the full range of audio”. More about that will be covered in the sound quality section.
What about sound leakage? Well, in quiet environments, other people can hear just a hint of what you’re hearing, but in noisy places they won’t be able to.
And as for volume, after using them in multiple noisy scenarios, they were loud enough even at 70% volume for most types of music, but for audio with just wind or string instruments you might have to push it up more, or enable Auto Volume to keep levels consistent.
Now, obviously they don’t have active noise canceling or transparency, but they do have every other features that the QC Ultra buds have like Immersive mode with head tracking, Bose Music app support with the same EQ presets and settings. And they both support aptX Adaptive with Snapdragon Sound certified devices like the Sony Xperia 5 V. (That’s good because compared to regular AAC, aptX Adaptive is a higher bandwidth codec on Android that’s better for streaming lossless files.)
But how do they compare to the QuietComfort Ultra in terms of sound quality and microphone pickup?
Sound Quality
The Open Earbuds Ultra sounds surprisingly rich and heavy. There’s no seal on the ear canal, and the speaker isn’t even touching the ear canal at all, but I was getting a fullness that’s comparable to regular TWS earbuds. Frequency sweeps reveal that indeed, Bose has designed its tuning to heavily compensate for the lack of sealing by significantly bumping up the gain of the upper bass, mids and highs compared to the QC Ultra. And especially in the upper mids to treble, it’s so high that it looks like a totally different curve.
But the lack of sealing shows in the sub-bass region below 80 hz. Overall this means while you are getting what most people would conser a full and rich sound, you won’t really be able to feel the bass impact that much. Listen to the samples comparing them to the QC Ultra.
What I do prefer about them compared to QC Ultra is Immersive mode. Somehow without the buds plugging in, spatial audio and headtracking feels more like listening from surround sound speakers. It’s super surreal.
Microphone pickup
It appears that while the Open Earbuds did do pretty well in the real world test, under my extreme noise testing, which is somewhat similar to the noise levels in a train, it gets overpowered by the noise just like the QC Ultra Earbuds. At times, its noise gating is too aggressive in the mids that it even cut into my own voice.
In this test I compared them directly with the QC Ultra in both quiet and noisy conditions using some really loud cafe style background noise, and some wind noise coming from fan.
Should you buy Open Earbuds Ultra?
Overall I admit that the Open Earbuds Ultras are one of the best openfits you can buy now. They sound great, they don’t use bone conduction drivers which is a plus for reasons that I explained earlier, and they are comfortable enough to wear for hours.
Once in a while I did have to take them off because I was starting to feel the hard plastic on the cartilage, but I definitely prefer this to the hook designs of most openfits. Those get painful after a few hours.
And they’re small too, which makes them an easier carry. But there are factors which should put some pause into whether to buy them, or the QC Ultra. Here why.
The Open Earbuds have a button on the barrel which sits behind the ear which does give you music and call controls, but no swipe gestures controlling the volume like the QC Ultra. So if you’re using just one earbud, you can do volume down, but not volume up because that’s on the other earbud, whereas the QC Ultra gives you all the controls. Also I did encounter some connectivity issues with my Windows 11 PC. Sometimes the left earbud drops out. And when I’m playing audio, there’s about 1 second of buffering while the audio is playing, before I start getting any sound. This is probably something that a software update could correct, we’ll have to see.
And the last thing is about price. They cost the same as the Bose QC Ultra. From my perspective as somebody who needs noise canceling, this makes it less attractive. But for some people who prefers openfit, without sacrificing much of that sound quality, I can see how the QC Open Earbuds Ultra is a good alternative, not just to the QC Ultra, but to many other openfits out there because these are some of the best sounding openfits I have ever tried, period.
That’s my take on the QC Open Earbuds Ultra. If you’re interested, check in the links below for the latest prices.
Check latest price:
Bose Open Earbuds Ultra - https://amzn.to/3JImty4
Bose QC Ultra Earbuds - https://amzn.to/49TSg9K
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