Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) vs Bowers & Wilkins Px8

Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen)

Noise cancellation remains the QC Ultra's headline strength — adaptive ANC that reviewers repeatedly call best-in-class for travel and the office, measured at an 87% reduction in perceived outside loudness. The new option to switch ANC fully off is the main functional change; transparency (Aware) mode is good but lacks Sony's automatic talk-detection.

• Six months on, the noise cancellation is still without question the best the reviewer has heard on any pair of headphones tested.
• Lab testing measured the QC Ultra 2 reducing the perceived loudness of outside noise by an average of about 87% — a slight improvement on the original's ~85%.
• On a plane, the ANC easily reduces the 80-85 dB cruising hum of a jet engine to barely a background murmur, though there is sometimes a half-to-full-second delay before it fully clamps a sudden 100+ dB takeoff spike.
• Bose stays top of the tree with Sony when it comes to ANC headphones — the second gen keeps that crown.
• Switching ANC fully off is a new capability the first generation never had — and it is what unlocks the headline 45-hour battery figure.
• The big remaining gap versus Sony: with Bose you must press a button to switch into Aware/transparency mode, where Sony detects when you talk and does it automatically — owners call that a dealbreaker.
• Owner experience is nuanced: the ANC is fantastic on consistent noise like trains and buses, but less convincing against sudden, unexpected sounds.

Bowers & Wilkins Px8

Good ANC but not class-leading.

• ANC is effective for most situations but Sony and Bose still lead on raw noise blocking