Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Review I One Mile At A Time

Review: Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones

Updated: May 27, 2021

Published: December 22, 2013

Link: Bose QuietComfort 20i Noise Cancelling Headphones

For years I’ve used the Bose QuietComfort 15 as my “travel” headphones, and they’re great. There’s lots of debate over whether or not Bose is worth the money, and while I haven’t done too close of a comparison to other products, I do know the quality is damn good, and I’ve never been disappointed. I’ve had two pairs of Bose headphones in the past eight years, and they’ve served me well for millions and millions of miles.

That being said, I’ve found myself not taking them on a couple of recent trips for a few reasons:

They are a bit bulky, and I do everything I can to travel as light as possible
Nowadays many airlines give out high quality noise cancelling headphones aboard, so there’s less use for them
Many airlines have “built in” headphones that are connected to the IFE system, so you can’t even use yours to watch the IFE if you wanted to
For the most part my iPhone headphones do the trick if I want to listen to music at the gym or watch something on my iPad on the ground

Bose’s newest headphones are the QuietComfort 20i Noise Cancelling Headphones (they retail for $299), which are actually in ear. The huge selling point of these for me is that they’re tiny, so they hardly take up any carry-on space. I decided to pick up a pair recently through Amazon.

So there are a few things that are different about these than their previous on ear headphones:

The QC20i comes with a rechargeable battery which lasts for 16 hours. The USB charger is included, and plugs into the “base” of the headphones and then any USB charger.
You have the option of listening to music with or without the noise cancelling feature. This is a moot point now since electronics are allowed in all stages of flight, but I found it frustrating in the past that you couldn’t use Bose headphones without the noise cancelling feature being turned on.

I’m not a tech guy so have no way of running any sort of “tests” on the quality of the sound, but I will say it’s really, really impressive, and comparable to the previous on ear QC15s I had. I had the headphones in my ears long enough to watch a movie and still felt comfortable afterwards. The added thing that’s awesome about these is that you can use them at the gym, while I would never have brought on ear headphones to the gym (not only because it looks silly, but it would’ve done too much damage to the leather).

Anyway, for the time being I’m keeping my Bose QC20i inside my QC15 case while traveling, but soon enough I’ll probably just travel with the QC20i and leave the on ear headphones at home in order to save space. This is a great product.

Anyone have a pair of these, or know of any comparable quality in ear noise cancelling headphones?

Here are a few pictures of the QC20i:

Bose-QC20i-1

Bose-QC20i-2

Bose-QC20i-3

Bose-QC20i-4

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James Guest

September 16, 2014, 3:54 pm

I recently bought a set of the QC20s and got vicious feedback through the right earbud. I travelled a week ago and my ear feels almost numb still.. The NC function is fantastic, but I'm quite concerned that this set may be faulty and have caused soem serious damage to my hearing. So beware.

‼ 0

TV Guest

September 1, 2014, 4:56 am

Well, the QC20i is a bit of a disappointment for me, and here are why: 1 – I had to turn the volume way up (like 5 bars) to get the same volume as the QC15. 2 – There is a slight high pitched hissing noise when the noise cancellation is on (may be this is me because I usually hear hisses and hums from electronics that most people either can't hear or not paying attention.), and I found this same issues with other in-ear NC headphones. 3 – I tried on all 3 different sized (L,M,S inserts, included) and none of them fits well. The L is way too large, so I counted that one out. The medium fits better, but still too big for my ears, however, the small one are not big enough to cover my ear completely, what a bummer. 4 – At $300 is way too much for it. I think $200-250.00 are more reasonable. 5 – There are no comparisons with the QC15 in terms of lower frequency responses, and there details aren't there at low volume. Practically, the bass is muted out almost completed. Between the QC15 and QC20? I opted for the QC15.

Bgriff Diamond

January 6, 2014, 8:18 am

Late, but in case you're still reading this -- when airlines have the three-prong plugs, one plug is power for their proprietary noise-cancelling headphones; you can use a standard two-plug airplane adapter (as are included with all Bose headphones, for example) in the bigger two holes and plug in any noise-cancelling headphones that use their own power. As for airlines that have headphones built into the seats, I know what you're talking about (though I'm not sure I can think of an example off the top of my head -- Etihad First maybe?), but in my experience, there is always also a separate jack somewhere that you can plug your own headphones into.

Fan New Member

December 24, 2013, 6:58 pm

Sold!

SparkyinCA Guest

December 23, 2013, 10:21 pm

As a footnote, I used the Bose QC20i on UA, LH, LX, OZ, and DL and they worked perfectly fine without an adapter of any kind. Maybe others could provide more data points so we all know where it works..

Review: Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones

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