This is a review and detailed measurements of the Bose NC700 Bluetooth noise cancelling wired and wireless headphone. It was kindly purchased by a member new and drop shipped to me. The NC700 costs US $379 on Amazon including Prime shipping.
I must say, this is one of the most luxurious looking and feeling headphone I have seen:
The material is super soft-touch reminding me of silicone insulation on wires with such. The adjustment mechanism is super clever with that sliding bar which even allows some amount of movement for the cup. Top dollars were spent on mechanical and industrial design to be sure.
The cups are pretty small but still, mostly fit my ear. Inside dimensions are 70 x 56 x 24 mm (height, width, max depth). The cup depth is highly variable as the baffle is angled. The light weight of the NC700 helps a lot in comfort:
It took me two days to test what should have been a 2 hour affair. As with all rechargeable devices I test, I immediately plug in the power cable, USB-C in this case, and then continue with the process of setting up the test. The quick start guide that comes with the unit says to push the power button and hold it down until it goes into Bluetooth pairing mode. No such thing occurred. I tried every which way but could not get it to show up in my Samsung Android phone's Bluetooth discovery. On a hunch, I disconnected the USB cable but now ran into other issues with the little white LED switching to red sometime which I assumed it meant it did not have enough charge.
Next day I tried again with the USB cable still plugged in. Still no luck in getting it to recognized. I figured I should install their app to see what happens. Search for Bose and first hit is "Bose Connect" or some such thing. I start it and it asks me to select the device type. I tell it it is a headphone and it instantly showed a picture of NC700 which put joy on my face. Oddly, it demanded that I put my finger and drag the picture of the headphone down to confirm! What the heck? What is the point of that gesture? Why not the usual "OK, Done, etc." button for confirmation? Figuring I had no choice I do that. Immediately I am told that there is a better app for that called Bose Music. Bose Music? I don't want another Music player. I just want to connect and configure the darn thing. So reluctantly I download this massive 60 megabyte app....
The app starts and immediately asks me to register to use it. The Connect app did as well but let me skip that. Not Bose Music. This thing wants your email address or else. Reluctantly I go through the whole account setup process. It then switches to the same screen the other app did asking me to tell it what device it is. I select again the headphone followed by NC700. The thing sits there saying it can't find the headphone.
So I unplug the USB-C cable and the app recognizes it now. Why or why? Why can't I charge the headphone and still use it as a bluetooth wireless device? What possible limitation of design led to this? Too much heat dissipation? Later I read in the manual that if you plug in the USB-C cable, nothing works!
I think I am done at this point but no. The app paired the device over Bluetooth and then told me to wait while it was talking to it. Well, I waited minutes and the app was plain hung. I read a number of reviews of similar issues when the headphone first came out a few years ago. But now? Still have this kind of problem? Has incompetence in software set in so much in the company to not be able to get their app to talk to their own device after so much time passing?
Anyway, I had to test the NC700 without the benefit of the app and ability to change it settings. So everything is as shipped.
Note: The measurements you are about to see are made using a standardized Gras 45C. Headphone measurements by definition are approximate and variable so don't be surprised if other measurements even if performed with the same fixtures as mine, differ in end results. Protocols vary such as headband pressure and averaging (which I don't do). As you will see, I confirm the approximate accuracy of the measurements using Equalization and listening tests. Ultimately headphone measurements are less exact than speakers mostly in bass and above a few kilohertz so keep that in mind as you read these tests. If you think you have an exact idea of a headphone performance, you are likely wrong!
My testing hell was not over. I connect the wired 2.5mm cable to 3.5mm and start testing the unit while off. I was getting insanely wrong results. Channels would not match and there was massive frequency response error (see below). Positioning was also challenging given the small cups but could not explain the huge problems I was having. Searching online, I was surprised to find almost no measurements out there other than Rting. I switched to Bluetooth testing and response was massively different making me realize there is DSP correction in there.
Bose NC 700 Measurements
As noted, there was massive difference when the unit is off vs on:
OK, I appreciate the value of DSP correction but good grief, why start with such poor response as shown in dashed lines? The driver seems to only like midrange between 400 Hz and 1.5 kHz. Rest of the response sinks like mad. Such massive correction takes away a ton of headroom from the amplifier and driver which we can ill afford in a portable battery operated device. Still, if it works, it works. Here is the response by itself (after a bit of adjustment):
By the way, Bluetooth response is substantially the same (not shown). There is a slight deviation due to different signal I used and possibly the compression algorithm.
Here is our relative response:
You can see very good compliance with our target. Due to large variation between the channels, EQ will be a bit challenging but not much should be needed.
I should not that I had a hell of a time getting max volume out of the headphone with the gesture on the right cup. I could get it to max volume but then it would go down one notch on its own. This may have a small impact on our distortion graph with input stage possibly clipping at 114 dBSP:
Distortion at lower levels is excellent but clearly you can't push the unit hard due to internal amplifier limit -- a drawback of having to use the unit with it being on.
The QuietComfort 35 II that I reviewed did much better at max SPL:
In absolute terms, we see some issue at the end of the spectrum:
It is strangely sinusoidal indicating some correlated cause.
Here is our Group delay showing a pipeline latency of about 17 milliseconds when the unit is on but using wired connection:
Bose NC700 Listening Tests and Equalization
I started listening with the unit on and tonality was right on the money on my standard set of tracks. For grins, I tuned it off and boy, this thing produced the worst sound I have ever heard in a headphone! Could not listen to it for than a few seconds and had to turn it back on. When on, of course you benefit from what seems to be superb noise cancelling even using its default setting. It completely muted my Audio Precision analyzer which is quite loud. Nicely so, it did not create that vacuum effect when turning it on and off that some noise cancelling headphones suffer from.
As much as the tonality was right, the sound was anything but exciting. Sub-bass tracks surprisingly had no impact. I thought there was enough bass response there but apparently not. Spatial qualities were non-existent. And the highs were ever so slightly harsh which could just be my imagination.
I brought out the parametric EQ and managed to remedy most of the above:
I took out the broad peak in bass which made the headphone lighter sounding. That slight boost then at 3200 Hz gave it some semblance of spatial qualities where none existed before. A quick shelving filter brought out the sub-bass finally but with a cost: turn up the level and you were greeted with static which from my experience indicates amplifier or DSP clipping. So you are limited to low to medium levels.
Once there, the quality combined with the comfort of the unit made for a nice experience.
Conclusions
The Bose NC700 is gorgeously built. Sadly little effort was put in the software side of thing, making me think they farmed it out. For a company who has sold millions if not billions of dollars worth of headphones, it is so surprising to see that they did not invest in proper software development expertise to produce a bug-free companion app. Documentation is of need of severe help to bring out common issues like not being able to use the thing while being charged.
Without being on, the objective performance of the NC700 is horrid and shameful. Sure they could start with a better platform than this. Fortunately they seem to have followed the research into headphone preference and hug our target pretty well. Tonality is therefore achieved but some make up was needed to get the unit to delight. We run into some power limitations here but not a show stopper.
Personally, I can't recommend the NC700 due to bugs in the app and power limitations. But you may think otherwise. On performance basis alone, when turned on, it easily satisfies my minimum goal for a good sounding headphone.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Yesterday was a depressing day.... I can only get our Cherry trees to fruit once ever three years or so. This year they put on a decent harvest. Problem is, animals were going after them as soon as they developed color. They were too unripe to pick though so I put in a motion activated sprinkler to keep racoons, etc. off of them. Day by day though, the number of cherries on the tree was reducing together with small leaves and branches being broken. Yesterday morning I looked and there were probably 50 to 100 cherries still on the tree. I tell myself I better pick them by the evening or there will be none left. Go to the store and come back 2 hours later and there is none, let me repeat, no cherries whatsoever on the tree! Saw a whole family of Robins feasting on it before I left. I am wondering if they were the guilty party as opposed to racoons. Oh well, now I have to wait another year or more to get some cherries. The shame of it is that the one tree has some of the best cherries I have tasted!
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
I must say, this is one of the most luxurious looking and feeling headphone I have seen:
The material is super soft-touch reminding me of silicone insulation on wires with such. The adjustment mechanism is super clever with that sliding bar which even allows some amount of movement for the cup. Top dollars were spent on mechanical and industrial design to be sure.
The cups are pretty small but still, mostly fit my ear. Inside dimensions are 70 x 56 x 24 mm (height, width, max depth). The cup depth is highly variable as the baffle is angled. The light weight of the NC700 helps a lot in comfort:
It took me two days to test what should have been a 2 hour affair. As with all rechargeable devices I test, I immediately plug in the power cable, USB-C in this case, and then continue with the process of setting up the test. The quick start guide that comes with the unit says to push the power button and hold it down until it goes into Bluetooth pairing mode. No such thing occurred. I tried every which way but could not get it to show up in my Samsung Android phone's Bluetooth discovery. On a hunch, I disconnected the USB cable but now ran into other issues with the little white LED switching to red sometime which I assumed it meant it did not have enough charge.
Next day I tried again with the USB cable still plugged in. Still no luck in getting it to recognized. I figured I should install their app to see what happens. Search for Bose and first hit is "Bose Connect" or some such thing. I start it and it asks me to select the device type. I tell it it is a headphone and it instantly showed a picture of NC700 which put joy on my face. Oddly, it demanded that I put my finger and drag the picture of the headphone down to confirm! What the heck? What is the point of that gesture? Why not the usual "OK, Done, etc." button for confirmation? Figuring I had no choice I do that. Immediately I am told that there is a better app for that called Bose Music. Bose Music? I don't want another Music player. I just want to connect and configure the darn thing. So reluctantly I download this massive 60 megabyte app....
The app starts and immediately asks me to register to use it. The Connect app did as well but let me skip that. Not Bose Music. This thing wants your email address or else. Reluctantly I go through the whole account setup process. It then switches to the same screen the other app did asking me to tell it what device it is. I select again the headphone followed by NC700. The thing sits there saying it can't find the headphone.
So I unplug the USB-C cable and the app recognizes it now. Why or why? Why can't I charge the headphone and still use it as a bluetooth wireless device? What possible limitation of design led to this? Too much heat dissipation? Later I read in the manual that if you plug in the USB-C cable, nothing works!
I think I am done at this point but no. The app paired the device over Bluetooth and then told me to wait while it was talking to it. Well, I waited minutes and the app was plain hung. I read a number of reviews of similar issues when the headphone first came out a few years ago. But now? Still have this kind of problem? Has incompetence in software set in so much in the company to not be able to get their app to talk to their own device after so much time passing?
Anyway, I had to test the NC700 without the benefit of the app and ability to change it settings. So everything is as shipped.
Note: The measurements you are about to see are made using a standardized Gras 45C. Headphone measurements by definition are approximate and variable so don't be surprised if other measurements even if performed with the same fixtures as mine, differ in end results. Protocols vary such as headband pressure and averaging (which I don't do). As you will see, I confirm the approximate accuracy of the measurements using Equalization and listening tests. Ultimately headphone measurements are less exact than speakers mostly in bass and above a few kilohertz so keep that in mind as you read these tests. If you think you have an exact idea of a headphone performance, you are likely wrong!
My testing hell was not over. I connect the wired 2.5mm cable to 3.5mm and start testing the unit while off. I was getting insanely wrong results. Channels would not match and there was massive frequency response error (see below). Positioning was also challenging given the small cups but could not explain the huge problems I was having. Searching online, I was surprised to find almost no measurements out there other than Rting. I switched to Bluetooth testing and response was massively different making me realize there is DSP correction in there.
Bose NC 700 Measurements
As noted, there was massive difference when the unit is off vs on:
OK, I appreciate the value of DSP correction but good grief, why start with such poor response as shown in dashed lines? The driver seems to only like midrange between 400 Hz and 1.5 kHz. Rest of the response sinks like mad. Such massive correction takes away a ton of headroom from the amplifier and driver which we can ill afford in a portable battery operated device. Still, if it works, it works. Here is the response by itself (after a bit of adjustment):
By the way, Bluetooth response is substantially the same (not shown). There is a slight deviation due to different signal I used and possibly the compression algorithm.
Here is our relative response:
You can see very good compliance with our target. Due to large variation between the channels, EQ will be a bit challenging but not much should be needed.
I should not that I had a hell of a time getting max volume out of the headphone with the gesture on the right cup. I could get it to max volume but then it would go down one notch on its own. This may have a small impact on our distortion graph with input stage possibly clipping at 114 dBSP:
Distortion at lower levels is excellent but clearly you can't push the unit hard due to internal amplifier limit -- a drawback of having to use the unit with it being on.
The QuietComfort 35 II that I reviewed did much better at max SPL:
In absolute terms, we see some issue at the end of the spectrum:
It is strangely sinusoidal indicating some correlated cause.
Here is our Group delay showing a pipeline latency of about 17 milliseconds when the unit is on but using wired connection:
Bose NC700 Listening Tests and Equalization
I started listening with the unit on and tonality was right on the money on my standard set of tracks. For grins, I tuned it off and boy, this thing produced the worst sound I have ever heard in a headphone! Could not listen to it for than a few seconds and had to turn it back on. When on, of course you benefit from what seems to be superb noise cancelling even using its default setting. It completely muted my Audio Precision analyzer which is quite loud. Nicely so, it did not create that vacuum effect when turning it on and off that some noise cancelling headphones suffer from.
As much as the tonality was right, the sound was anything but exciting. Sub-bass tracks surprisingly had no impact. I thought there was enough bass response there but apparently not. Spatial qualities were non-existent. And the highs were ever so slightly harsh which could just be my imagination.
I brought out the parametric EQ and managed to remedy most of the above:
I took out the broad peak in bass which made the headphone lighter sounding. That slight boost then at 3200 Hz gave it some semblance of spatial qualities where none existed before. A quick shelving filter brought out the sub-bass finally but with a cost: turn up the level and you were greeted with static which from my experience indicates amplifier or DSP clipping. So you are limited to low to medium levels.
Once there, the quality combined with the comfort of the unit made for a nice experience.
Conclusions
The Bose NC700 is gorgeously built. Sadly little effort was put in the software side of thing, making me think they farmed it out. For a company who has sold millions if not billions of dollars worth of headphones, it is so surprising to see that they did not invest in proper software development expertise to produce a bug-free companion app. Documentation is of need of severe help to bring out common issues like not being able to use the thing while being charged.
Without being on, the objective performance of the NC700 is horrid and shameful. Sure they could start with a better platform than this. Fortunately they seem to have followed the research into headphone preference and hug our target pretty well. Tonality is therefore achieved but some make up was needed to get the unit to delight. We run into some power limitations here but not a show stopper.
Personally, I can't recommend the NC700 due to bugs in the app and power limitations. But you may think otherwise. On performance basis alone, when turned on, it easily satisfies my minimum goal for a good sounding headphone.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Yesterday was a depressing day.... I can only get our Cherry trees to fruit once ever three years or so. This year they put on a decent harvest. Problem is, animals were going after them as soon as they developed color. They were too unripe to pick though so I put in a motion activated sprinkler to keep racoons, etc. off of them. Day by day though, the number of cherries on the tree was reducing together with small leaves and branches being broken.
Yesterday morning I looked and there were probably 50 to 100 cherries still on the tree. I tell myself I better pick them by the evening or there will be none left. Go to the store and come back 2 hours later and there is none, let me repeat, no cherries whatsoever on the tree! Saw a whole family of Robins feasting on it before I left. I am wondering if they were the guilty party as opposed to racoons. Oh well, now I have to wait another year or more to get some cherries. The shame of it is that the one tree has some of the best cherries I have tasted!Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
