The Bottom Line: Excellent build quality. Reasonable ambient noise "muffling" technology. Very Comfortable. Let down by a silly over inflated price tag. The free CD doesn't swing it!
epster's Full Review: Bose QuietComfort® 3 Acoustic Noise Cancellin...
Working in a fairly noisy office environment sometimes its not enough to throw on the cans to drown out some nearby droning colleague, their inane drivel seems to seep through your aural barrier and play havoc with your concentration (or, worse still, your enjoyment of a particularly favourite track). So, like many other moths to the flame, I found myself drawn to Bose's claims to a blissful departure from everyday acoustic annoyances.
Throwing caution to one side I swallowed hard and made my online purchase (£275 or 511 USD! at the time of writing from the UK).
The out of the box experience was something of a minor non event - sure, the QC2's are very well designed, nicely furnished and fitted Headphones, but at the cost I expected a rather flashier set. In other words they look very ordinary, even bland - smart but very conservative. Not unlike your average German engineer. The Bose bundled CD I didn't even unwrap - some second rate freebie you'd expect to be given away when you sign up to the latest financial package from the weekend glossies. Doesn't even manage mp3/wma formats - go figure!
Time for the big exciting field trial! With the cord disconnected I put on the QC2's and was very impressed by the comfortable light snug fit - you really barely notice they are on. Already the build quality alone was cutting out background noise. Plush pleather cupping your ears, nice. Time to switch on the noise cancelling circuitry! And... well, not a great deal to be honest. The effect was to introduce a slight hiss which effectively muffles the outside ambient noise. Yes, you can still hear the TV. Yes you can still hear the phone ring and conversation - albeit at a muffled level. Noise muffling, however, hardly noise cancellation. So, no great shakes so far. Time to add some music. Note: these Headphones have to be battery powered, or you get no music at all - a little time needed to get used to switching them on and off all the time, observing the red LED, unless you don't care about going through batteries at a rate of knots. OK, so with music I found that the background noise is reduced, again the effect is one of muffling, not cancellation. For example, you can't hear yourself typing. However, if you expect the outside world to simply melt away you are going to find yourself somewhat deluded. Telephones ringing are still clearly audiable and nearby conversations can be heard. In summary, these Headphones do muffle a fair bit of outside office noise, but they don't quite cancel it all away as you may expect from the extensive marketing literature, let alone the price tag!.
I really did want to keep my set as I found them very nice, if a little disappointing, however that outrageous price tag was nagging away at me. In the end I couldn't handle the responsibility of funding Bose labs research department single handedly, so I reluctantly returned them within the 30 day no quibble period and opted for a pair of Sennheiser HD 280 Pros for less than 30 percent of the initial outlay.
Guess what? The Senns cut out about 90 percent of the background noise that the Bose could manage. Thats right, no typo here, 90 percent as good at ambient noise reduction due to their build quality alone (close fitting circumaural and closed back). No annoying mandatory battery. No red LED. No sound of keyboard typing and generally muffled outside noise. Plus, they sound a lot better too at what they primarily do, produce great sounding music (with all this noise cancelling business we forgot that minor factor, right?). Oh, another thing, the Bose have to be set to the High position to listen to portable (low voltage) devices and laptops at a reasonable volume - this introduces yet more hiss to the 'noise cancelling' hiss. With the 64 Ohm low impedance of the Senns DVD playback from the laptop was much louder and clearer - yeah, zero hiss too!
Oh dear, back to the drawing board Mr. Bose!
PS: At the time of writing Mr. Bose seems reluctant to refund the two sub payments I made on my credit card, only refunding one of them. Seems the research department are not getting much shut eye perfecting their art on the QC3's!
Bose quality audio performance and acclaimed noise reduction technology, in a compact and comfortable on-ear style. Includes rechargeable lithium-ion ...More at Best Buy ®
Retreat into a private world of fantastic Bose sound. Ergonomically designed to be lightweight and extra comfortable, the QuietComfort 3 Acoustic Nois...More at QVC
QuietComfort 3 Acoustic Noise Cancelling headphones from Bose feature a small, light on-ear design. With advanced engineering to bring you the same ac...More at Musician's Friend
On-ear fit: Earcups rest gently on your ears Bose noise reduction and quality sound for travel, work and home Comfortable, lightweight design with an ...More at Amazon Marketplace
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.