When the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) launched at £450 last year, the premium cans were priced a tad higher than several of their rivals.
However, after several months of stubbornly sticking at the £400 mark, the Ultra Headphones have seen a big drop that undercuts much of the competition. You can now get your hands on the high-end headphones for £341 at Amazon, bagging you one of the best noise-cancelling headphones on the market with £109 off their launch price.
So why are we not recommending this deal? Unless you're looking for the strongest noise-cancelling you can find, there's another pair that's sonically superior and a better all-around pick – and they're available cheaper. The Sony WH-1000XM6 are currently £329 at Amazon, a good £71 off their launch price and the lowest we've seen them since Black Friday.
The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones (2nd Gen) are fine headphones, offering lossless audio via USB-C, effective spatial audio for movie watching and Bose's typically class-leading noise cancellation. But it was the Sony WH-1000XM6 that walked away with the Product of the Year gong at our most recent Awards.
The sound quality of the Sony headphones has been pushed consistently from generation to generation, offering more natural, even-handed tonality than the Ultra 2 Headphones, but also greater clarity, texture and drive.
"The WH-1000XM6 deliver the most detailed, dynamic, precise and open sound we’ve heard from a wireless Sony flagship," our Sony WH-1000XM6 review reads. "The headphones just seem capable of diving into any track you play and extract an unbelievable amount of information."
Noise-cancelling is not quite as strong as that of the Ultra 2 headphones, but it's superb and arguably more natural. A new adaptive feature automatically blocks sound based on your environment, resulting in a nice, clean, rumble-free background whether you're in the garden or the London Underground.
Call quality is excellent, with voices isolated from background noise, even during strong gusts of pesky wind.
The WH-1000XM6 are stylish and extremely comfortable to wear for long periods (one of our senior staff writers wore them on a train for 10 hours), and the foldable design makes them ideal transport companions wherever you decide to go.
We're spoiled by wireless noise-cancelling headphones these days, with many high-quality pairs vying for our attention. But if you're looking at the premium end of the market, you'd be hard-pressed to do better than the Sony WH-1000XM6 for £329 at Amazon.
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