I’m a headphone collector. I have headphones for Hi-Fi listening sessions, waterproof earbuds for working out, and a good pair for audio editing (and a bunch of others lying around the house). The one thing missing from my collection was a good all-around headphone. Something that sounds great, works on-the-go, can easily take calls, and cancels annoying sounds when I need to focus. Enter the Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700, a wireless headphone that combines all the above into something that looks great and fits my head.
People with bigger heads know the pain too-tight headphones can cause after a few hours of use. Size and fit is one of my highest priorities when looking for new headphones. I’ve been wearing the Bose NC 700s for hours at a time while I work, and they don’t cause strain. They’re lighter than any other over the ear headphones I own and are easily adjustable. My ears fit into the cups perfectly and I can move around without them slipping off or needing adjustments.
The Bose NC 700s offer 11 levels of noise cancellation, allowing you to block out the world around you as much (or as little) as you’d like. Download the Bose Music app to change levels and set your favorites, or press a button on the left cup to set it manually.
Think of the app as the control center for the NC 700 headphones. You can use it to control volume, view battery level, bluetooth sources, and to give your headphones a unique name. There are a ton of easy to use settings within the app, including a recently added EQ feature.
Don’t want to fiddle with an app every time you want to make a change? You don’t have to. There’s a touch control area on the outside of the right cup that lets you use gestures to control volume, skip tracks, take a phone call, hear the battery level and more. There’s a bit of a learning curve around the gestures, and I definitely don’t have it down yet. The app gives you a gesture cheat sheet you can refer to.
If you’re like me, you’re working from home or always on the go, and you need tools to help amp up your productivity. The Bose NC 700 headphones work well for multitaskers like us, with a built in voice assistant to help you get stuff done. Choose from Siri, Alexa, or Google Assistant, and then you’ll be able to press a button on the headphones to get directions, answers to questions, and more.
Bose cranked up the mic system on the 700 by adding 4 microphones that pick up your voice and isolate it from background noise. This helps ensure that people can hear you even when there are other things going on around you, like loud kids, roommates practicing drums, or basic street noise.
There’s even a built in function that lets you bypass the music and noise cancelling to hear things around you. This has been handy for me when someone nearby wants to talk to me while I’m working.
The NC 700 does a lot, but what about battery and build quality? Nobody wants shoddy headphones that need charging every few hours. Luckily, this isn’t an issue, as the headphones look and feel well-constructed. I’ve used them daily for about a month – putting them on, taking them off, adjusting them, using the touch controls, and more. They still feel solid, like they will stand up to whatever I put them through.
The soft rubberized headband is silky smooth, but the metal within helps ensure against breaks. The cups themselves slide up and down the metal, allowing you to better adjust to ensure a perfect fit.
I’m finding a fully charged battery level around 19 hours. So far, there hasn’t been an issue with the headphones running out of power after extended use. I charge them with the included USB-C charging cable every few days and I’m good to go.
If you did ever run out of power, you can go old school and plug in an audio cable, included along with the carrying case and USB-C cable.
We can’t talk about headphones without talking about the (arguably) most important part: sound quality. As I mentioned, I have a lot of headphones, and sound quality is vital to me. The Bose NC 700 headphones sound great at their default settings. The bass is solid without being overpowering, and music is clear, not muddy like other headphones can sound.
If you feel the need to tweak the sound, the new equalizer built into the Bose Music app allows you to do just that. My current settings for bass, mids and treble are 7, 4, and 5, respectively.
I’ve listened to a lot of music with these headphones since I got them, and almost everything I’ve played has sounded great. As I type this, I’m listening to Knife Slits Water, by A Certain Ratio, and the drums and bass are powerful and distinct, while the vocals stand out above it all, just as they should.
Bose recently released a firmware update for the NC 700, and I’ve only run into one issue. When I’m connected to multiple devices via bluetooth, the secondary device (for me, it’s my MacBook Pro) sometimes stutters. According to the Bose support forums, the teams are aware of this and are working on a fix.
If you’re looking for wireless noise cancelling headphones that deliver sound quality, functionality, fit and style, you’re hard pressed to beat the Bose Noise Cancelling 700 Headphones. They look great, fit well and sound amazing. Get yours in 3 unique colors for $299.
