Bose QC20: First Thoughts

I heard about noise-cancelling headphones a long time ago… on a Sony Walkman…

Back then Sony’s Walkman came with noise cancelling as standard. According to my classmate, the tech works by using a mic to pick up the sound waves around you, then firing the inverse waves to cancel them out.

Anyway, the effect was passable, though I clearly remember it wasn’t actually that great.

Years later, I’ve found myself wanting noise-cancelling earphones again. No real mystery why: the office AC is too damn loud, my place faces the road and that’s loud too, and I seem to have developed a touch of nervous exhaustion.

When it comes to noise-cancelling headphones, the only choice is naturally Bose, and I didn’t want big over-ears, so the QC20 was the only option.

Worth mentioning, the QC20 has counterfeits — see here — sold wholesale then flogged on eBay for 1300 or so, so watch out when buying.

Honestly there’s not much to say about the noise-cancelling side of things. Comfortable to wear, 16 hours of battery, and the cancellation is stupidly obvious — the world goes quiet all at once…

Beyond that, the only thing I actually care about is: how does the QC20 sound as an earphone?

On this point people disagree. Some say it’s only good for hearing that something is playing. Others say it’s got the chops of a ~1000 yuan earphone.

So, time to put on some songs…

David Tao’s 讨厌红楼梦 — textbook R&B. The moment it started I frowned…

Muffled. Way too muffled. But listening closely, the bass didn’t seem that heavy either, and the vocals weren’t that bad… I thought about it and found the problem:

The treble has almost no presence on these earphones — like it’s been erased.

So next up was a song whose treble goes over the top on most earphones…

君の待つ世界 came off reasonably well. Strong sense of rhythm, and none of the over-bright highs other earphones give you. But still… the QC20’s treble is just too absent. I don’t know if that’s down to the noise cancelling itself.

You can try turning off the cancellation and listening, but then the sound quality is worse than a radio.

So is the QC20 only good for “hearing that something is playing”? I don’t think so. The treble is bad, sure, but everything else is decent — it’s just that the missing highs make me uncomfortable, like the soundstage shrinks on the spot, or one driver died. Then again, plenty of people say this gives the earphones a full “cabinet” flavor, and that it’s always been Bose’s tuning style.

I’ll admit I haven’t listened to many speakers, but my impression is that speakers have tweeters too… Still, given the mids and lows aren’t bad, a missing treble does fine on songs that don’t lean on that part of the timbre…

Anyway, these are just noise-cancelling earphones. With cancellation this good plus sound that’s passable (and honestly fine once your brain adjusts), what more can you ask for, just for a little bit of quiet…