Hi everyone, this is a detailed review of the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700.
I had reviewed these headphones last year as well. That review primarily focused on
audio quality and noise cancellation along with detailed tests and graphs. I would suggest
watching that video as well and I have included a link for it in the description below. In this
review, I will be looking at: Unboxing
Built, design and comfort Features
Phone calls and Conferencing Audio samples for calls and music
and then the Conclusion
I have included video timestamps to help you jump between sections if needed.
The headphones are packed in a compact and minimal looking matt black box. In the box
we get: The headphone case
Manual The headphones
The USB C charging cable Audio cable for wired connection. This audio
cable has a 2.5mm jack on one end which goes in the headphones and on the other end you
have the 3.5mm jack which goes in to your device.
The headphones have a solid build quality and have been designed with an 'ergonomics
first' approach. The goal here is not only good audio quality but also to ensure that
you are to be able to enjoy the good quality for extended hours without feeling fatigued
or pain. I personally wear them over 10 hours on workdays as I use them for listening to
music without ever feeling any fatigue or pain on the ears or my head. Bose has used
a steel based headband and silicon covered foam cushioning to ensure durability without
any compromise to the style or ergonomics. Even the ear cups have that perfect tilt to
match the angle of a human ear to reduce that unwanted pressure without compromising the
grip. Its attention to details like these is what puts NC700s well ahead of the competition
when it comes to comfort, especially when compared to the Sony's XM4s.
The ear cushions are user replaceable and are available to buy directly from Bose for
about £25. Even after two years of heavy use, I personally have not had the need to
replace them yet but it's good to know that I can replace them if needed. I am personally
a huge fan of sustainability and products with long-life as it helps reduce waste. Having
owned other Bose products as well, I know that Bose products products are serviceable
even long after they have been discontinued. Not that I have had the need to, but its always
good to know that Bose hasn't taken the route of manufacturing short life low quality products,
which a lot of other brands including premium ones, are!
The headphones use USB C charging port which makes charging a blessing especially when
travelling. They can be charged using any USB C charger such as an android charger,
MacBook pro charger or an iPhone charger using the provided USB C cable or even if you don't
have a charger, just plug it in a USB port for 15 mins and they will give you about 3-4
hours.
In summary, the headphones look quite slick and work well, no matter you are wearing a
suit, a dress or shorts and t-shirt. The built feels very solid and the NC700s are one of
the most comfortable over head headphones out there.
Bose has used touch-gesture based controls for volume, media and call controls which
use a very high resolution projected capacitive touch sensor in the right earcup. This sensor has
a resolution of 2048 x 896 points which combined with a non-stick coating on the earcups results
in an ultra-smooth and responsive gesture based controls.
The headphones can be paired with multiple devices and connect to two devices at the
same time. For e.g. you can connect these to your phone and you iPad at the same time.
So let's say if you were to get a phone call while you were watching a movie on your iPad,
the movie will pause automatically and the headphones will switch you to the phone. At
this point you can accept or reject the call and once the call is finished, the headphones
will switch back to the iPad and continue playing the movie.
The headphones use AAC and SBC codecs for audio output. At this point I would like to
call out that based on my tests for day to day use for e.g. listening to music on Spotify,
Apple Music or YouTube Music you wont notice any difference between AAC or SBC or aptX
or even Sony's LDAC. This is because these services only go up to 320kbps of bitrate.
Some specialised services like Amazon Music UltraHD, not HD, UltraHD; support limited
tracks in high sample rates, resolution and bitrates. The way we perceive audio is a lot
less to do with bitrates these days and more with the tuning and materials of the audio
drivers. So don't get swayed by numbers and figures too much when deciding on headphones.
The NC 700s can be used with or without the Bose Music App though without the app the
functionality is very limited and you need the app for first time setup anyway. So if
you are a privacy minded individual, you can turn off the sharing of app analytics option
in data preferences. Once setup you can use the button on the left ear cup to change the
noise cancellation level or temporarily turn off off the noise cancellation while pushing
in the ambient noise. This is helpful when you want to have a quick conversation with
someone without having to remove your headphones as it will pause any media playback temporarily.
Bose recently also added a new option to switch off the electronic noise cancellation entirely
to help save on battery or it can also come in handy when you are in a quiet environment
and need to be slightly more aware of the surroundings.
The power button is on the right earcup which when long-pressed puts the headphones in pairing
mode. The secondary button on the bottom of the right earcup is for voice assistants.
You can also long press the touch area on the right earcup to hear the battery time
remaining. One thing I like about this is that the headphone announce the amount of
time remaining rather than battery percentage.
The app also allows you to control all these controls and then some more. Such as you can
setup favourite noise cancellation levels which then can be cycled between by the noise
cancellation button on the headphones. You can setup the voice assistant choosing between
Google, Siri and Alexa. The app allows for a basic low mid high equaliser controls and
with recent updates, Bose made this a lot more easy to use by providing presets and
making the interaction more visual. Lastly, you also have an option to turn on or off
voice prompts which announce every interaction for e.g. when you change the noise cancellation
level. This feature can be helpful when you just starting to use the headphones.
Bose NC700 have the best audio quality when it comes to making and receiving calls. The
headphones use an array of 6 microphones to not only cancel the environmental noise for
your ears but also cancel the noise on the outgoing audio signal. This is a huge plus
especially because most of the other Bluetooth headphones out there don't do dynamic noise
reduction which reduces noise based on real time noise levels of the environment. Most
of the Bluetooth headphones apply a noise reduction algorithm which aims at cutting
out certain frequencies and setting the gain at a level where in the microphone picks up
only your voice. This can often make the outgoing call quality quite muddy and not crisp.
Another plus that Bose has applied in the NC700 is something called self-voice. This
allows you to hear your own voice when on phone calls, making them sound natural and
flowing. But what about when you are out and about in a noisy environment, won't self-voice
beat the purpose of noise cancellation? Well, Bose thought this through and allows you choose
between low, medium, high self-voice level or turning it off entirely.
Here's a quick tip for when using the headphones with Teams and Zoom for optimal call quality
especially if you are working from home. Go to the settings or preferences for either
of these apps. On Zoom look for 'Original Audio' option under audio and turn it on.
For Teams either turn off or use Low setting option under noise cancelation section. This
will make your outgoing audio crisper as it will disable the secondary noise cancelation
that is applied by Zoom and Teams. In Zoom you can also turn off High fidelity mode,
Echo Cancellation and Stereo Audio as no Bluetooth headsets support stereo audio or high fidelity
sample rates and resolution. Just in case these settings don't work for your environment
then you can turn them back to their respective defaults.
Next up is some audio samples for phone calls and video conferencing tool like Zoom. This
will be followed by some media playback audio samples as well. I would suggest that you
use your headphones for this part and turn off playback effects and equalisers if any.
All these samples are recorded using a high sample rate and resolution microphone and
haven't been processed
in
any way.
Alright time for
a conclusion. The NC 700s do a great job at cancelling noise for outgoing
calls and ambient noise. Bose has done a great job at the overall build and design making
them very comfortable to wear even for long hours. The NC700s were launched about two
years ago and I think they are still one of the better headphones out there today. With
an added bonus of a recent price drop since the launch of the new QC45s, makes even a stronger
case for the NC700s. That being said, thanks for watching the review. I hope you enjoyed
it. Bye!