Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsThere are more ear tip sizes available online + Turn off In-Ear Detection to fix connection problems
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 22 November 2022
They include 3 sizes of ear tips, but I needed a size bigger than the medium ones, and smaller than the large ones. I knew that because my old set of bose wired in-ear headphones have ear tips that are intermediary size and fit perfectly. So they wouldn't stay in my ears. I was gutted and was about to return them until I thought to check if Bose sell more sizes... and THEY DO. Which just blew my mind. They sell sizes 0, 1, 1+, 2, 2+, and 3. If you need a different size google "bose StayHear™ Max tips", and you'll find them on the Bose website. I got the size 2 delivered, and the wing is the perfect size, but the tip that goes in the ear canal is way too fat (it's massive (massive (massive!))), way bigger than my old wired headphones, so they instantly pushed themselves out my ear. Luckily there is also a 3rd party producer of the wing tips who sell on amazon, (search amazon for "Adhiper Ear Plugs Replacement Bose Sport Earbuds") so I brought theirs, and their tips are a smaller normal size, and they stay in my ear perfectly. Problem with them though is that the material is tougher and after about an hour they start hurting. Wish Bose had more options with different size ear tips as well as different size wings. But, overall, you have loads of different ear tips to choose from there, so you will likely find a great fit.
I tried them out before I updated the firmware and was disappointed that the treble was much higher than my old wired headphones, and there was also a pop sound when pausing and playing. But then the firmware update fixed both issues by adding an EQ, and stopping the pop by adding a rapid feathering of the volume when playing and pausing. The sound quality is noticeably better than my old headphones too.
Had no connection issues so far. They connected to both my phone and PC straight away. I've had many Bluetooth receivers in the past for my old wired headphones, and with all of them there is sometimes minor connection annoyances. I think that's just more a problem with Bluetooth in general rather than devices. These actually pretty much connect instantly. And in the app you can choose which device to connect to so that's much better than having to go to the devices to disconnect first.
Only thing I'm not liking is that they amplify the noise coming from the outside world slightly. Sometimes that is useful, like if you are talking to someone, but I'd still take at least one out anyway to be polite. The problem mainly is it amplifies the noise of traffic going by, which isn't too bad when playing music, but if listening to podcasts or youtube vids it means you can't hear what's being said. I wish there was a way to turn the amplification off. I guess people like that you can hear traffic while out running for safety, but I usually prefer to just look both ways, and hey that's even more exercise.
I was hoping they would have a version 2 of these out along with the QC earbud 2's, coz the QC 2's look great, but I'm pretty certain they won't stay in my ears without the wing tips. Hopefully they release a new version next year and make them even smaller, and even add QC. Or just make the QC 3's available with wing tips so they have a perfect fit suitable for sport.
Edit after a month: Dropped a star because I'm getting frequent problems with the right earbud not connecting. Sometimes it takes 10 seconds to start playing audio. Sometimes you have to put back in the case to reset them, but then often they still don't connect after that. You have to keep putting them back in the case to reset them multiple times until they suddenly magically work properly.
Edit again: I fixed this issue by turning off the "In-Ear Detection" in the app. It was getting really annoying. I find the auto pause annoying too anyway, so I won't even miss that feature. Back to 5 stars
