I travel quite often, and when I go on a work trip or vacation I never leave home without a tech item, a pair of noise canceling headphones, which are the perfect travel headphones. They are invaluable for canceling out the loud noise of airplane engines and enjoying entertainment, whether it’s from the seatback entertainment system or my personal device. If it’s a long-haul flight, I’ll keep them going without the music playing, while trying to nod off for a few hours, silencing the world around me so I can drift off to sleep.

I’ve tried countless pairs of noise-canceling headphones, but there’s a new pair that have become my go-to: the Bose Quitfort Ultra 2s. They boast an upgrade over the first-generation model that launched in 2023, and they remind me a lot of the Bose Quattrofort 3s back in 2006 and were completely worn.

The noise cancellation is excellent

The world literally melts into silence

The Bose Quitfort Ultra 2 Wireless Noise Canceling Headphones from one of the best headphone brands from one of the best headphone brands offer precise active noise cancellation (ANC) when you’re in a familiar mood. It adjusts to filter out sudden spikes like noise in a busy airport or construction noises on the road while traveling as a passenger in a car.

I wore them all the time on long flights from my home in Toronto to Spain, including two flights there (via Paris) and two back. The ANC was fantastic, even suppressing some shrill noises from a child near the back of the plane. The difference was night and day when I took them off compared to theirs, and the quietness also helped me enjoy faster naps. Comfort is a key feature to consider with noise-cancelling headphones, especially if you plan to wear them for long periods of time. They are also very comfortable.

Back at home, I’ve tested them in several other settings. I wore them while I was empty, and my Dyson’s shrill voice became a vulgar grump. When working at home, the noise of the furnace is practically a call. At the coffee shop, a noisy fan above my head at the table was silenced enough that I didn’t have to switch tables during the busy lunch hour rush. The chatter of other patrons as well as the background music was significantly reduced, as was the clatter of my fingernails on the keyboard. Walking down the street by my house, construction workers were fixing a broken water main on the street, and their machines didn’t interrupt my walk with the kids. Wind noise is also significantly reduced.

Custom noise properties

Adjust the settings to your liking

Not only can you turn the noise on and off using the app or the controls on the headphones themselves, but the app also has a neat slider to adjust, with maximum noise or vice versa for maximum noise cancellation based on your setting. I always like to crank it up to high, regardless of setting. But if you’re traveling with the family and still want to be able to hear the kids, or if you’re not sensitive to noise, it’s fine to just slide it halfway down.

Cinema mode is designed to enhance dialogue while watching movies or TV shows, or listening to great podcasts or audiobooks, which I often do. This mode helps widen the soundstage, improve sound and balance so you can hear dialogue more clearly. Listening to my favorite podcasts like smartless, It felt like I was there with the hosts as another guest on the wall.

From a practical use point of view, you can program a press-and-hold shortcut on the volume slider on the earcup to toggle between noise-canceling modes. This makes it easy to turn on alert mode if there’s an announcement coming from the pilot or a flight attendant wants to take your drink order. (You can also use the side button.)

Other useful features make them great at home

Enjoy lossless wired listening, and more

Credit: Bose

Up to 30 hours of battery life per charge, six hours more than their predecessors (23 hours when listening to immersive audio and if you turn off ANC), there’s automatic Bluetooth standby, which puts the headphones into low-energy sleep mode, even if you don’t actively turn off the power. It can last for months, and indeed, in the many months I’ve been using them, I’ve never worn them out. But the battery is always around that percentage when I pop it back in a few days later. After about a week without using them, I put them on, and Audio Assistant announced that the battery was at 90%.

I like the inclusion of a 3.5mm to 3.5mm cable for connecting to the in-flight seatback entertainment system for movie watching. Remember, most airplanes don’t have Wi-Fi connections to the display. With Bluetooth, there is multipoint, so you can connect to two devices at the same time. Every time I pop them at home, they announce “Connected, Christine’s MacBook Pro” followed by “Connected, Christine’s iPhone.”

While the Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2s doesn’t compete in audio quality with high-end brands like JBL known for their prowess in this department, the sound is decent with booming bass. You can adjust the audio to your liking by tweaking the listening modes (Quiet, Active, Immersion, and Cinema-Aware) and EQ options based on the music you’re listening to and your personal preference.

A wonderful inclusion for audio purists is a USB-C-TO-USB-C cable that gives them the flexibility to connect to a source device for flexible music enjoyment, supporting files in 16-bit, 44.1 kHz, or 48 kHz. You can stream them from a variety of sources, such as Apple Music, and Spotify now has lossless audio, too. It’s an unexpectedly noticeable improvement in sound quality, an absolute must-have when you’re kicked back in your listening chair at home. But where these headphones really shine is with their noise canceling capabilities. So much so that they’ve become the new pair I slide into my travel bag for every trip.

Battery life

Up to 30 hours

Bluetooth

Bluetooth 5.4

Foldable

yes

Charging type

USB-C

Audio jack

2.5 mm headphone port

The Bose Quitfort Ultra Gen 2 headphones boast improvements over the Gen 1 version from 2023, and the noise cancellation is downright fantastic.