If you’ve been waiting for Bose’s five-star QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds to drop in price, now is the time to pounce, because they’re discounted for the first time for Black Friday. Now just £260 at Amazon(well, £259.95 if we’re being pedantic), the new, five-star Ultra are 13% off their usual £300 asking price.
That’s pretty remarkable considering the fact that the QuietComfort Ultra are seriously new to the market. Even at full price, the Ultra are capable of easily justifying their premium price tag, offering that coveted Bose combination of peerless noise cancelling alongside a rich, satisfying sonic profile. Lovely.
Check out our QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds review for the full rundown, but if you need to be convinced quickly that the Ultra are the buds for you, we’ve got most of what you need to know right here to make an informed decision. The buds’ design is pretty similar to the outgoing QuietComfort Earbuds II, meaning that they feel suitably premium and comfortable to wear for long periods of time.
The tonal characteristics and musicality will be familiar to anyone who’s used the QC Earbuds II, but Bose has given the Ultra a bit of added punch. While the Sony WF-1000XM5 are perhaps a tad more insightful, there’s a good sense of openness and spaciousness, with plenty of dynamism and weighty bass with the Bose rivals.
That’s all without even mentioning the noise-cancelling, which is, as always, top of the league. It’s capable of dramatically reducing environmental hubbub, making them great for commuting or travelling, with Bose’s CustomTune tech automatically calibrating the ANC every time you pop them into your ears. If you’re a frequent flyer, these will become almost as important to you as your passport and a mile-high G&T.
We’re a little less convinced about Immersive Audio, though – Bose’s own take on the spatial audio tech that’s started to appear in products such as Apple’s AirPods Pro and the Award-winning Sonos Era 300 speaker. We found the results hit and miss, but that shouldn’t put you off what is an excellent pair of wireless earbuds that excel on so many different levels.
If you don’t mind sacrificing a tiny bit of performance and aren’t too fussed about the Immersive Audio, there’s always their predecessors, the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II which are even cheaper thanks to the Black Friday sales (£199 at Amazon). They offer a huge chunk of the performance but at a cheaper price.
But if you do want the very latest and greatest, the QC Ultras do deliver and that current £40 discount is a tempting one.
Read more:
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