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Bose announced a new pair of noise-cancelling headphones on Wednesday, and they don't look like the old ones.
For years, Bose has sold its best-in-class, beloved QC-series noise-cancelling headphones with the same or similar design as the Quiet Comfort 2 headphones from 2003. It was like the Porsche of headphones: easily recognizable and iconic design, but it's still the same design year after year.
For 2019, it seems that Bose is stepping out of its box and trying something new.
As for performance, what more could you expect from the already-great QC-series headphones? Well, a lot more, actually.
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Check out the new Bose Noise Cancelling Headphone 700:
The new 700 headphones come with Bose's "next generation" of noise-cancelling tech.
They also ditch the hissing noise that noise-cancelling headphones usually have.
Bose says to expect "clear, natural, and balanced" audio quality.
Bose says it'll avoid boosting bass, vocals, or treble, as it's going for a "faithful" reproduction of your music.
One of the biggest improvements in the new 700 headphones is taking better phone calls while you're in a noisy environment.
Bose says there are two dedicated microphones for picking up your voice, which work with two of the noise-cancelling microphones "to dramatically improve voice pickup."
In Bose's words, "a beamform-array isolates your speech, suppressing everything else that's audible. A rejection-array adds a second line of defense, tracking then blocking the most disruptive remaining sound — from a coffee grinder to other dialogue nearby. It all happens in real-time — adapting as you move, turn your head, and your environment changes."
Essentially, Bose is saying that phone calls with the 700 headphones will be a lot clearer for you and for the person you're speaking with, especially if you're in a noisy place.
Bose says the improvements to picking up your voice will also help you communicate with your smart voice assistant, including Apple's Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon's Alexa.
Bose proposes that the 700 headphones will let your smart voice assistant understand you a lot better in noisy environments. The idea is to let you dictate text messages or ask your assistant to call someone, even when there's lots of ambient noise, which might prevent your assistant from understanding you on headphones that don't cancel out unwanted noise while you're speaking.
That sounds great on paper, but talking to smart voice assistants and dishing out commands — or dictating a private thing like a text message — out in public where there would be a lot of noise is still one of those things that I don't feel society is ready for. Maybe it's just me. People certainly got used to wireless headsets for phone calls, so it's entirely possible that dictating a text message complete with grammar and punctuation commands — like "full stop" or "comma" — or asking your smart assistant for directions out loud in public will be totally typical some day.
The new Bose Noise Cancelling Headphone 700 will come in black or silver color options.
These are the same colors that the Bose QC 35 IIs came in, so nothing new here.
They should look and feel more "premium" than the plasticky QC 35 headphones.
The new 700 headphones are partly made of stainless steel, "premium" components, and have fewer visible screws and seams. Just based off the photos provided by Bose, they look a lot sleeker than the aging QC 35, which felt very plasticky, especially for their $350 price tag.
Bose is also ditching the buttons from the QC 35 headphones, and replacing them with touch controls on the 700 headphones.
There are still three buttons on the new 700 headphones. One for power, another for adjusting the noise-cancellation level, and another to summon your smart assistant.
Music controls will use swipes and taps.
The Bose Noise Cancelling Headphone 700 are available to pre-order now for $400, and will be released on June 30.
$400 is, indeed, more expensive than the old faithful $350 QC 35 headphones. Good thing, then, that Bose isn't completely replacing the QC 35 headphones with the new 700 model.
If the new features in the 700 don't tempt you, you can still get the old fashioned — but great — QC 35.
But before pressing the buy button to pre-order, it's worth waiting for reviews. I'll be working to get my hands on the new Bose 700 headphones as soon as I can to deliver a verdict.
