Bose QC 35 Firmware 4.5.2 Noise Cancellation Investigation Report
community.bose.com
community.bose.com
Kudos to their will to analyze and also document about a single problem so thoroughly.
I never bought a Bose product before, but reading this honestly makes me think about it...
If any company would cost a premium for being as careful as they are, I would definitely pay for it.
The headphones won't turn off, but Bose refuses to make it right for the users:
https://community.bose.com/t5/Around-On-Ear-Headphones/QC-35...
Note, the "solution" is buy new headphones if yours are our out of warranty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bugTnRbnhQ&feature=youtu.be
Edit: Wow, downvoted to -1 :/
Was super unimpressed with Bose support, both in store and online - they offered to wind back the firmware for us, or our other option was buy a new pair.
It's interesting reading about this not-turning-off bug as maybe something like that is happening which is killing the battery overnight.
The only thing that went thus far were the leather cups (twice) that are fortunately easily replaced. OEM are $$$, while after market alternatives I found to be just as good and are only $.
My battery is still strong. Probably around 10-12 hours of use.
The analysis in the page discussed in this thread doesn't match what you're saying: knockoff cups are inferior and degrade noise cancellation.
But you paid 300-400$ for headphones, to me it's worth paying the OEM premium just to make sure they keep delivering the quality and experience I was looking for initially when I paid the high price. Otherwise, you might as well buy the lowest priced noise canceling headphones: you'll get a commensurate experience but you won't break the bank.
Anyway, to each their own :)
The problem is aftermarket cushions may not do as good of a job at passive noise reduction.
Follow the link and check if you have the right number of clips on your aftermarket cushion. Obviously this isn't the full picture but is certainly a large piece of it.
And I am the guy who spent 4 times a few hundred on AKG studio headphones but replaced the ear cups with some much, much cheaper but better feeling ones.
To each their own :)
Mum bought new last year because pads were worn, I got her old set - uses a single AAA battery and lasts across the globe and back (~30 hours). Unfortunately she didn't like the new rechargable set, and neither do I..
I have the same experience on the battery: my pair is almost 3 years old and I can go about 2 days of work (~12 hours) before I have to charge them.
[1]
What is Bluetooth multipoint, and why isn’t it more popular?
https://www.soundguys.com/bluetooth-multipoint-explained-286...
https://www.soundcore.com/products/variant/life-q20/A3025011
I was considering several different pairs including the Bose and picked up these as I couldn't stomach the cost of the more expensive headphones. At 60$ they are great, the noise cancelling is good enough. The battery life is amazing. I can sit down at my desk and use them all day while connected to my laptop and phone. If either device reports a "Call" coming in it gets priority and I hear the ring. 10/10 Experience for the price.
It's so jarring to use anyone else's Bluetooth products after using them. It's so smooth.
I'm sure there are bad customer service people out there, but I really wonder how often reports of bad customer service are actually just pointing out that the poster was a jerk. See also Yelp reviews.
> So I removed the old switch slider and spring, used 96% ethyl alcohol to clean the bottom part of the switch left on the PCB (filled it with alcohol, let soak for a few minutes, then used tiny cotton wool balls and a pair of pointy tweezers to clean the contacts, then dried it off using compressed air).
I would not dismiss the tremendous engineering + coordination effort required to pull this off as "just" PR.
Bose might care, but they care magnitudes less when it goes against their environmentally unsustainable business practise.
The investigation outlined in this would have cost a lot of money.
The headphones won't turn off, but Bose refuses to make it right for the users
There are plenty of countries (outside the US) with powerful enough consumer protection agencies to force Apple to change it's practices (eg, the ACCC in Australia[1][2]). If this really is a widespread manufacturing fault we'd see them forced to act elsewhere.
[1] https://www.accc.gov.au/public-registers/undertakings-regist...
[2] https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/apple-australia-gives-...
Pretty much every Apple product is far more popular and has a higher public profile than any one Bose product. It's entirely plausible that Bose gets away with not fixing flaws because the products and their flaws simply don't get enough attention.
I'm impressed with this reach out, something Apple are unlikely to do (even though I use their prem products)
I had the same problem as you and was very disappointed. Up until this problem I was very happy with the QC35, which I have used for hundreds of hours.
I followed the below YouTube video a few weeks ago, and the problem has not returned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3qHSaWi4X8
The process took about 20-30 minutes and was relativity easy, however some parts are quiet small and it took a few tries to get them into the correct position.
The problem is the switch becomes loose and touches multiple contacts, making the headphones turn back on. Don't bother with all the other troubleshooting advice Bose has told people to do (updates, resets, pair & unpair etc), the problem is a physical problem with the switch.
I no longer use the earphones, but I can vouch for them.
First I had to replace because it stopped charging after 10 months. I used them single every day, and I loved them. They were my first pair of active noise cancelling anything, and they completely changed my anxiety levels at work.
I remember thinking to myself 2 days after sending them back to Bose to be looked at, that I was so much more stressed without them.
I was sent a refurbished pair with new earplugs in the box 5 days later. This is almost unheard of in Australia.
That pair has been going strong for the past year, they get used when I travel long-haul - I carry them as backup.
My second pair I bought because my workplace let me expense up to $250 on headphones, they had some damage which Bose was kind enough to offer replacement for free, but now that COVID hit I've been unable to send them in for replacement. Luckily I have my backup!
I could even chew or wash my hands or sit in a noisy cafe without the other people in the call hearing it.
The audio quality might be better with the Sonys, but at least they answered to the Sonys in a timely way. I had no bad experience with those yet and used them for almost a year already. No idea about customer support.
I know this thread is about the QC model, but I wanted to throw this in here. IMHO bose is not behind at all.
Sony put their efforts into producing custom chips that could upscale low res audio, they created the LDAC codec, put in chips that can detect your environment and adjust ANC accordingly, they have airplane pressure neutralization. Mind you this is all a year before the 700s came out and can be found for half the price of the 700s. They've also come out with numerous other ANC headphones since then at lower price points.
Bose may look prettier to some, but Sony is probably 4 years ahead of the game in terms of features, cost at scale, and product offerings in the space.
I could not hear any difference at all on my last flight, comparing 1.0atm ground calibration vs 0.9atm in-flight calibration. The effect must be rather small.
My office headphones have always been Beyerdynamics. I've owned a pair of dt880s and now dt1770 pros and used them almost daily. The 880 I bought in 2003 and 1770 in 2016. Both work with no trouble and deliver perfect sound. I expect them to last for a few more decades...
Quality earbuds don't need to be fragile.
Do you work too much, or do you only ever take them off to shower and sleep?
168 hours in a week, minus the 70 hours leaves 98 hours free. Lets say you sleep 8 hours a day, 56 hours each week. 98 - 56 leaves 42 hours where they are not sleeping and not wearing the headphones. More than enough for showers!
I think I also listen to music or podcasts for around 9-10 hours a day currently, one way or another (for example, I usually listen to music while showering, way more fun). Most of the time I have background music on, unless I'm outside hiking or social gatherings. Then one of my hobbies are making music... But right now I'm doing 0 hiking and 0 social gatherings, so lots of music.
It makes my ears too itchy inside if I wear cupped headphones for more than 3-4 hours straight. My theory is that it build up humidity from my body but it's not ventilated because the headphones' cups are tight.
Anyone else with that problem? How do you avoid itchy ears after wearing headphones for longer times?
Don't! I also have the same problem if I wear headphones for too long, usually 2-3 hours, so about the same as you (got the Bose QC35), so I usually only use those headphones when I want to make sure I remove bright noises from the environment, like airplanes.
Otherwise, at home (which is 100% of my time because of the lockdown) I use speakers (same for showers, using speakers). Then office environment I usually have my in-ear headphones that have superior bass compared to my headphones and I can wear them for the full day without feeling anything on the top of my head or my ears.
I wish! But I have the pleasure of working in an "open office"... I have to wear headphones (or 3M construction earmuffs/PPE when I don't want music) just so I can hear myself think in the middle of all the chatter.
I'm not paying £150 for something that's failed twice in the exact same way, so I bought some Shure monitors instead. The passive reduction on these is as good as, maybe better than, the active cancellation of the Boses, and sound quality is way better.
I just wish they'd release a fully wireless version with the same comfort and fit (not the replacement cable+dongle thing they currently have).
By comparison my Beats solo are much better, for range battery and connectivity, but they don't have noise cancelling.
Their Bluetooth setup is abysmal ! Hate using these QC 35 for that reason.
I have the QC35-II and never had problems, neither with battery life nor with bluetooth. In fact, given that it seems like no device ever gets bluetooth protocol right, it surprised me that the headphones do exactly what I want: connect to two devices at once (laptop and phone). So I can play music on the laptop and when someone calls, the headphones seamlessly switch to the phone, and when I hang up, they switch back to the music from the laptop. Also reconnecting works without anything to complain about. I am also switching back and forth between two locations, meaning two laptops and two phones, and the only thing that is mildly annoying is that when switching the desk, it takes a little longer to reconnect to the other set of devices again. But it does work.
What would be cool is three devices served at once (laptop, land line phone, mobile phone).
I am not using the Bose app at all.
But what is annoying is that they don't charge and work at the same time. Frankly, I was pissed when I found that out. WTF, there are integrated USB charger/voltage regulator circuits readily available that do that for you. Probably it's due to heat dissipation problems as always so they might have artifically disabled this to avoid at all cost headphones bursting into flames on people's heads.
I'm very, very happy with the BT performance of my AirPods as well.
I bought some Outdoor Chips 2.0 snow sports earpieces for my ski helmet a few years back, and they took me back to the bad old days of bluetooth; static and cutting out when you dare turn your head the wrong way or put your phone in the wrong pocket. They went back to REI, and were replaced by Sena Snowtalk which works the way that modern BT stuff (cars, Bose, Apple, etc) works.
EDIT: I turn off BT in all but one device!
I don't use the Bose app for anything. The only time was to update the firmware and re-enable the noise cancellation button, which somehow vanished.
As for range one can't expect much more with Bluetooth, especially indoors.
If you meant QC35 II and not QC35, could your issue be something in the Mac and/or iPhone and not the headphones?
On the other hand we have genuine Bose replacement cushions that start to flake out not two years after very light use. Not aftermarket, but their own ridiculously expensive units bought directly from them. I have no explanation for this except for it being due to planned obsolescence practices. So they can publish as many reports (that tested a whooping 10 returned units!), but it doesn't undo the ill will created by their products falling apart on schedule. Caveat emptor and all that.
Which I had to replace after 2 years of weekday daily use of 3-4 hours a day.
I’m not sure I class that as ridiculously expensive.
I noticed that their QC15/25 has a major flaws on the battery compartment design cause its wiring prone to wire fatigue and as a result it will inevitably end up with a broken side. This is very well known in the community.[1][2][3]
And after warranty expires(usually 1-2 years), Boss charges you $100 for a refurbished replacement (required that you sent your broken headphone back to Boss before you get your replacement) instead of just fixing yours (which should be much cheaper). Highway robbery!
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0u2GBBZbAyQ
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qlb094awkoo
[3]: https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/10706/How+to+fix+power+t...
FWIW I can confirm that this post shows great expertise in acoustic engineering, from the focus on the customer interviews/fieldwork (it is still very difficult to predict through synthetic tests in the lab how actual human will rate sounds) to the paired acoustic tests (we suck at comparing more than two sounds, we need pairing like in the ophthalmologist), the use of a critical listener, etc.
https://community.bose.com/t5/Around-On-Ear-Headphones/Bose-...
There can be a thousand factors, and these 20 objective tests are easier to trust than subjective listeners.
If I was reading this thread without experiencing it for myself I would be saying the exact same thing. Unfortunately for me (and lots of others according to the Bose forums) my subjective experience is the complete opposite of the outcome of these tests.
Luckily it is looking like they tested the wrong upgrade path which is reassuring as I have no idea how I could refute the tests otherwise.
There were sound rooms built to simulate a variety of real world environments, complete with realistic RF interference. They could test other equipment alongside their own, to be confident that they were producing real value for their customers. They’re pretty secretive so I won’t go into more details out of respect, but it was very cool and definitely made me a loyal customer.
All that aside, like you said the psychoacoustics thing is very real, and knowing them, they’re probably working on it.
what options can there possibly be? it uses bluetooth.
> Wireshark can probably be used to analyze it.
bluetooth has reasonable security built in. bose products make use of it.
The BT dump tool can be run on the bluetooth device (eg laptop, phone) and so get access to the negotiated crypto keys oe cleartext version of the comms.
You can turn off browsing history but the button says "hide" not "delete".
This happened again with the LG CX, surprise! It has a mic for alexa too! Luckily it's only on the remote. Guess which little dot is getting a tiny bead of epoxy first thing?
Anyone who puts non-tactile touch controls on _headphones_ shouldn't be allowed to design electronics interfaces ever again.
The QC35 had it right with physical controls.
This is a non-issue.
Edit: lol; my opinions from months of first hand everyday use are wrong, and should be echo chamber hidden by people who have never used the product.
As a user of bluetooth headphones I am really struggling to think of a button not on that list that is important. The only thing that's really coming to mind is pause but maybe that's what you mean by mute?
Those are literally the most essential buttons and by definition you are mostly going to be touching them when the headphones are on your head where you can't physically see the buttons. This is not a great experience.
B. There is nothing you can’t do here with the phone itself. Volume up and down can be done without even looking at the phone. There is nothing that will stop you from enjoying the product even if you for some reason just refuse to accept the capacitive buttons aren’t trash.
Have you actually had a problem with the Bose capacitive gestures? Because I haven’t.
You and everyone else disagreeing with me. “Important” as I in “I can use them all day without ever using a gesture control”.
How are you going to disagree with me having never touched the product? You literally NEVER need to use the capacitive controls, all the VITAL things are buttons. Does that wording work better for you?
You claimed that volume and skip controls weren't important ("the important controls are buttons ... capacitive interface is for ... vol up/down ..." implies volume controls aren't important). That is what I disagreed with. I don't need to have used a particular pair of headphones to know that volume and skip are important controls for me. Same way I don't need to have used a particular keyboard to know I value having an "e" key.
And I consider all of those buttons to be pretty important - I use all of them regularly, including when I'm not right next to my phone.
I just hope the 700's are an aberration, and that Bose goes back to a more practical design next time.
Typical HN smugness.
One person who actually has the product, has used it for months, and has themselves designed capacitive gesture button circuits then went back to traditional buttons - says “they aren’t that bad, work fine”...
And a trove of people who have never used the product downvote and tell them they are wrong.
OK.
No; it’s not a terrible design. I’ve maybe twice had to repeat a gesture. It’s drag up/down for volume, tap for mute, and drag forward for skip song. It works fine. Where the hell do you get the opinion it’s a terrible design if you’ve never used them?
Or by slight analogy: You rate a product 4 out of 5 stars. If someone that hasn't used the product insists on a different rating, they're being smug and part of the negative trove you've described. But if someone just says "4 out of 5? Not good enough when other models are 5 out of 5." there is nothing wrong with that.
You giving the overall product a 5/5 isn't the point I was trying to make. I was talking about your rating in the button category, sorry if that wasn't clear, and it was just an example number.
Not really important, but standing around and tapping on my headphone to trying and failing to pause the podcast I'm listening to feels pretty idiotic.
Edit: Have them since early October
I own a pair of Monster iSport Freedom 2's which have a touch control for volume and skipping, and oh boy is touch control a bad idea on headphones. For example when wearing the headphones under a hood, while outside in the rain, it sometimes registers rain as a touch action, so your volume or song changes suddenly. Also the touch control accurancy isn't very stellar indoor either.
So based on my experience, I gladly take physical buttons over touch controls, since for me touch controls are more like a gimmick than good usability.
My biggest issue with touch control is the user experience. That is, when it works flawlessly it's as good as physical buttons, but I rarely experience the same level of reliability with touch as with buttons.
If you have the Sony's and you're happy with them, then good for you. They're good headphones, just not the best ones for me.
But good for Sony for giving that choice to the user via a firmware update.
My QC35's died - probably not Bose's fault. Too old to be repaired, apparently. Got the 700's. And I seriously regret it. The fact that it's hard to get the "gestures" right is one thing. What's worse is that the controls trigger spuriously all the damn time.
They also semi-regularly just hang, make a somewhat high-pitched sound, and reboot. They regularly announce "bluetooth off", just after the announcement that a device disconnected. With multiple connected devices there's constant problems with only one of those being audible. Changes which.
As another negative anecdote I was gifted one, and simply had to return it.
The acoustic performance was really just underwhelming.
I went back to my Beterdynamic DT-770 headset at a third of the price, and it sounds immensely better. It’s a night and day difference.
However, the touch interface is bad. Swiping up/down is often confused for left/right, which is probably me swiping the wrong way, but it's not a natural motion. If I take the headphones off and put them around my neck, my chin often activates the headphones by mistake.
That said, I picked them up at an airport. I wore them with a mask on a 10 hour flight and I've never slept so well on a plane. That alone was worth the price and I can suffer the touch controls for now.
So much more wonderful.
That said, Dell's button user interface sucks. The "user configurable buttons" revert at inopportune times. I set button 1 to select DP and button 2 to select HDMI. When I'm shutting down the HDMI system and the DP system is asleep, I frequently find myself in a scroll-up-down menu selecting an input.
What I think is that at hardware manufacturers the culture favors hardware design (think no-moving-parts buttons). Or maybe the good UI people are working at companies or departments where there is plenty of work to do, like frequent app redesign.
They really dug deep here, and I respect them all the more for it. I've had really good experiences with Bose products, even though they're priced at a slight premium. They're just VERY high quality.
Or is that a different model?
I would never, ever buy headphones that need an app, for any purpose.
If you have that mapped to alexa/ok google/etc, there's some other button combo to hit to cycle the NC level, but totally doable in hardware. (Though, changing the mapping DOES require the app).
However I suspect there will be a push for app-dependent headphones in the near future, I can only hope it will fail.
> In several conversations with customers, there was some confusion about noise cancellation function during a phone call or other Bluetooth HFP connection.
Yeah, because having multiple bluetooth profiles, one of which has good cancellation and one of which doesn't due to SelfVoice is disastrous UX.
Anything that perturbs the bluetooth settings on sound-producing devices and switches the default connected endpoint is going to trigger a severe degradation of the headphones' noise cancellation and noise floor. There is no light, or button, or obvious cue to indicate that the device is in a special state. Fixing the problem requires understanding this weird, hidden behavior (strike one) and dealing with bluetooth settings (strike two) on a device that isn't the headphone (strike three).
I am very happy to hear that they are doing something about it, because Windows has recently started clearing my repeated efforts to disable the SelfVoice endpoint. Even though I understand the problem completely (which is always the biggest hurdle) dealing with it has recently become a severe enough hassle that I've been considering ditching the Bose on account of it.
Am I understanding you correctly that it's possible to somehow disable this feature or something? If so, can you share?
The "Manage sound devices" panel should show a list of "Output devices" and a list of "Input devices." Click on one to disclose a Test button and a Disable button. You should see your headphones show up twice in the "Output devices" menu. Testing one of them will result in a clean sound, the other will result in shit sound (due to SelfVoice). Press "Disable" on the one with shit sound.
Then do it again next time Windows Update runs and clears your user settings, and again, and again, because apparently clearing settings to default is something that Windows Update does now (I've seen it in other places too).
* They're possibly moving to having only the Spring updates do this.
https://community.bose.com/t5/Around-On-Ear-Headphones/QC-35...
Note, the "solution" is buy new headphones if yours are our out of warranty.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bugTnRbnhQ&feature=youtu.be
The "solution" was to unpair everything and to make sure to only connect to one device at a time. I really wish the switch actually just disconnected the power.
Other than that they've been pretty solid so far.
Each pair of headphones starts to have audio issues right after the 2 year mark, usually resulting in the total loss of audio in one ear, and their support channels will only advise you to buy a new pair.
Have switched to the competitor - Sony WH-1000XM3. So far so good.
But really disappointed by the quality and longevity of Bose's premium products.
Won't buy again, and for such a serious issue to take this much effort for Bose to allow firmware downgrades just confirms that for me.
There are great headphone manufacturers, such as Sennheiser, Beyerdynamic, Focal and Grado, who make excellent studio level headphones that can easily last for decades in use, delivering that beautiful sound and feeling comfortable in daily office use.
I think the biggest problem is having Bluetooth in your headphones, which then requires a battery that is not easily replaced, and requires software and technology that either has bugs or degrades in a faster manner. I'd suggest while sitting in front of your computer, to use a corded pair of quality headphones and keep using them for years to come. Less waste, less money spent, better sound.
I've had Beyerdynamic's dt-880 model since 2003. I could still use them in the office, but them being open I replaced them with the dt-1770 pro model to not annoy my colleagues that much. Brought the 880's home and now with the lockdowns I'm again using them daily while writing software. Just replace the ear pads every five years, clean the drivers with pressurized air and you're ready to go.
The brands you list have fine build quality, classic headphones based on the same physics and materials dating back about 50 years. They sound great, but they're not particularly novel, nor are they the same kind of product that is discussed here.
What I tried to say here is that maybe we're not witnessing progress with headphones such as the QC35. That maybe buying an expensive pair of headphones that needs to be replaced in every few years and which provide a subpar audio quality is not really that great.
I understand the noise cancellation aspect in certain settings though. I own a pair of QC35's only for commuting. They work great for that, and the mediocre sound quality doesn't really bother me when I'm on the go. But the more I'm using them the more I'm getting worried are they going to be waste soon and if so, should I buy a new pair to replace them.
Of course they are.
If they provide a substantially better listening experience, at a lower cost and with passive noise-damping and less use of technology prone to failure, that makes them 110% relevant to the discussion at hand.
“The semi-open headphones attenuate ambient noise, but do not exclude it completely”
https://europe.beyerdynamic.com/dt-880-edition.html
These are very different products.
My experience are with the 770s[1], which are closed and has amazingly good passive noise damping. I don’t miss ANC one bit.
I use them in the office and on flights only. The only thing I did was replace the foam cups in 2019 due to [expected] wear. No problems with them at all ever. I've had mine since 2016.
Same story for a colleague I've known for 8 years.
Eventually lost the QC15 and upgraded to QC35 - a decision I never regretted even though I fly way less now and use $600 audiophile headphones. Fantastic headphone - research the analytical tests, the QC has almost flat response and the noise cancellation makes it very pleasing to listen to. YMMV.
The only thing that gets me is wind. Wind is wicked bad for calls. Even for music. The wind makes a very loud sound when it hits the over-the-ear cups from the rear. I've taken to wearing a hoodie when I walk in wind, and that solves it. Mostly. Walking with a hoodie when it's not really cold is not fun, as I get really hot.
Steps to reproduce:
-listen to music
-make a call at the same time (such that the mic is active)
-the music you were listening to now sounds like you’re hearing it through an old telephone, with the quality you would expect from hearing some “on hold” music.
This sounds contrived (why would you listen to music and make a phone call at the same time?) but in reality each of these modes is a separate Bluetooth profile, and the latter of the two is used whenever the mic is active (for me... that’s across iOS, macOS and Windows. I’ve not tried it on android.) So, if you’re ever using software that holds the mic open, you basically can’t use the QC35’s for any high fidelity audio.
Switch from High to Low cancellation mode in wind and the static pops should go away.
The only thing I felt I was giving up in the Bose is in power. When I demo'd them, I ran them up as loud as I wanted to go. Then I tried to go one notch higher, and found I was already at the top.
Over the years, I've found the exact same thing. They go exactly as loud as I want and no louder. Every once in awhile, I try to push it a bit more, and find I'm already at the top.
Impressively, they never clip, and the bass is always "just enough". But I'm sure for some folks that won't be quite enough.
However, it does sound like they had a number of issues or regressions in prior versions of the firmware (eg. an update made some units connect to the wrong Bluetooth profile). I hope this demonstrates business reasons why it's important to get your product code right every release. Had they maintained a better reputation for competent product updates, it's unlikely user skepticism would have ballooned this into such a big deal.
A limited time? Why? How limited?
I totally understand dev's wanting their customers to run the latest version for a number of reasons. And it being hard or even impossible for e.g. online services to keep older versions available. It's totally reasonable to have the default setup auto update or strongly push the latest version. But a motivated user wanting to run a specific version should have the ability to do so. Especially when we are talking about hardware.
Yes, some users will be idiots and cause support work. But if the companies behavior indicates no one using the product can be trusted to not act like an unreasonable idiot, it's not a big stretch that customers will think the same about the producer.
Yes, please! Shut that fucking thing OFF. The only time I use the cable is because it doesn't have this terrible feature.
Especially when I connect to something like an amateur radio there's zero reason to ruin the sound by mistaking listening to amateur radio as some sort of "call".
I've not tried transmitting, because listening is so bad, thanks to this feature.
> His father was an Indian freedom revolutionary[4] who, having been imprisoned for his political activities, fled Bengal in the 1920s in order to avoid further persecution by the British colonial police.
> In 2011, Bose donated a majority of the company's non-voting shares to MIT on the condition that the shares never be sold.
I updated the firmware on my QC35s a couple of years ago, and the ANC got worse. Like, maybe 6 decibels or so worse, with strange white noise. I wrote to them explaining the problem and asked how to revert firmware, and they said it wasn't permitted and instructed me to "turn the device off and on" or something like that as a way to pretend to address the issue and make me go away.
I have only owned two products whose manufacturers refused to solve the problem when a new release of software or firmware ruined the user experience. The first was my Google Nexus 6P that boot-looped itself to death upon startup after an Android upgrade, and the second was my pair of QC35s.
Since then, I don't trust Bose's updates and refuse to update any of my other devices made by them.
In this post they're adding an option to do this. Albeit only to a single earlier firmware.
Apple (and many other companies) could learn something from this transparency.
[0] https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Bose+QuietComfort+35+PARTIAL...
https://www.joesge.com/products/bose-quietcomfort-qc35-li-io...
I guess my next set of headphones will still be from Bose.
However, you can change the button to control noise cancellation level instead, and that's actually very useful since "high" doesn't handle wind well when I'm outside, while "low" does.
I'll level with you, 700s have the best microphone in the this class. But sound, ease of use, features, and sound quality goes to the Sony, not to mention than the Sony's can be found on sale for half the price of the the Bose.
If you're a big user of wireless, Bose doesn't support LDAC which is arguably the best codec for sound quality wirelessly.
Right now in the audio community, Sonys are the the consensus recommendation unless you expect to take many calls on them.
Ok, but I bought both and returned the Sonys because “the consensus” was wrong imo. I have first hand knowledge with both. I paid $275 for the Bose 700s.
Maybe my first hand experience is wrong.
I turn it off sometimes as it can be disorienting to me at times.
https://www.bose.com/en_us/support/article/set-the-action-bu...
- activate Google Assistant or Siri
- disable noise cancelling
Given that I don't have the app, I can't use the former anyway. However, to set up the button for the latter functionality, I have to use the app.
In other words, I can't turn off noise cancelling, and have a useless button on my headphones.
I really hope they decide on launching since everybody thought they were launching September 2019 :(
You can turn noise cancelling off and there are also a number of settings for the noise cancelling.
Overall they are great and I moved to Sony from Bose. But if I didn't want noise cancelling I would probably look elsewhere for better sounding headphones.
On a recent flight I only found out that there was some kid crying to whole way at the end of the flight when I took the headphones off.
But its sound quality in general is nothing like a good pair of headphones. I also have the Sennheiser HD-800 and it's a totally different league, but only in a quiet room. My perception of its quality improved when I moved to a quieter apartment with no road noise coming in from outside.
That's a rather early failure for ~350$ of hardware.
I do however have lingering concerns about their spyware [0]. Does anyone know if that's been addressed?
https://community.bose.com/t5/Around-On-Ear-Headphones/Bose-...
The QC35 is so great that I developed ear problems for using them too much. So be careful with that.
I have tested QC35 before, on a loan from a coworker. The FR is very good, but the distortion is horrendous. Measurements made on the set confirm by reviewers do confirm my impressions were spot on. Apparently the reason the FR is good is because they have a builtin DSP doing EQ.
When I heard the price, for such bad sounding headphones, I thought about them as a scam. Later, I learned they don't just distort a lot, but are also not made to last. Brand loyalty is high, and the money BOSE spends in marketing plays no small role on this. BOSE devices are expensive and those who buy them get associate the price with quality. When they break, they just buy BOSE again.
For me, I quite like Bose products because their bluetooth pairing and connectivity seem to be significantly better than what I can get from cheaper brands like Taotronics, etc. I have always found products to be well built, even for full-plastic devices that are subject to more wear and tear than they deserve.
I was in bed one night playing with the Bose app on my iPhone. It prompted me to do a Firmware update - I use these headphones A LOT - at the time I was wearing them for 6-8 hours a day for weeks on end and was very 'in tune' to their abilities.
It was very quiet in bed, I'd been wearing them while reading a book for an hour before - I did the firmware upgrade and immediately noticed a difference when they rebooted. I was very confused and started playing with settings etc. I then Googled the issue and realised how widespread it was...
The report linked is super interesting, but, I trust my own ears as a musician and I know something changed with the headphones 100%.
I was able to determine that the problem was the QC35 microphone was stuck “on”, so it was attenuating the audio and amplifying ambient noise. I’ve had similar problems before with other Bluetooth devices and suspected that the firmware change caused them to identify or connect to the wrong Bluetooth device profile.
Fortunately, restarting my phone resolved the problem. I don’t know why that worked, and I don’t know whether it was the phones fault or the headphones fault. It just affirmed my reasons for avoiding software updates.
[0]: https://community.bose.com/t5/In-Ear-Headphones/Right-ear-st...
So, for folks suggesting Apple et al follow Bose's lead, it's clear they all follow the same play book i.e. a design flaw isn't their problem the moment the warranty is up.
I'm someone who will escalate and put in the effort to be righted when a company does wrong, but it would sure be nice if companies didn't outright lie, coverup or have hidden warranties/"you're an exception" when they screw up!
I picked up a pair of the A20 aviation headsets, just before they announced the Bluetooth update. (I also fly, but when I do they are the bug smashers, not the commercial ones) They turned around and cross shipped a new module for my headset free of charge.
I did end up replacing the older QC3's with one of the QC35 wireless headsets. Nothing but positive things to say about their kit. For the most part, it has been used hard and worked flawlessly. When I have had an issue - they took really good care of me. Would reccomend.
(With the QC35, I've really not needed to do anything with them. They just connected to my Linux box and Andriod tables OOTB.)
The firmware updates are installed silently in the background while AirPods are charging, so I didn't have any choice in the matter.
FWIW - I agree with installing updates automatically silently in the background because it solves a ton of issues for both developers and 99% of users. But the developers must thoroughly test the performance in real-world prior to pushing updates to users AND offer a way to downgrade.
1. https://9to5mac.com/2020/01/18/airpods-pro-noise-cancellatio...
I've tried it with 4 different phones now, and they just cut out every time.
Bose has been kind enough to exchange several pairs at no cost and hassle, but its not a problem with one of them, its all of them
I don't know what they have that they think is so secret, that thry can't tell us what bugs were fixed.
As an engineer I dislike this lack of transparency.
On the other hand these headphones mostly just work, apart from a few annoyance with reconnect time, etc.
Ironically... also looking at purchasing their product
QC35’s are a major seller for them so it’s good to see the effort going in to investigating the issue. Hopefully the effort gone in to investigating carries through to better software in general so it’s easy for them to verify what’s changed and also better release procedures again so they can reduce the post release debugging they had to do here.
Seems almost a little overkill, but if their reputation is at stake then you want to make sure.
Now I just wish there were a similar investigation into the AirPods Pro update -- some people swearing it massively impaired the noise reduction, other people saying there's no difference and some tiny subset of people are always going to be imagining things (or taking a different train or working in a new office, like this article).
At least the idea of being able to downgrade firmware ought to put people's minds at ease... but I can also see why technically that might be annoying to implement.
Specifically, damage caused by the customer from use or misuse, or buying inadequate replacement parts from 3rd party manufacturers.
Is Bose selling original ear cushions somewhere ?
Honestly I'm not great at noticing sound quality differences, unless there's a huge difference. But this one seemed to affect so many people I stayed away.
https://www.sportys.com/pilotshop/aviation-headsets/bose-avi...
But damn they spent a lot of time to get to that conclusion.