The Bose QC 15 has always been regarded as the king
of noise cancelling headphones. But the Bose QC 15 sound quality hasn't
always been so well-regarded.
Well recently Bose released the QC25
and they promised not only to have improved comfort
and sound quality of the QC25 over the QC15
but they also claim to improved the noise cancellation.
Well I bought a pair of QC25s at JB Hi-Fi
in Australia for $360. I've been using them for
over a week now almost daily and I've gotta tell you honestly
this has been a difficult product for me to kind of, evaluate and tell you whether
or not
its competitive with other portable around ear headphones.
Why do I say that? Well you're watching Lachlan Likes A Thing
and let's find out. Hey everyone, welcome to Lachlan Likes A Thing,
the show where I take a thing and see whether I like it. Now the thing we're
looking at in this video is the Bose QuietComfort
QC 25 active noise-cancelling headphones.
Now before we begin the review I just wanna apologize if you hear any
construction noise coming for through the window.
It kinda makes me wish that we had active noise-cancelling
in this room, but sadly these things are to be. Let's get on with the review.
First of all, let's start with the design. So the QC25
I think nails it in terms of
the design. It's a relatively understated look for a headphone.
it's much like the Bose SoundTrue in that regard.
but what I like most about this headphone
is that this is a headphone that has relatively large
earcups and it's got a relatively complex folding mechanism.
It folds into a more compact shape and it folds
flat and it goes into this really nice included carrying case.
But at the same time it's still very lightweight
and it still feels relatively robust so the fit and finish
on his head phone, on all the kind of parts is really quite nice.
Most of the parts seem to be plastic but they seem to be high quality composite plastics.
The headphone itself weighs about 200 grams.
the earpads have really nice soft supple material on them. The headband has this
quite nice feeling fabric finish on the top and this foam
finish on the bottom. There's lots of little tiny nice touches.
For instance there's a soft touch rubber guard rail around the earcup so that when
you fold it up
the earcups don't scratch each - don't scratch each other -
other - when they rub against each other so
everything about this design more or less gave me the impression that it's been
quite well thought-out. Now there are two things that I can say about this design
that I don't like. One of them is that
the headphone is so lightweight that it almost feels a little insubstantial.
That can't really be helped. I think it's still a robust headphone
and I'm pretty confident in its durability but it certainly doesn't feel
as kinda
chunky and solid as something like the Audio Technica M50X.
The other thing I can comment on is that the cable,
that detachable cable that comes to the QC25 I don't really like.
First of all it's a proprietary cable. The connector on the end
is something like 1.5 to 2.5 millimeters
and so you gonna have to go to Bose for replacements if the cable
ever breaks. The other thing is that the cable
is - you know, has a fair amount of memory so it tends to develop
kinks up over time. It tends to tangle quite easily so
not a big fan of the cable but apart from that
I think its a well-designed headphone. Next up,
let's talk about comfort. The QC 25 as you can probably guess from the large
earcups and the light weight of the headphone
is a very comfortable headphone on the head
and it's especially more comfortable because the drivers are very steeply
angled
inwards on the QC25 which gives it a lot of room to breathe.
So the end result is that the QC25 is one of
the most comfortable around ear portable headphones
that I've ever worn on my head.
It's the kind of headphone that you can wear for hours and hours with very little
discomfort
and its almost as if Bose was thinking about how
to make this headphone comfortable for long-haul international flights.
Surprise surprise! And that gets us into the kind of bread and
butter of the QC 25. The
noise cancellation on the QC 25 is
amazing. It is honestly
terrifying how good the noise cancellation is on the QC25.
Now I don't actually have that much experience with noise-canceling
headphones.
I tried the Parrot Zik on my channel and I thought that was too heavy and too
expensive.
I have the Beats Studio 2013 which ostensibly has noise cancellation
but the noise cancellation isn't very good and it produces a constant hissing
noise which is just
very frustrating. So I've always regarded noise cancellation as a bit of a gimmick
but the QC25 has completely sold me on noise cancellation.
The noise cancellation apparently was improved on the QC 25 and Bose claim
that they specifically targeted
low-frequency rumbling to try and improve that the noise cancellation
performance in that regard and I can tell you whatever they've done
it has worked. Because when you wear this headphone on a train or a bus
or even out on the street it just blocks out so much noise
to the point where it feels like this must be what it's like to be
going deaf, right? The noise cancellation
is really really good and it's not just good in terms of blocking out
just only train or plane noises. It blocks out things like
wind blowing across the headphone, it blocks out
air conditioning noise and computer fan noise.
It blocks out a lot of them environmental noise that I wasn't even
aware was present in the environment
before I tried using the QC25
and so it's really quite startling in how effective the noise cancellation is.
Now it's not perfect. The QC25
isn't perfect at blocking out a high-frequency incidental noise so
people suddenly talking, clapping noises, that kinda thing. It's not going to block out
sudden noises because the noise cancellation circuit doesn't kind of
anticipate those kind of noises.
But that said it still reduces those noises somewhat so
even if someone is playing music near you the QC25 will
reduce that noise to a large extent.
So the noise cancelling on the QC25 produces a slight hiss
but it's a very high frequency, it's quite quiet so it's the kind of thing that
you can ignore very quickly.
You can get used to a very quickly. It's not distracting like Beats Studio 2013.
The noise cancelling actually works without the cable plugged in so if you
want
you can wear this headphone on your head out with the noise cancelling turned on
like a really high tech
pair of ear muffs. The other thing about the
noise cancelling is that it uses a AAA battery and it comes with and alkaline
battery.
It's rated for 35 hours on alkaline batteries
So... it's also rated for 28 hours on
rechargeable nickel-metal hydride batteries.
And in the kind of week that I've used this headphone I haven't noticed the
battery life
you know I haven't got the the battery warning indicator
any time soon so I'm pretty impressed with the kind of performance of the battery
in that regard.
Now you may think it's a bit weird that it doesn't use a lithium-ion
rechargeable battery pack.
But honestly I think that that's actually a good thing because I think
they designed this headphone so that
if you would just about to board a plane flight and you realize that
this headphone was running out of charge you could waltz into any convenience store
and buy a triple A battery
in any airport around the world so again I think thats a thoughtful decision on
their part.
Now the QC 25 can actually be used without the noise cancellation turned on
so
the head but still works even if the battery has gone flat
but when you turn the battery off - sorry, when you turn the active noise-cancelling off
it actually
also turns off the internal and DSP and
equalization and it means that the headphone sounds completely different as a
result.
And that brings us to the sound quality of the QC 25.
I'll put this plainly: when you turn the active noise canceling off
on the QC25 the QC 25 sounds
like garbage and I usually don't use such strong language
in my reviews but it sounds awful
without the active EQ being applied.
It sounds muffled with really anaemic
bass line and the vocals have this weird sucked out feeling to it. It just feels
hollow and plasticky
and basically it sound so bad that I think that
Bose clearly never intended for this headphone
to be used without the noise cancelling being turned on. It's just a
little kinda up bonus feature that you get with the headphone that it works without the
noise cancelling turned on.
And it also makes me think that the acoustic design of this headphone
was done in such a way that Bose prioritized getting this headphone to have
the steeply angled
earcups at to be super comfortable and not necessarily
though about it in terms of designing this headphone to be
acoustically high performance in terms of the actual physical build of
this headphone.
and they thought that that was okay because they could just fix tall with
the active EQ and the DSP afterwards.
Kind of 'fixing it all in post' to borrow a phrase from a completely different field.
So the end result is when you turn the active noise canceling on it fixes a
lot
of the deficiencies of the headphone. When you turn the active noise canceling on
the QC25 sounds much better. But it doesn't sound,
you know, still doesn't sound fantastic I would have to say
given the price at the headphone. It has a
really mellow kind of sound
particularly in sort of the midbass it has a really
rounded tone in the mid-bass
and there's a bit a emphasis in the lower treble or the upper vocals that
makes vocals in particular stand out. They have a sort of raw quality to it
not quite to the point of sounding honky on nasal but
there's a certain emphasis in that regard. The treble
is rolled off on the QC 25. So
it lacks a bit of detail and texture and kind of airiness
to the sound though I think that's probably done again to ensure that you
don't get long-term listening fatigue
from high-frequency sound. Overall
it sounds like the Bose SoundTrue around ear in that it's a mellow
relaxed sounding headphone and you know that's honestly not too bad.
The thing that is really bad on the QC 25
is that the bass for a headphon this price that the performance
on the base is really sloppy.
So this headphone has more mid-bass than sub bass.
It sounds kinda gummy, it sounds kinda sloppy and there's not the kind of
tightness or punch or kind of visceral rumble that you would expect
And it's not just about the quantity of the bass, it's actually just about the kind
of
feeling of solidity and impact that is really lacking on the QC
25.
The bass sounds a bit rubbery. If you compare the QC25 to other headphones
the kind a deficiency in the bass line really makes itself apparent.
So compared to the Audio Technica M50x which is a cheaper headphone
the M50X sounds so much more punchy and tight than the QC25.
Compared to the Beats Studio 2013 again the Studio 2013 still sounds tighter
than the QC25. It's just, you know
a better more solid sound overall than the QC 25.
And the problems with the bassbecome really apparent when you
increase the volume. The the bass actually starts to sound very sloppy and
very
you know it's just not a great sound. It's not terrible
but it's just not up to the kind of performance level you would expect given
the price of this headphone.
But here's the really funny thing about the QC25.
Even though I think it doesn't sound as
good as other headphones up costing around the same amount or even half the
amount on the QC25
I still think it actually sounds very good in practice when you wear this headphone
because when you wear this headphone with the active noise-cancelling turned on
you end up still being able to hear a lot of detail
in the music that you wouldn't be able to hear on other headphones
because this headphone manages to remove so much low-frequency rumble and
environmental noise
that you still get a lot of...
you still get a really pleasant listening experience
and especially it's a nice listening experience because you can turn down the
volume on the QC 25
to very, you know, relatively low levels lower than what I would usually
listen to on my headphones and you get to protect yourhearing
but at the same time you get a sound which is
you know, quite agreeable, it's quite pleasant and
at lower volumes the bass
kind of response on the QC25 isn't quite so distracting in terms of its
poor performance.
Personally I think the QC25
is a good headphone. It is super comfortable,
it has a nice robust to build to it.
It has that amazing noise cancellation and even though the sound quality isn't
best in class
it does the job so I'd be happy to recommend this headphone to anyone
who is looking for noise cancelling headphones or anyone who's at least
even vaguely curious about noise cancelling headphones.
Now normally I would tell you at the end of this review,
go out and try this in the in store demo
and you know you can decide whether - you can decide for yourself whether or
not you'll like
the QC25 but I have to say in this case that I don't think the in-store
demo is going to give you a really good sense
of what it's like to actually use this headphone around and about in the city and just
what the noise cancelling
will do in terms of changing the experience
of wearing these headphones. What I can tell you is that Bose
if you buy directly from the Bose website apparently they offer a 21-day
no risk trial. So if you don't like them at the end they give you a full refund
including shipping charges
and for this kind of headphone I actually think that's an offer that's worth taking up
because
you can try them for 21 days and really get an experience of
how effective the noise cancellation is on this headphone. If you do try the QC25
please leave a comment,
I would love to hear what you think about these headphones.
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as as always, happy listening!