For those who follow Bose, it won’t come as much of a surprise that it’s finally unveiled its new flagship QuietComfort Ultra Headphones ($429) in advance of the holiday buying season. That’s because purported images of the new headphones leaked online months ago.
But as CNET reports, what’s a little bit shocking is that Bose, usually slow to introduce new headphone models, has also released a new set of flagship earbuds — the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds ($299) — only a year after launching the QuietComfort Earbuds 2. On top of that, the new, numberless QuietComfort Headphones ($349) are replacing the QuietComfort 45 headphones.
While Bose mentions that all the new QC models feature “world-class noise cancellation,” the real feature it’s hyping this go around is something it calls Immersive Audio, its custom version of spatial audio. Bose says that Immersive Audio “goes beyond special effects and creates a wider, more spacious soundstage so your content becomes multi-dimensional and layered, regardless of the audio platform or device.”
Like other headphones that feature spatial audio — Apple’s latest AirPods, for instance — the QC Ultra Headphones and QC Ultra Earbuds have two spatial audio modes: one “still” mode without head-tracking engaged and a “motion” mode that uses head-tracking and allows the audio to “move with you, so it’s always in front of you.”
As for release dates, the QuietComfort Headphones are scheduled to ship on Sept. 21 in black, white smoke and cypress green, while the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones and QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds are due to ship in early October in black and white smoke colors. All the new QuietComfort or QC models, as they’re often referred to, are available for preorder now.
—
Photo Credit: Jonathan Weiss / Shutterstock.com