Bose QuietComfort 45 ANC headphones are probably the new boss

By Chris Burns/Aug. 31, 2021 11:32 am EST

After knocking it out of the park with the go-to headphones for noise cancellation with QuietComfort 35 II, the company is back with a new set of audio blasters. You're likely among the first people that purchased the QuietComfort 35 II (or QC35 II) back in around 2017. It was a big deal, then, that the headphones had a new button that could summon Google Assistant! With the Bose QuietComfort 45, the company is throwing a larger collection of upgrades at the public.

QuietComfort 45 work with a new AWARE mode that allows the wearer to hear everything around them without taking the headphones off. This is enabled sort of like a pair of hearing aides – with microphones both inside and outside the earcups and a proprietary digital chip to sense and compensate for sounds around the wearer.

The opposite of AWARE mode is QUIET mode. With QUIET mode, the company includes their most advanced noise cancellation "for instant quiet anywhere". The "whoosh" now happens "in a fraction of a millisecond."

Similar bits used for QUIET mode are used for voice isolation in the headphones. Phone calls and commands (for voice assistants on connected smart devices) benefit from noise cancellation and voice isolation. The headphones use a rejection array to dampen and block unwanted sounds, while a beam-form array isolates voices.

These Bose QuietComfort 45 headphones work with what Bose describes as "up to 24 hours of battery life." They also say that they'll support "20 back-to-back conference calls," and that they'll be "outlasting the longest flights in the world." These headphones charge with an included USB-C cord and charging block, with which they can charge from zero to full in two hours, or "a quick 15 minutes for three hours of playback."

The Bose QuietComfort 45 headphones will be released on September 23, 2021, and pre-orders start today. The starting price of the Bose QuietComfort 45 headphones will be approximately $330 USD from Bose online and "select resellers."