Review on QC Ultra Headphones (vs my QC35 II)

Had the QC35II for 6 years now, haven't found another pair worthy of letting them go. I've tried the QC45/NC700 but found the bass on those wasn’t as good and the sound felt flat. It felt like Bose was focusing more on looks and features and less on sound. AirPod Max was the best contender but not great for calls.

After trying the QC Ultra for a few days, here's my take:

Sound Profile: The Ultras sound very clear. The high notes are great and the bass is strong, though not as strong as the QC35 series. I felt the QC35 punches/rattles just that little bit more. With the EQ bass boost setting though it seems to be nearly 1:1. Overall I would say it's better than the QC35II, much cleaner/balanced profile with punchy bass.

Immersive Audio: Not a fan of the feature. It messes with the EQ too much (higher highs). Bose should have invested more time improving the overall driver performance instead. Also for music I don't need spatial audio. Might be better for YouTube.

Design / Comfort: The design is sleek and feels high-quality, a mix between NC700 and QC35II. I wore them all day and they were comfortable. They hardly feel there. They also smell amazing, like that new Apple product smell, it won't last of course. I don't find they get sweaty at all, slighty warm and maybe a little itchy but not sweaty. They seem to be a slightly larger cup so your ear sits inside more vs sitting on the pad with 35's. After a few days of using the Ultra's I put back on my QC35II's and they (the QC35) felt a little cheap.

On-Head Detection: The on-head detection is a really good feature, it's handy to remove them and not need to pause audio. The issue is when I need to scratch my ear, I move the ear pad the slightest and the music stops. It would be great to adjust the sensitivity on this. Also for some reason it seems to trigger when removing the right ear only and it does have a 1-2s delay before it pauses. No setting to change the left/right.

Auto-sleep: It’s a nice feature that works well with the on-ear detection, once they are asleep there’s a wait of 4-5 seconds before the headset boots up, connects and the music plays again.

ANC: Haven't tried it in the right environments yet, but in a home office it already sounds way better than the QC35II. It could be almost too powerful. I would say roughly 25-30% better performance. The transparency mode is great for when walking around streets where you need to pay attention.

Case: new case has indentations on where to place headphones. Not a fan as it's like a jigsaw puzzle. Much preferred the QC3II case where I could simplify fold them up and put them in.

Final thoughts: It's a good choice for those trying to find an upgrade path from the QC35II. An expensive upgrade I may add, but Bose has cornered us. If Bose had made QC35III with USB-C and upgraded BT codecs that would've been ideal (for a reasonable price).

Edit: The On-Head Detection doesn't seem to play well with YouTube in Chrome on macOS. It pauses fine, but doesn't resume. Strange as play/pause button works fine on keyboard so it's a issue with headphones. This feature does work seamless with the Spotify Desktop app however.

Edit 2: Found another weird issue with on-head detection. Headphones were primarily connected to laptop where I’m listening to music, but also my phone as I was managing settings via Bose app. Anyway I took my headphones off and put them down on the desk and went into another room. I then started watching YouTube on my phone and the video kept pausing every second. I disconnected my phone from headphones and the video started working fine. Need to look more into multi-device but I would’ve assumed since I hadn’t changed the audio output to being "headphones" on my phone that it would interfere, kinda seems buggy and rushed as a feature.