For fans of premium wireless earbuds, the first half of 2025 has been rather exciting. The Technics EAH-AZ100 impressed me and the wider What Hi-Fi? test team at the start of the year thanks to their pristine, expressive sonic character, arriving not long after we had been treated to the slightly more costly, but no less impressive, Bowers & Wilkins Pi8.
We are still expecting the highly anticipated Sony WF-1000XM6 to make their debut this year (or so rumours say) to build upon the success of the class-leading, Award-winning WF-1000XM5.
At some point, I expect the AirPods Pro 3 to break cover, too, and inevitably sell by the bucketload.
And then, of course, there’s Bose. The noise-cancelling king dropped a small bombshell when it released (slightly ahead of schedule, I thought) its Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds in September 2023, a five-star set with excellent ANC (naturally), a lovely build and a clear, nicely poised sound.
And now their successors have been confirmed. The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) will launch at £299 / $299 / AU$450, the same figure as their predecessors.
While that’s exciting news for those of us for whom opening a new set of wireless buds is like a mini-Christmas, something has me concerned that Bose might have made a bit of a misstep.
More of the same?
You see, according to the press material, the 2nd-gen QC Ultra Earbuds promise enhanced ANC and improved voice calls, as well as the “same iconic performance” boasted by the original model.
What was that? The same iconic performance? Has Bose decided not to tinker with the sound quality of its new flagships at all in the face of such outstanding current competition?
Not quite, but it's enough to have me tempering my expectations a little ahead of their release. Bose has confirmed to us that the driver size is the same between two models, while the audio tuning in the new second-gen QC Ultra Earbuds supposedly offers subtle improvements aimed at bass response and smoother higher-end frequencies.
The standard AAC and SBC codecs are still supported, as is the higher-quality aptX Adaptive, the last of which is an advance on the current iteration.
Those changes to the audio tuning sound positive, and could well be enough to see Bose mix it with the best of them. However, when most brands tend to significantly upgrade the driver technology and sound quality of their flagship models between generations (Technics and B&W certainly did, as did Sony between the XM4 and XM5), it just feels a little... conservative.
It wouldn't be the first time Bose has made limited sonic gains between generations. Bose admitted that the sound quality of its over-ear Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 some years back was comparable to its previous-gen QC35 II, and even the succeeding QC45 kept the same drivers.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the current QC Ultra Earbuds very much. Our What Hi-Fi? review praises their punchy, musical sound, noting their improved clarity and precision over their predecessors, the also-excellent Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II.
They're a comfortable and secure fit as well thanks to those subtle in-ear ridges and their clever ergonomic design.
But let’s be honest: we didn’t believe there wasn’t any room for sonic improvement. The Sony WF-1000XM5 are, to our ears, a more detailed, precise and engaging pair of performers, while those aforementioned new rivals from Technics and Bowers & Wilkins push the sonic boundaries even further, so could this leave the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds in danger of looking a little out of date?
Times move fast, and this isn’t the market in which you can rest on your laurels for long.
Bose is clearly keen to play to its key strength: active noise cancellation. The ANC of the current QC Ultra Earbuds is outstanding, especially if you like that unique vacuumed cocoon of tranquillity (or eerie silence) they unquestionably provide.
Customers buy Bose buds for their strong ANC capabilities, among other things, so maybe it makes some sense that many of the eggs have ended up in that particular basket.
A tough arena
Or does it? Yes, Bose does great ANC, but Sony, Technics, Apple and B&W have been catching up. The rivals are perhaps not quite as all-encompassing as the Bose, but they are competent enough that you rarely feel as though the ANC is truly lacking.
When it comes to sound, it's a different story. The Sony XM5 are more musical and dynamic than the current QC Ultra Earbuds (both of which are two years old now), whereas the 2025 Technics EAH-AZ100 are so clear and detailed that they leave them somewhat in the shade.
Putting sound aside for a moment, it also looks like Bose's Immersive Audio mode and battery life numbers haven't changed in the new flagships.
Essentially Bose’s take on spatial audio, Immersive Audio aims to deliver a more spacious 'immersive' sound that is closer to listening to stereo speakers than headphones. The effect does take you 'out' of your head and sounds spacious, but there are phasing and time delay issues (especially in the Motion mode) as the processing tries keep up with your head moving.
The battery life is slashed when using Immersive Mode too – down to four hours rather than six on a single charge – which isn't ideal. We would have hoped that battery life is an area Bose would improve upon in general.
Again, I haven't heard about any concrete plans to improve Immersive Audio, so that is another aspect we'll be testing out when we have the 2nd-gen Ultra Earbuds in for review.
Prioritising what it does best?
The thing is, this could be a real opportunity for Bose to put itself back at the top of the premium wireless earbuds tree. The older QuietComfort Earbuds II were What Hi-Fi? Award winners, and this is a brand that’s more than capable of doing something truly special in terms of class-leading sound.
Everyone else around them has taken significant steps forward. The Technics EAH-AZ100 are a perfect case in point, in that they took the lessons from Technics' previous premium buds, the four-star EAH-AZ80, and added those much-needed dynamic and rhythmic capabilities to make the new model a five-star triumph.
We are expecting similar strides from the rumoured Sony WF-1000XM6 earbuds, going from past experience. While we don't know any details about these upcoming models, given how much the WH-1000XM6 over-ears moved on from their predecessors, as well as the leap from XM4 to XM5 earbuds, it's hard to imagine Sony not putting the same distance between its current and next-gen earbuds.
Of course, all we have to go on is the press release and details we know so far. We can't say for sure how much of a performance leap the new Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) will actually offer until we get them in our ears – who knows, maybe the new audio tuning will be enough to keep them competitive and prove me wrong.
Or this could be a tactical decision from Bose, to ensure that its core strength – that great noise-cancelling – remains the best in the business.
That it has chosen to focus on improving its noise-cancelling features could be a smart move, moving the goal posts so that its rivals have to play catch up for yet another year.
Yet with those same rivals making strides in sound quality from one generation to another, it begs a big question for Bose: will it be enough? As a fan of the current QC Ultra Earbuds, I certainly hope so.
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