Odi Productions
In this article, I’m going to give my HONEST Bose QuietComfort 45 (QC45) review for those who are wondering whether they are worth keeping or upgrading in 2026. I’ll be comparing the Bose QuietComfort 45 (QC45) vs Bose QuietComfort (2023), QuietComfort Ultra, Sony WH-1000XM5, XM4, Apple AirPods Max, Beats Studio Pro, and Sennheiser Momentum 4.
I’m going to do my best to share whether these headphones are worth it, and ideally who these headphones are for. I bought these headphones with my own money, and was NOT sponsored, paid, or received a free copy for review. All thoughts are my own.
I’ll be sharing my critical opinion with 10 years of experience as a professional music producer, audio engineer, and tech journalist. I also run the RecordingNow YouTube channel with over 25,000+ subscribers and over 5 million views.
Let’s dive right in!
Bose QuietComfort 45 (QC45) Headphones review in short
Now being officially discontinued and almost 5 years old in age, the Bose QuietComfort 45 is still decent but overshadowed by its improved successor in the newer Bose QuietComfort (2023). Personally, I would suggest upgrading to either the newer model or many of the competitive options available today. Competes with Sony WH-1000XM4, Sony WH-1000XM5, Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2, Bose QuietComfort Ultra (1st Gen), JBL Live 770NC, and Beats Studio Pro.
Pros and Cons
- Fun sound quality (after EQ)
- Great noise cancelling performance
- Insanely comfortable and lightweight
- Good value due to being older model
- Piercing treble without EQ
- QuietComfort (2023) is better overall
- Officially discontinued
Order HERE for the LOWEST PRICE AVAILABLE (Do NOT pay retail):
Disclosure: These affiliate links may provide a discount and in return, give us a commission in order to keep this website 100% independent to ensure honest unfiltered reviews 🙂
Sound Quality
Important Note…
I honestly think the stock Bose QuietComfort 45 sounds pretty bad.
The worst offender is the piercing treble, specifically around the 6-8 kHz region. It’s as if the “sound engineers” at Bose specifically wanted to bring out as much sibilance as possible.
(OR, they don’t tune the sound to cater to anything remotely modern like Pop or Hip Hop, and instead cater to their core demographic consisting mostly of Classical, Jazz, and (softer) Rock listeners. No hate, I listen to everything.)
For the casual listeners, “sibilance” is basically a sharp sound produced from “s” and “t” sounds in vocals. It hurts the ears and really breaks the immersion when listening to music, movies, or any other media.
Thankfully, we do have a free and easy solution here!
The Bose companion app has a customizable EQ that allows us to easily alter the sound. It’s quite limited because it only has 3 bands, but that’s enough to at least make a massive improvement in sound quality.
(The QC45 is not the only headphone that gets massive gains from its EQ, as the newer QuietComfort Ultra and Sony XM5 also badly need EQ to unleash their full potential.)
So with that disclaimer out of the way, I’ll be reviewing the sound quality WITH the following EQ settings. I think this is fair considering EQ is using the official Bose app that is completely free.
Feel free to try this out yourself and hear the difference it makes. Personally, I believe this is how they should’ve been tuned from the factory.
Best Bose QuietComfort 45 (QC45) EQ settings
- Bass: -1
- Mid: +2
- Treble: -6
Result: As you can see from the extreme Treble rolloff, my main focus was reducing the sibilance. It’s not entirely gone, but it’s much improved versus stock. Unfortunately this comes at the expense of less detail and airiness, but the overall sound is now much more balanced and way smoother. There’s a little touch of extra bass for fun, and this sound scales much better to higher volumes due to being smoother less sibilant.
Bass
Surprisingly, the bass is one of the more impressive aspects of the QC45’s sound quality out of the box.
In fact, the bass is my favorite aspect of the QC45’s sound overall.
It’s big, punchy, good slam, impactful, and less excessive than most other consumer headphone’s stock tuning (looking at you, QC Ultra).
In my preferred EQ settings above, I just turned it down -1 to sound a little more controlled, but I let it shine through by being slightly emphasized over the mids and treble overall.
From a critical perspective, the bass is rather unfocused and “loose”, but it sure is fun.
Mids
After the Bass, the Mids are fairly enjoyable out of the box, thus I didn’t touch it with EQ.
But as mentioned above, if you don’t listen to modern music with female vocals like Pop, you can bump the Mid +2.
Bumping the Mid up improves dynamics, creating a more energetic and lively sound. Drum hits are snappier and more impactful.
Male vocals and instruments like electric guitar sound nice and full. As a guitarist myself, I particularly found distorted guitars to sound pretty “sweet” and fairly realistic.
Treble
The piercing treble is easily the weakest aspect of the stock QC45 sound of the box.
Again, I don’t know what they were thinking by putting a peak specifically in the trouble frequencies of sibilance. I’m not even that treble-sensitive, but it’s impossible to ignore when it’s hurting your ears.
It’s just frustrating because it hamstrings this headphone out of the box, and caps its upside. There’s a surprisingly great-sounding headphone underneath this.
Thankfully, EQ drastically cuts down on the sibilance, but it’s still there even if we maxed it out at -10 Treble.
After EQ, the treble is much smoother and contained, but loses some detail and airiness up top.
This is a very treble-forward headphone, even after EQ.
Audiophile: Soundstage, Resolution, Separation, Imaging, Timbre
The QC45 surprisingly has some audiophile-esque qualities, but it’s inconsistent across genres and from song to song.
To start with the positives, these actually have a pretty big stoundstage compared to the rest of its class.
About equal size soundstage as the very good Sennheiser Momentum 4, and bigger than the Sony XM4 and XM5.
The Sony XM5 and XM4 sound relatively “flat” and 2D compared to the QC45, which is wider with more depth.
The bigger soundstage makes separation a little easier, but I also hear a lack of resolution and detail (partly due to EQ, but I also suspect the hardware), which makes things a little messy when songs get busy with more layers.
Timbre is also hit or miss, sometimes sounding pretty good and realistic, but other times artificial and unnatural.
Sound Quality Score: 8.0 out of 10
Comfort
True to its namesake and history, the Bose QuietComfort series has always been insanely light and comfortable to wear for hours on end.
The QC45 carries on this tradition, and is the lightest headphones tested in its class, only slightly heavier than the Sony XM4/XM5:
- Sony WH-CH720N – 186.4 grams
- JBL Tune 720BT – 223.2 grams
- JBL Tune 770NC – 227.1 grams
- Skullcandy Hesh ANC – 229.6 grams
- Bose QuietComfort 45 – 235.4 grams
- Bose QuietComfort – 236.1 grams
- Sony WH 1000XM5 – 245.9 grams
- Sony WH 1000XM4 – 251.6 grams
- Bose QuietComfort Ultra – 254.4 grams
- Anker Soundcore Space One – 260.6 grams
- Anker Soundcore Space 2 – 262.8 grams
- Anker Soundcore Life Q30 – 264.6 grams
- Beats Studio Pro – 268.6 grams
- CMF Headphone Pro – 280.8 grams
- Anker Soundcore Space One Pro – 286.3 grams
- Sennheiser Momentum 4 – 292.9 grams
- Anker Soundcore Space Q45 – 297.5 grams
- Nothing Headphone (a) – 311.4 grams
- Sonos Ace – 318.1 grams
- Nothing Headphone (1) – 328.3 grams
- Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2 – 332.3 grams
- Apple AirPods Max – 387.8 grams
Due to its insanely light weight, you’d think the QC45 scores perfectly for Comfort, and you’d be mostly right.
My only critique is that the padding could be a tad more plush, like it is on the more expensive QC Ultra line of headphones.
That said, the QC45 is pretty much perfect everywhere else, with ample interior earcup space and minimal pressure.
Comfort Score: 9.5 out of 10
Features / Battery Life / Build Quality / Practicality
Features
Originally released in 2021, the Bose QuietComfort 45 is a bit of an older headphone now, with its official successor simply named “QuietComfort” replacing it in September 2023.
There’s also the “big brother” flagship QuietComfort Ultra that came out shortly after in October 2023.
Despite its age, I found the QC45 to have most of the important modern features like customizable Active Noise Cancelling and Transparency modes, USB-C charging port, multiple built-in microphones for calls, and customizable EQ with companion app.
The only missing feature is Spatial Audio, which is not a dealbreaker to me at all.
The Bose QC45 also folds neatly and comes with a nice, very compact hardshell case. It’s clear that Bose designs their headphones and cases for frequent travelers and commuters who need to maximize bag space. I personally love this aspect.
Battery Life
The Bose QC45 is rated at 22 hours of battery life on a single charge, which is below average overall.
- Nothing Headphone (a) – 75 hours (ANC on), 135 hours (ANC off)
- Marshall Monitor III – 70 hours (ANC on), 100 hours (ANC off)
- Cambridge Audio Melomania P100 SE – 60 hours (ANC on), 100 hours (ANC off)
- Sennheiser HDB 630 – 60 hours
- Sennheiser Momentum 4 – 60 hours
- Sennheiser Momentum 5 – 57 hours
- Anker Soundcore Space 2 – 50 hours (ANC on), 70 hours (ANC off)
- Anker Soundcore Space Q45 – 50 hours (ANC on), 65 hours (ANC off)
- Sennheiser Accentum – 50 hours (ANC on)
- JBL Tune 770NC – 44 hours (ANC on), 70 hours (ANC off)
- Anker Soundcore Space One Pro – 40 hours (ANC on), 60 hours (ANC off)
- Anker Soundcore Space One – 40 hours (ANC on), 55 hours (ANC off)
- Nothing Headphone (1) – 35 hours (ANC on), 80 hours (ANC off)
- Sony WH-1000XM6 – 30 hours (ANC on), 40 hours (ANC off)
- Bose QuietComfort Ultra (2nd Gen) – 30 hours
- Sony WH-1000XM5 and WH-1000XM4 – 30 hours
- Sonos Ace – 30 hours
- Bose QuietComfort Ultra (1st Gen) – 24 hours
- Bose QuietComfort 45 – 22 hours
- Apple AirPods Max 1 and 2 – 20 hours
In my testing, I found this figure to be fairly accurate.
Build Quality
The Bose QC45 build quality is very solid throughout, with lots of metal underneath the plastic exterior of both the headband and hinges.
These headphones just feel very sturdy when handling.
One small caveat here is that the area around where the hinges swivel is kind of sharp and has very little clearance, so my fingers can get a little stuck/poked by this area when handling.
Practicality
The Bose QC45 is a great daily driver due to its lightweight comfort, foldable design, compact travel hardshell case, and strong noise cancelling performance.
On the downside, the battery life is below average by today’s standards.
Also, being an older model, the QC45 doesn’t have any spatial audio feature.
Features / Battery Life / Build Quality / Practicality Score: 8.5 out of 10
Active Noise Cancelling (ANC) Performance
When it was released in 2021, the QC45 was easily one of the top options for noise cancelling.
But years later, it has been surpassed by the newer Bose QuietComfort (2023) and especially the “Ultra” series in the Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2.
Outside of Bose, the Sony WH-1000XM6 and AirPods Max 2 are also now in a level above the QC45.
Like the QC Ultra, the QC45 allows you to customize 11 levels between noise cancelling and Transparency Mode.
On its quietest setting, the QC45 is quite effective at reducing outside noise, even on airplane travel with jet engine noises in the background.
For less noisy environments, I find that even halfway between noise cancelling and ambient noise can shut out the outside world with music playing.
My only wish is that the Bose app should allow you to fully turn OFF both noise cancelling and transparency modes, just like Sony and Apple offer.
Noise Cancelling Performance Score: 8.5 out of 10
Value
Now being replaced by the newer Bose QuietComfort 2023 model, the older QC45’s price is typically much lower than when it retailed for $329 USD.
The QuietComfort 45 is officially discontinued, so your best bet is finding a Renewed pair on Amazon for around $150 USD at the time of this writing.
I like the QC45 at its Renewed price, but there are more intriguing options these days that you can still buy brand new.
Value Score: 8.5 out of 10
Are the Bose QuietComfort 45 (QC45) Headphones worth keeping or upgrading?
The Bose QC45 is not a bad headphone, even by 2026’s standards.
That said, a LOT changes within 5 years when it comes to technology.
For that reason, I would highly suggest you consider upgrading, as the options available today are incredibly good.
Staying within the Bose family, the official successor in the Bose QuietComfort (2023) has noticeably better sound quality and improved noise cancelling performance, while maintaining an identical design.
If you’re willing to spend more, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2 is one of the best overall headphones you can buy today at any price, improved over the QC45 in every single way. Even the discounted QC Ultra 1st Gen is a solid upgrade over the QC45.
Outside of the Bose family, there are some surprisingly good budget headphones under $200 like the Sony WH-1000XM5 (on sale), Anker Soundcore Space One Pro, Soundcore Space 2, Nothing Headphone (a), and Sennheiser Momentum 4 when on sale.
We’ve reviewed all of these headphones below.
Some very strong alternatives in this class of wireless headphones are:
- Bose QuietComfort (2023 model)
- Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2
- Bose QuietComfort Ultra (1st Gen)
- Sony WH-1000XM5
- Sony WH-1000XM4
- Beats Studio Pro
- JBL Live 770NC
- Anker Soundcore Space One Pro
- Anker Soundcore Space 2
- Nothing Headphone (a)
- Anker Soundcore Space Q45
- Sennheiser Momentum 4
- Sony ULT Wear
- Sennheiser Accentum
- Anker Soundcore Space One
- Sony WH-CH720N
- JBL Tune 770NC
- Skullcandy Crusher ANC 2
Some Relevant Comparisons in this class of noise cancelling headphones are:
- Bose QuietComfort vs QuietComfort 45 (QC45)
- Bose QuietComfort 45 vs QC Ultra (1st Gen)
- Beats Studio Pro vs Bose QuietComfort 45 (QC45)
- Bose QuietComfort 45 vs Sony WH-1000XM4
I highly recommend you check those out next!
Overall Scoring Breakdown
Sound Quality (50% of score): 8.0 / 10
Comfort (10% of score): 9.5 / 10
Features / Battery Life / Build Quality / Practicality (10% of score): 8.5 / 10
Noise Cancelling (20% of score): 8.5 / 10
Value (10% of score): 8.5 / 10
Overall: 8.35 / 10
Order HERE for the LOWEST PRICE AVAILABLE (Do NOT pay retail):
Disclosure: These affiliate links may provide a discount and in return, give us a commission in order to keep this website 100% independent to ensure honest unfiltered reviews 🙂
FAQ
How old is Bose QuietComfort 45?
The Bose QuietComfort 45 was officially released on September 23rd, 2021, which now makes them over 4 years old at the time of this writing.
Are Bose QC45 discontinued?
Yes, the Bose QuietComfort 45 is officially discontinued due to being replaced by the QuietComfort in 2023, but you can still find QC45 for sale on Amazon new, used, and refurbished.
Does Bose QuietComfort 45 have good bass?
Yes, the Bose QuietComfort 45 actually has great bass performance, and is its strongest aspect from a sound quality perspective.
How We Tested and Our Methodology
RecordingNOW.com is a 100% independent publisher with over 10 years of experience testing and reviewing consumer electronics and headphones.
We currently purchase all of the products we test with our own money, and are not paid by any company or manufacturer to influence our opinions or decisions.
After purchasing the product, we conduct up to hundreds of hours of detailed hands-on testing in a controlled, acoustically-treated environment. Noise cancelling performance is tested in the real-world, primarily on airplane flights, coffee shops, and walking around large metropolitan city environments.
ODi Productions is our resident expert and author of this article, with 10 years of experience as a professional music producer, tech journalist, and audiophile.
Post Update History
- July 2026: Updated scores to “Version 2.0” of our Headphone Scoring System. Added long-term updates throughout post. Included comparisons to newer models including Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2.
- February 2025: Original publication date.
Read Next
Best Noise Cancelling Headphones under $200
Bose QuietComfort Review (2023 Model)
Bose QuietComfort Ultra 2 Review
Bose QuietComfort Ultra (1st Gen) Review
Bose QuietComfort vs QuietComfort 45 (QC45)
Anker Soundcore Space One Pro Review
Anker Soundcore Space 2 Review
