Headphones that don’t fit your ears or your budget

Bose is launching an attack on the jewelery earphone market but the results are not living up to expectations.

Known for having democratized headphones and earphones with active noise reduction, Bose not only releases products in this segment and tries to innovate with affordable and general public products. This is their desire with the Bose Ultra which features their design.

A design that is reminiscent of earrings and which means that the headphones never really fit in the ear. For those allergic to in-ear headphones or headphones like Apple Airpods, Bose, with this model, offers to “place” the headphones on your earlobe, serving as a conductor after contact so the sound reaches you.

On paper, the promise is interesting, especially with the many excellences used by the manufacturer in its communication. Once in hand, however, it’s a different story.

A special design

As it stands, the design of the Bose Ultra is amazing. It must be said that we are not used to placing our headphones around our ear lobes and not in our ears. A difference that is made possible by the silicone seal whose front part is made up of a speaker, which transmits music to your ear canal, and the back part which has a ball and an action button that allows you to make a light tightening so that during your activities Headphones do not move.

When walking or playing a very physical game, the first observations: Bose headphones do not move. This is rather good news because on the surface, we still have the impression that they can fall with a simple gust of wind. The silicone seal is tight enough to hold the two parts in place, but we’ll still be curious to see if the whole thing holds up after several months of use.

That being said, the Bose Ultra has one advantage that other headphones don’t: you can always keep it on your ear. This will obviously depend on the reception of your interlocutors, but the fact that they do not fill your ears, makes it difficult to see them as headphones at first glance. A simple click on one of the two action buttons allows you to mute the music, and the dedicated app even offers modes to make your discussions easier – but we’ll come back to that below.

Do you, like Huawei’s FreeClip headphones, feel like you’re wearing earrings? A little, but without it being annoying from a style point of view. Bose offers a very healthy design, without really reflective plastic or bright colors, and in fact it is quite successful. However, despite the lightness of the whole thing, after a good hour of use, we could start to feel a little pain just where the headphones “connect” to the earlobe. This will certainly depend on each individual, but it is worth noting because one may have the impression that there is finally something comfortable behind this surprising design.

In addition, it should also be noted that it is not necessary to put the headphones on your ears on the fly, as with the AirPods. They take some time to position and often require both hands to secure them properly. Hence it needs to be carried around instead of constantly being taken out and stored in the small storage box supplied with it, which acts as a charger.

Very limited sound experience

But design isn’t everything, because beyond its striking design, the concept of the Bose Ultra rests on its ability to listen to music without being completely immersed.

As it stands, the “open audio” technology that Bose puts into its devices isn’t enough to compensate for noisy environments. If Bose promises to “externalize knowledge” by “benefiting from a deep voice,” the result is not so good. Especially since the experience can change: with music, the brain manages to make some compensation for the surrounding noise, so listening will usually be fine, especially since during music, there is constant noise. On the other hand, if it involves watching a movie or series or listening to a podcast, forget it. It is remarkable at best, catastrophic and unheard of at worst.

Although Bose offers an “immersive” mode, it has little interest in realistic situations. If you’re the type to take public transportation, sometimes you’ll hear your neighbor more than your music. In the office, on the other hand, or at home, the Bose Ultra works convincingly, especially with the spatial sound that allows you to position the sound according to the movement of your head.

Very expensive headphones

Another complaint is the sound quality. With Bose, we were used to something very reliable, including active noise reduction devices. But the Bose Ultra requires that, to be useful, it needs to go through the Bose Music app, and by default, it needs to quickly reduce the bass that’s especially present. And even tinkering with the equalizer, we don’t have a very appreciable result depending on the genre. Only the Pope is doing well, the rest are very poor. The Bose Music app, in fact, provides basic settings and allows you to better adjust the immersive mode.

Note that during our testing, we encountered some disconnection issues. At a certain point, the headphones no longer wanted to connect to our iPhone, before being put back in the box and then refitted, apparently restarting the connection. This didn’t happen often, but considering the little effort it takes to reposition it on his ear, it can get a little annoying in the long run.

You also have to deal with the fact that when you restart music for a long time, it starts on the right earphone before spreading to the left. It lasts barely half a second, but it’s very surprising and not very pleasant. A concern that is specific to the Bose Ultra as other headphones and headsets from the same brand that we’ve been able to test are fully functional.

The final mistake also turns out to be the price. The Bose Ultra is particularly expensive, selling for 349.99 euros. We can imagine that the unique design of these headphones might add to the bill, but the price is not commensurate with what they offer.

For the same price, Bose has very efficient in-ear headphones with active noise reduction. If we consider the fact that it is not really necessary to put it in your ears, it does not justify everything. Whether in terms of comfort, listening quality and more generally everyday experience, the Bose Ultra is not really up to par with the overly premium price.

most read