My wife normally isn’t one to splurge but after her Bose headphones died, we tried a couple other brands, returned them, and went with the QC-35 II despite them being more expensive. The “comfort” part is key, she’s on the spectrum and has a hard time with headphones irritating her, and these are hands down the most comfortable.

We also like the Bose soundbar as it has a mode that makes dialogue more intelligible on our TV.

I had the new QC Ultra and gave it away. The sound was mediocre at best and you can't turn NC off - a dealbreaker for me (no, passthru is not the same as off). Hope it helps someone make my mistake aa they are quite pricey.

Now if I could change the firmware to turn NC off, that would be something entirely different...

I love my QCII earbuds, comfort and noise cancellation blow the airpodpro3's out of the water. But sadly the new hearing aid features of the airpodpros are very handy to me, so I have both. I wear the QC2's when I'm at home alone, and the app3s when I'm out and about and expect to have to have some conversations. My ears aren't so bad yet that I need hearing aids, but they are bad enough that I'm forced to lean in more than I used to. Aging is the worst.