Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) review

1. Best noise canceling

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen)

The quietest cabin of anything here, and the only over-ear in this group whose box already contains the audio cable a seatback screen needs.

Our editorial score: 9.0 / 10

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Bose has spent longer than anyone else optimizing for exactly one problem: the continuous low-frequency drone of a pressurized cabin. The 2nd Gen QuietComfort Ultra is the current end of that work, and it is the quietest headphone on this site in the band that matters.

What is more interesting for a traveler is a small detail nobody puts on the box. A 2.5 mm-to-3.5 mm audio cable ships inside the case, in a pocket in the lid. That is the one accessory most flagships omit and most passengers discover they need somewhere over Greenland.

What works on a plane

• +The best low-frequency canceling in this group, which is exactly the band engine drone lives in
• +The 2.5 mm-to-3.5 mm cable is in the box, so a seatback screen needs nothing extra
• +Compact hard case for a full-size over-ear
• +Up to 45 hours with canceling off, if you only want isolation on a train

What does not

• −Immersive Audio costs you a third of the battery, dropping to 23 rated hours
• −Heavier than the Sony by roughly 10 g, and clamp is firmer out of the box
• −The hard case is compact but still rigid, so it will not squash into a full bag

How it scores against the five travel axes

Cabin-noise reduction9.7

Battery on a long-haul8.4

Pack size8.4

Comfort past hour three8.8

Wired / IFE fallback9.2

Published specifications

Spec	Figure	Source
Battery, ANC on	Up to 30 hours	Bose
Battery, ANC off	Up to 45 hours	Bose
Battery, Immersive Audio on	Up to 23 hours	Bose
Weight	Approx. 264 g (9.3 oz) as reported	Published reviews
USB-C audio	16-bit, 44.1 or 48 kHz lossless input	Bose support
In the box	Hard case, USB-C cable, 2.5 mm-to-3.5 mm audio cable	Bose
Folds	Earcups rotate flat into a compact hard case	Bose

Read the full Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) review →

Buy it if quiet is the whole point. If you are the kind of passenger who finds a long flight genuinely exhausting rather than merely boring, this removes more of the cause than anything else on sale, and the difference over the Sony is small but real.

Do not buy it if you pack extremely tight, because the Sony WH-1000XM6 folds properly and is roughly 10 g lighter. Do not buy it if you were planning to use Immersive Audio for the whole flight, because 23 rated hours is meaningfully less headroom than it sounds. And do not buy it if you find firm clamp uncomfortable — the Bose holds on harder than the Sony, which is part of how it gets the passive seal it depends on.

The energy in a cruising cabin is concentrated at low frequencies, mostly 50 to 300 Hz. Active canceling works by generating an inverted waveform, and it does that best when the incoming sound is continuous and predictable — which describes engine and airflow noise almost perfectly, and describes a conversation not at all.

Published measurements across the review set consistently put Bose at the front of this specific measurement, and the 2nd Gen extends rather than resets that position: Bose describes it as refining the generation before it with better battery, USB-C lossless input and smarter power behavior rather than replacing the core canceling technology. If you have used a previous QuietComfort Ultra, you are buying the same class of quiet with the rough edges filed down.

The thing you notice is not silence. It is that the pressure behind the sound is gone, and that hour six stops feeling like hour ten.

For the direct comparison rather than two separate reviews, read Bose QuietComfort Ultra versus Sony WH-1000XM6.

Three figures matter and they are very different from each other:

Twenty-three hours is not a bad number in isolation — it beats the Apple AirPods Max in any mode. But it is a third less than the headline figure, and Immersive Audio is the feature Bose leads its marketing with. In practice most people will fly with it off and turn it on for a film, which is a sensible compromise the box does not explain.

The 2nd Gen also accepts audio over USB-C at 16-bit, 44.1 or 48 kHz. On a plane that is useful in a way it is not at home: a wired USB-C connection to a laptop or tablet sidesteps Bluetooth congestion in a cabin full of transmitting devices.

The earcups rotate flat and the whole thing goes into a hard case that is genuinely compact for a full-size over-ear. What it does not do is fold up the way the Sony does, and the case is rigid rather than soft, so it holds its volume no matter how much you want it not to.

That is a real distinction and it is easy to underweight. A slim rigid case is fine in a backpack with a laptop sleeve. It is awkward in a half-full tote that you were hoping to compress under a seat. If carry-on volume is your binding constraint, read best foldable noise-canceling headphones before deciding.

Reported weight is around 264 g, roughly 10 g more than the Sony and roughly 120 g less than the Apple. In this class that puts it firmly in the comfortable half, and the pad material is among the better ones for heat.

The caveat is clamp. Bose runs a firmer clamp than Sony, which is part of how it achieves its passive seal, and a firm clamp is exactly what someone with a wider head or glasses will notice first. It relaxes with use, as all of them do, but out of the box it is the tighter of the two flagships. If you wear glasses, look at best headphones for glasses wearers — a firm clamp plus spectacle arms is the specific combination that goes wrong.

This is the quiet win and almost nobody mentions it. The case contains a pocket in the lid, and in that pocket is a 2.5 mm-to-3.5 mm cable along with the USB-C charging cable. The headphone side of the connection is 2.5 mm, so a standard aux cable will not do — which means if you lose the supplied one, replacing it is a slightly more specific errand than it sounds. Keeping it in the case is the whole discipline.

Older aircraft with twin sockets still want a two-prong adapter, which is not included. See airplane headphone jack adapters for the two-dollar fix, and Bluetooth headphones and in-flight entertainment for why your wireless headphones will not simply pair with the seat.

• Sony WH-1000XM6 — 254 g, a proper folding hinge, and the same 30 rated hours. Slightly less quiet, noticeably easier to pack.
• Sennheiser MOMENTUM 4 Wireless — double the battery at up to 60 rated hours, and a 1.2 m aux cable included. A clear step behind on canceling.
• Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) — the same canceling philosophy in something pocketable, at the cost of dropping from 30 rated hours to six.
• Apple AirPods Max — also excellent canceling, and a far worse travel proposition at 386.2 g with no fold.

Where it sits in our roundups

It takes the noise-canceling slot in best noise-canceling headphones for flights, appears in best headphones for long-haul flights and best noise-canceling headphones for an open-plan office, and is the reference point in Bose versus Sony.