Hi, this is Jeff Miller, the headphone writer here at Crutchfield, here to talk about the
Bose QuietComfort 45 wireless noise-cancelling headphones. These are the latest of Bose' iconic noise-cancelling headphones, which are
a staple in airports, home offices, and offices all around. You'll notice they look a lot
like the previous generation. QuietComfort 35s, one of our best sellers. Bose decided
not to reinvent the wheel. They've got the same tried and true design. They've made some
key improvements. That includes better Bluetooth, better battery life, an awareness button, and somehow even better, noise cancellation. I gave them
a try for about two weeks or they were released, and they fit right into my new hybrid office
life where I work from home a couple days a week and come into the office once or twice
a week. So let's jump right into the headline feature, the noise cancellation. It's kind
of unbelievable that Bose continues to improve their noise cancelling chops with every new
release. It uses a series of built in microphones to sense the outside world and then kind of
react in real time The '45s give you a blanket of quiet that might be the best in the business right now. The
Quietcomfort 35s were voted one of our five most comfortable headphones when we did our
headphone testing a few years back. You would think there wouldn't be much to improve on
there, but to me I think that the '45s are actually a little bit more comfortable.
The ear cups are slightly smaller, but I feel like the fit overall is even more relaxed and even lighter, so they really
kind of doubled down everything you expect from a set of Bose headphones. Since the QC
35s were released there's been a major improvement in Bluetooth connectivity, and these actually
have Bluetooth 5.1 built in. That will give you a stronger, more reliable connection to
your device. I was actually able to leave my phone on my desk and walk around my basement
pretty freely, even go upstairs a couple times before there were any dropouts. Sometimes
there were no dropouts, even when I was upstairs. There's also multi-point connection,
so when I'm working from home I can connect it to my work laptop and also my phone, so
like, if I'm listening to music and all of a sudden it's time to jump on a Zoom call, I can just switch right
over and you know, it's a press of a button versus like trying to re-pair and all that kind of
stuff. Battery life is better, 24 hours. I wore them for about a week before I had to recharge
them. It comes with a USB-C charging cable. Gives you kind of a quicker charge. In fact, if you recharge them for about 15 minutes you
get about 3 hours of listening with noise cancelling. They do include a listening cable,
so if you're away from an outlet or you don't want to use the noise cancellation, you can
just plug in with the 3.5 miniplug cable. Distinction between these and the Bose Noise
Cancelling 700s that were released a while back; those have a bunch of interactive controls,
you know, touch controls, and there's all these things you can do with the app. These are almost like the beauty in the simplicity. There's not like a ton of different noise
cancellation settings, you don't have have touch controls, but it does have the basic buttons that do
the stuff that you need to do, like answer a call, adjust the volume, control the track,
and then there's also an "Aware" button. So if you're out and about or you're in
a situation where somebody's trying to get your attention and you need to listen to them, you click that Aware button,
it'll turn off the noise cancelling circuitry and use the mics to pick up the external sounds, so you can keep the
headphones on and be better aware of your surroundings. If you use your headphones to make
or take calls, the phone call quality is pretty good. I used them outside in kind of a breezy
area with a lot of traffic, and my wife could hear me clearly, I could hear her clearly,
so they work well for that too. And then other than that it's sort of that familiar,
comfortable, relaxed Bose feel. That's the fit, that's the quiet. And also the sound. It's real
laid back, large soundstage, layered; you kind of ease into it. So that's the Bose QC 45. Very familiar
look and feel, but some key improvements for an even more premium experience. If you have
any questions about about these or any other headphones then contact us here at Crutchfield.