Bose QC2 vs. Bose QC2
 

That's not a typo in the thread title.

I've had a pair of Bose QC2 phones for a couple of years and love them. I bought them as a treat to replace my Bose QC1s, which I gave to my wife. She started wearing them around the house and managed to damage the cord so that one phone stopped working. I called Bose and was told they couldn't be repaired, but I could trade up to a set of QC2s for $100. Good deal, so I sent the old phones in and waited for my new phones to arrive.

They came today. They're silver in color, unlike my older QC2s which are gold. I tried them out and found two pleasant surprises. First, they seem to cancel more noise -- I was only testing them in my home office where I have a computer with a noisy fan, but the newer QC2s seemed to do a slightly better job; there was a stronger "cone of silence" feel when they kicked in (if you have good noise cancelers, you know what I mean). However, the second pleasant surprise came when I plugged in my iPod. I've always thought my QC2s sounded good. However, these new silver QC2s made my older pair sound harsh and muddy. The definition was incredible, really a very noticeable difference -- instead of that usual, "everything's taking place in the middle of my head" sensation I get with most phones, I heard a well-defined sound field, with voices and instruments cleanly placed in space and easily distinguishable from each other.

I vaguely remember seeing something about Bose improving the QC2 around the time they introduced the QC3. This, however, is a pretty significant improvement, at least to me. My wife gets my old QC2s (she's fine with that -- she doesn't listen to music when we fly, she just likes the noise reduction, and she doesn't fly 1/10th as much as I do).

If you've passed on QC2s previously because you weren't impressed with the audio quality, you should give them another listen.

I purchased my QC2s about three years ago and they're silver in color, so I think the silver ones have been around for quite some time. Never had any distortion in audio when plugging into my iPod.

I purchased my QC2's almost 3 years ago and they were Silver too! Sounds was always good, but too bulky so they stay at home now. Are you sure your originals are genuine? Never heard of/seen Gold QC2's.

Mine are bronze / champagne colored and not silver like the new ones. You can really only tell the color difference if you hold them up to the new ones. I got mine when they were just released in 2003 as replacements for my QC1 from 2001.

BTW, I'm going on my third set, in three years, as the headband keeps breaking. Luckily Bose has not had any problem replacing them each time.

Bose never claimed that they managed to further reduce noise on the QC3s. They just reduced their size.

Myself, I have the "silver" QC2 ones for a about a year now. Can't complain. Very far from perfect when it comes to listening to music through an iPod.

PS Where is ScottC? I want to hear that motto again without any noise cancellation please! :D

I know the new silver QC2s also have a reinforced headband. I had the "champagne" ones (as the Bose store referred to them) that I bought about 2 years ago.

A little story about them:

A few weeks ago I picked up my headphones off the table and the headband snapped.

I took it to a Bose store and they said they had to send it to the Bose repair place somewhere and to call the next day for a return authorization number (or something like that) before they could send them out. They were able to identify these as over a year old because the silver ones with reinforced headband had been out a year.

I called the service center and then called the store with the number. The service center told me that once they received the headphones that they would send me a new pair at no charge--maybe because the breaking headbands is a known problem.

After 2 weeks I called the service center to check the status of the replacement. When they said they hadn't received them, I called the store. After a few calls, they told me that they didn't send them out for some reason and to come in to the store for a replacement.

Since I just bought the Shure E500s, my wife wanted the QC3s so I paid the $50 difference and got the QC3s--and the free mp3 player!

Now I have to sell my wife's QC2s which she barely used...

What's been the process you've used to get them replaced? I have a pair of the original bronze / champagne colored QC2s and the headband recently broke at the temple. While I've jury-riggged holding them together using a cable/zip tie, it sure would be nice to get them repaired or replaced.

And as for the original topic, yes there does seem to be a slight difference in sound reproduction between the original QC2s and the newer silver QC2s. (While I have the bronze / champagne QC2, my S.O. has the silver variety). However I noticed an even bigger difference in sound quality when using an iPod Nano with the QC2s compared to my older 2nd gen iPod. I was shocked at how much clearer and better music sounded when using the Nano with either vintage of the QC2s.

There have been older threads that I've used as a great reference when my champagne QC2 headbands broke. I went to the store and they just gave me a new pair... of champagne QC2's. :(

Fast forward a year... those broke AGAIN (ok, my head is larger than average, but still...). So, I broke down (no pun intended) and bought the QC3s and couldn't be happier because they don't make my ears sweat as much.

Just call Bose. My old (bronze/champagne/gold) QC2s broke once. I called, sent in the old pair and they sent me a new pair, free.

this is nice. i may considering getting a bose.

Note that Bose does not offer a lifetime warranty -- the gold-colored QC2s had either a design or manufacturing defect, so Bose will replace them (still pretty decent of them). Repairs for other problems are $75 (or were when I had some QC1s repaired).

Earlier this year my silver QC2 band cracked. Took it into a bose outlet at whichever major airport I happened to be in (maybe DEN or SFO? hard to remember) and asked them if anything could be done to repair it. They took one look at it and gave me a new silver set in a new case, etc., and apologized for the inconvenience! Apparently they are used to this problem.

Is it only the Gold ones that break? I was sitting next to a man who had silver ones on a recent MSP-DTW flight when they broke mid-flight. I told him he should take them in to get them replaced; he told me that was already a replacement pair.