I thought Bose had mastered noise cancelling - then I listened to these headphones

• The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (Gen 2) are available for $449 in five colors.
• They solidify Bose's warranted confidence in its design, comfort, noise cancellation, and sound performance.
• The only major, eye-catching upgrades relate to battery capacity and power management.

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How do you convince yourself to pay $400+ for a pair of headphones that look and operate almost identically to the previous generation? That's a question I hope to answer, and a question Bose hopes its latest flagship headphones will answer based on their performance alone.

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I spent months now working, traveling, and lounging in the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (Gen 2), which I'll refer to as the QC Ultra 2, searching for how Bose spent two years making them more "ultra ...