The Bose Ultra Open earbuds are beautiful. Unlike traditional open earcup designs, they look as much like jewelry as they do consumer electronics, so much so that I’m now considering purchasing some. But these earlobe decorations are more than just fashionable; They are powerful.
These premium open-back headphones give you high-resolution audio support, some spatial audio magic, Bluetooth 5.3, and more. They’re pricey, but for everything you get, I think they’re worth it if you’re looking for open-back earbuds. There’s an issue here that annoys me, but I’ll get to that later.
Bose Ultra Open Earbuds: Price and Availability
The Bose Ultra Open earbuds will be available on February 15, 2024, and will be available in black and white smoke. You can buy a pair directly from Bose for $299, or from various retailers like Best Buy and Amazon for the same price. I’ve had them for a while and I don’t remember seeing this when they were released, but on their website you can also buy it bundled with a wireless charging case cover for an additional $48, bringing the total cost to $348.
| category | Bose ultra-open earbuds |
|---|---|
| Connectivity | Bluetooth 5.3, BLE |
| Supported codecs | AAC, SBC, Snapdragon Sound aptX adaptive |
| Battery | 7.5 hours playback, 4.5 hours (immersive audio on) |
| TOLL | USB-C charging box, fully charged in one hour.Quick charge, two hours of playback in 10 minutes |
| Weather resistance | IPX4 |
| weight | Each earbud weighs 6.3 grams and the charging case weighs 43 grams |
| Application support | Bose Music for iOS and Android |
| color | Black and white smoke |
Bose Ultra Open Earbuds: What are the benefits?
I won’t go into detail on this since I mentioned it both in the verdict and in the introduction, but aesthetically I like the design. The fit and finish are excellent, depending on how they fit into the case. With some open-back earbuds, you almost have to dig them out of the charging case, but the Bose Ultra fit right on top of the seat in the charging case. Attached by strong magnets, they snap into the seat when you bring them closer. In front of their seats, there are bright LEDs indicating the charging status of each earbud, in addition to the status LEDs on the front of the charging case.
Unlike traditional open earcup designs, they look as much like jewelry as they do consumer electronics, so much so that I’m now considering purchasing some.
These headphones don’t have extra tips or ear wings as they are an over-the-ear design with the speaker part located inside the antitragus or antihelix, depending on how you position it. The battery is located on the other end of the cuff, behind the ear. It fits snugly, but I’ve been wearing it for a few hours, and I only feel some wear and fatigue in my right ear, but not in my left ear.
In the gym, they don’t move at all! So if you use them for dynamic HIIT workouts, you’re stable and don’t have to worry about sweating because they’re IPX4 waterproof. While wearing them at the gym, I was surprised the music wasn’t drowned out by the poor selection of playback on room speakers.
As someone who spends a lot of time at the gym, I like the tactile buttons. They are large, easy to operate, and very responsive.
Bose “Ultra” open-back speakers
The default stereo sound is good, and the three-band EQ in the Bose Music app makes it even better, but the immersive audio and auto-volume features elevate the listening experience to premium levels. Open-back earbuds are known to provide mediocre audio results because they sit outside the ear canal. After all, that’s the whole point of this product area, but Bose went into the lab to engineer OpenAudio technology, which combines powerful sensors and acoustic structures to brilliantly deliver audio to your ears.
This is great because immersive audio (Bose’s version of spatial audio) really shines in the Bose Ultra Open earbuds. It’s a kind of virtualization that makes the audio feel like it’s coming from the sounds around you, and allows you to choose from one of two head tracking options: still and in motion. Still keeps the audio in a fixed position in front of you, so no matter where you turn your head, the audio comes from one direction. “Motion” moves with you and where you turn your head.
Turn on immersive audio and listen to music and watch movies. Bose does a great job of creating virtual layers without making it sound like some cheesy over-processed audio gimmick, and it works with all your music, not just Dolby Atmos Or Sony 360 Reality soundtrack.
You’ll get great audio from the Bose Ultra Open earbuds, but there are a few things you need to be aware of.
The full audio image is subtle, though, so let’s discuss it briefly. The louder the Bose Ultra Open headphones pump audio, the less robust they become. At lower volumes, the audio reaching your ears is richer. Bass response is more pronounced, mids are warmer, and treble quality remains consistent at different volumes.
This goes back to auditory masking. The whole idea of open ears is that your surroundings are just as important, if not more important, than what’s coming through the earbuds. So at maximum volume, the audio isn’t meant to be overwhelming, but rather to take a backseat to whatever’s going on around you. This issue never occurred while passively listening to music during my testing, but I could see some challenges when making calls in very noisy places.
One day during my review, I was talking to my dad on a busy street, and his audio certainly competed with the street noise. Again, this is a feature, not a bug, but it’s something you should be aware of. I could hear him clearly, but I had to concentrate a lot more than if I were wearing active noise-cancelling earbuds.
Apart from that, other premium features I like are the sound notifications and aptX Adaptive support. Sound notifications aren’t just beeps and chimes, but voice prompts and confirmations, like saying the name of your connected phone or telling you the battery charge status.
Battery life also exceeds expectations, lasting six hours with immersive audio and auto-volume features enabled. Bose said I should only have four and a half hours with Immersive turned on. My listening volume was about 20 or 30 percent of the maximum volume on the Pixel 7 Pro’s volume slider, but with Auto Volume activated, it’s hard to tell whether that’s the true volume level being emitted at any given time.
Bose Ultra Open earbuds: automatic volume and auditory masking
Auditory masking is defined as “when the perception of one sound is affected by the presence of another sound.” Unlike earbuds, open-back earbuds are easily affected by ambient noise. I mean, that’s the whole point of them being open.
Bose does a great job of creating virtual layers without making it sound like some cheesy over-processed audio gimmick, and it works with all your music, not just Dolby Atmos or Sony 360 tracks .
To balance the experience, Bose has implemented a feature called Auto Volume, which automatically adjusts the volume of whatever you’re listening to based on the noise around you. Simply put, when you’re in a quiet office with the volume set quite low because there’s no competing noise, and then step out onto a noisy city street, Ultra Open automatically increases the volume to eliminate auditory masking.
I left this feature on most of the time, and it did an excellent job of raising and lowering the volume as I moved around different environments. I definitely noticed adjustments to it, but it was smooth and I think I may have noticed it more because I was listening to it and being critical of this review. Over time I think I might forget it’s happening and I could see the feature blending into the background.
Bose Ultra Open earbuds: What to do
Well, I like pretty much everything about the Bose Ultra Open earbuds except for two things in particular, even though one of them is just one of those “it’s pros can also be its cons” conundrum.
These $299 headphones don’t come with a wireless charging case by default, although their competitors do. Don’t worry, Bose has “solved” this “problem” by giving you the option of purchasing the $48 charging case accessory, which brings the total price to $348 if you want headphones similar to Sony’s WF-1000XM5 or Sennheiser’s Momentum True Wireless 4 USD 2024, priced at $299, and the original case should already support Qi. Instead, you can only charge using USB-C.
You can’t get multipoint connectivity right now, but there’s a feature in the Bose app that lets you switch connections from one device to another. You can even program the earbuds with shortcuts to switch connected devices without taking out your phone. This is a pretty practical solution for situations where multiple points are not available.
Finally, the auto-volume feature doesn’t really need improvement, but is more of a “caveat emptor” issue for those who might be talking to colleagues a lot or running with a partner. As much as I like this feature, I find it a bit troublesome for some people because it can increase your volume when you’re talking to someone. In this case, you may find yourself deactivating the feature so that the earbuds’ audio doesn’t compete with real-world conversations.
competition
In the open-back earbud category, the only competitor is the now-aging original Sony Linkbud with donut-shaped holes. As far as contemporaries in this price range that I’ve had a chance to review, I don’t think there are.
However, other open-back earbuds you can consider include the Shokz OpenFit, which cost significantly less but offer rich audio and excellent battery life. You’ll have to deal with finicky touch controls, and there’s no automatic wear detection or auto-off features, which could be an issue for those who forget to turn them off.
I won’t get into it here, but the point of open-back earbuds is that they don’t block ambient noise, which means, ideally, they don’t block your ear canal. Understanding how sound waves work, aside from the donut-shaped Linkbuds, the Bose Ultra Open are one of the only earbuds that don’t block ambient noise or sit on the ear canal, they are truly “open.”
Bose Ultra Open earbuds: Should you buy them?
You should buy it if…
- Situational awareness is your top priority
- You want easy-to-operate earbuds
- You want quality open-back earbuds
You shouldn’t buy this if…
- $299 is too much for you.
- You don’t have another $48 for wireless charging
- You need that bass!
If you’re looking for a good pair of open-back earbuds, look no further. The Bose Ultra Open earbuds are the next generation of open earbuds with some innovative audio features that make them worth buying. You guys have some future-proofing Snapdragon Sound support and Bluetooth 5.3 implementation, and did I mention they look great? The only thing that might stop some shoppers from buying might be the price tag and the wireless charging setup. But if those aren’t deal breakers, then these are worth buying. period!
The best premium open-back earplugs you can buy right now!
Bose Ultra Open earbuds feature OpenAudio and immersive audio technology to create impressive sound in an open earbud design. A comprehensive range of advanced features make these some of the best open-back headphones on the market right now.