Bose QuietComfort Ultra are the AirPods Max rivals you've been dreaming of

(Image credit: MySmartPrice)

published 14 August 2023

Bose isn't doing a brilliant job of keeping its next flagship headphones a secret: shortly after images leaked via MySmartPrice, a whole bunch of details have now leaked to The Verge – and they confirm that the Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones are going to be a serious rival to the Apple AirPods Max.

The big reveal this time around is that there's a new feature that Bose calls Immersive Audio, which sounds very much like Spatial Audio: It will "enhance and add depth to your content" and comes in two versions, one for when you're sitting still and one for when you're moving around. This mode will be in addition to Bose's existing Quiet and Aware modes, which are its noise cancellation and transparency modes.

What do we know about the Bose QuietComfort Ultra headphones?

The latest report says they're Snapdragon Sound Certified, which means higher quality Bluetooth streaming from compatible Android phones. It should mean lower latency in gaming too.

The QuietComfort Ultra appear to be positioned as the replacement for the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700, which currently have a recommended retail of £279. They're a truly exceptional pair of headphones, as our five-star Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 review explains: they deliver "well-balanced sound, terrific sound imaging, and effective noise cancellation", leading us to recommend them not just once but "a thousand times".

If you've been thinking about Apple's AirPods Max or similarly expensive headphones, I think it'd be worth waiting until these arrive: I'm a big fan of Bose, so for example while I own a set of AirPods Pro 2 I don't take them out and about: for listening on the go, the Bose QuietComfort II earbuds sound far superior. With Apple showing no signs of replacing or cutting the price of AirPods Max, the new Bose will almost certainly join Sony's superb WH-1000XM5 headphones at the top of the best wireless headphones chart, and while both are comparatively pricey they're not Apple pricey. These could well be the AirPods Max alternatives you've been waiting for.

TOPICS

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).