I wore these on a five-hour flight last month and forgot I had them on. That is the whole pitch, and it is rare enough at this size that I want to lead with it. The pressure on the temples that the older QC 45 had is gone, the pads are deep enough that my ears never touched the driver, and I had glasses on the whole flight without the arms digging in.
The noise cancellation is the reason to buy these. Roughly 87 percent measured reduction, which on a plane translates to the engine becoming a distant suggestion of an engine, and in an open-plan office translates to the conversation two desks away simply not being there. I have used the Sony XM5 extensively, the AirPods Max for a year, and the older Bose 700; the QC Ultra is the first time the lead over the rest of the field has felt like a real lead rather than a measurement-table lead. The Aware mode is also the cleanest passthrough I have tried, with none of the underwater quality the AirPods Max occasionally adds.
CustomTune is the small feature I did not expect to like. The first time you put the headphones on, the app fires off a quick tone sweep, measures the way your ear shape reflects sound, and adjusts the EQ accordingly. It sounds like a marketing checkbox. In practice the difference between the default tuning and the calibrated tuning is bigger than the three-band EQ in the app, which is its own quiet admission about how much your ear shape affects what you actually hear.
The Bose footprint is here but in a more polite form than the QC Ultra Earbuds. The bass is present, the mids are clear, the treble is rolled off slightly on the top end. On vocals and acoustic instruments it is fine. On classical with a lot of high strings I sometimes wanted a little more air. Aptx Lossless and Snapdragon Sound are supported, but only over a Snapdragon 888 or newer Android phone, which means anyone on an iPhone is back to AAC and is not actually getting the lossless story that the marketing implies.
Immersive Audio is the bit that earns the gimmick label. It widens the soundstage in a way that is interesting for about five minutes and then quietly draining on the battery for the rest of the day. I left it off after the first week and never turned it back on. Battery is otherwise honest at close to 28 hours, which is enough for a week of commutes plus a long flight.
The price is the same as it has been for premium Bose for a decade — $430 list, often around $329 if you wait. There is no IP rating, which is an odd 2026 omission on a product you will absolutely sweat into, and the wired path is a 2.5mm jack on the headphone end that needs Bose's specific cable to convert to a normal 3.5mm. Lose the cable, and you are buying a replacement from Bose at Bose prices.
The comparison I get asked the most is to the Sony WH-1000XM5. Sony is the better all-rounder — better sound, better call quality, lighter case. Bose is the better noise cancellation, by enough that if silence is the reason you are shopping, this is the answer.
Verdict: Buy these if quiet is the single feature you are paying for and you do most of your listening on Android or wired. If you live on an iPhone or you want a balanced all-rounder, the Sony XM5 is the smarter pick.