Bose Quiet Comfort 3, very much true (Bose QuietComfort 3 Noise Cancelling)

Member Name: roktimdutta

Product:	Bose QuietComfort 3 Noise Cancelling
Date:	04/10/09 (32 review reads)
Rating:

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At not less than £300 that too with such high degree of low high frequency response, it is just ruthless exploitation of brand reputation and popular trust. Simply coercion, but please just have the patience of going through the review. Yes these people can afford to do that, the reason is once you have a feel of it you really won't rue your wallet getting thin. I would not be at all surprised if somebody come and says that why Bose QuietComfort 3 and not Sennheiser, they are tinier and still cheaper even their noise-canceling technology is not bad. That is the crux of Bose's pride and arrogance. In fact these guys has excellent customer feedback network and they have assimilated the massage and has come out with Bose QuietComfort 3 to establish that they can do it even better and proved beyond doubt that people who look for quality are prepared to pay the price. Bose has gone a step further by coming up with an add-on adapter (around £20) just to ensure that people can use it like a hifi stereo headset for multimedia cell phones (Nokia N91 to N97, while using with N97 just a bit of thinking is required and why not use it those Palm Treos).

THE DESIGN:

If you want to compare QC 2 and the QC 3 both weares that intelligent looking fold-flat design, both come out with those carrying cases as extra protection just that later one is wee bit smaller than its predecessor with the now famous two-pronged adapter for air travel. Infact they have not even forgotten to provide you that extra bit cord for obvious reasons.

It must be underlined that QuietComfort 3 is definitely smaller and lighter than the QC 2. The designing has got a lot of thinking in it since the company had taken care to make it point so that it is supra-aural meaning on-ear and not going over the ear (check out with QC 2, probably this all due to their feedback network) which makes it superbly comfortable. The foam makes it sit snugly giving you cushy and cozy feeling.

NOISE-CANCELING:

The best part of this aspect is the design itself to say the least since those memory foams, as soft as pastries, has been very cleverly used shutting the surrounding noise and kicks the possibility of sound leaking out to a large extent. It should be mentioned that the noise-canceling circuitry has been tucked inside the headphone and not attached within the cord which to my mind is a dumb idea. Cute things should be cute. But then you cannot have it all, may be in summer and especially in tropical countries it is a bit of a botheration, just that much.

AUDIO QUALITY:

MP3 encoded at 128kbps gives excellent quality but a bit cloggy on the high frequencies otherwise if one considers the whole audio spectrum the performance must be rated at 9 out of 10, that's my personal rating.

BATTERIES:

A big surprise compared to the QuietComfort 2 is the lithium-ion battery of the QC 3, grab it out of the headphone tuck it right into a compact travel charger fitting into most sockets available, no embarrassing and messy ware connections.

Although it claims a battery life of 20 hours but my experience is 14 hours atmost, while on travel back-ups are there at a price but that ease of putting in a standard AAA cell that was possible in QuietComfort 2 is done away with although additional chargers are available which complies with different voltage requirements.

MY MOST ANNOYING FACTOR:

If you want hear music with this gear has to have itself charged. The juice goes and the music dies. Damn annoying. But I will always be with it.
I think Bose has done the pricing in such a way that it has become an advantage rather than a disadvantage.
(This review was first published at ciao.co.uk)

Summary: Expensive, but you got pay for true quality.

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