Despite how they appear, the Ultra Open Earbuds don’t hurt while gripping your ears.
If you need a new pair of headphones, earbuds, or a portable Bluetooth speaker, Bose’s ongoing Presidents Day sale presents a few compelling options. In fact, now through February 17th, several QuietComfort and SoundLink devices are receiving steep discounts, including some of our favorite models.
Several products are matching their lowest price to date, such as the Bose Ultra Open Earbuds, which are available from Amazon, Best Buy, and Bose for $229 ($70 off). They’re a strange-looking pair at first glance, but the Ultra Open are designed to clip onto your ears and push audio to your eardrums without plugging your ear canals like a traditional pair of earbuds. Their grip isn’t particularly tight, either, ensuring a comfortable fit even during longer listening sessions.
The goal of their open-style design is to help you remain aware of what’s going on around you — something that is useful if want to remain present outside or keep an ear to the ground for children or visitors while at home. Unfortunately, that unconventional build also means you’ll sacrifice some bass responsiveness and overall volume compared to traditional earbuds, though the resulting audio quality is still surprisingly effective for what they are.
Read our Ultra Open Earbuds review.
If you’re after more traditional buds, the QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds should be on your radar. They’re down to $249 ($50 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Bose’s online storefront, which is $20 more than their best price to date. They offer some of the best noise-canceling performance in their class and are capable of delivering Bose’s signature sound. They can also leverage Bose’s take on spatial audio, enabling a greater level of immersion with select tracks (though it works better with some songs than others).
Immersive Audio is one of the primary reasons to consider upgrading from the QuietComfort Earbuds II, which are available for $199 ($80 off) from Bose. If you already own those, it may be worth staying put as the QC Ultra Earbuds sound nearly the same in standard listening modes. Bose also updated the newer pair last year with multipoint Bluetooth support, and while they don’t natively support Qi wireless charging, you can purchase a separate cover for $49 that adds the functionality.
Read our QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds review.
You can also save a bit on the QuietComfort Ultra Headphones, which are on sale at Amazon, Best Buy, and Bose’s online store for $349 ($80 off) — a mere $20 shy of their lowest price to date. They’re just as comfortable and balanced as the older QuietComfort 45 and Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 they take after; however, they benefit from better call quality and a more natural-sounding transparency mode. The QC Ultra also feature an attractive, foldable design and several newer features, including support for Bose’s Immersive Audio.
Like the Ultra Earbuds, Immersive Audio is a fun attempt to make you feel as though you’re attending a concert, but it isn’t always convincing. That mode also reduces battery life, bringing the total runtime down to around 18 hours and ultimately negating one of the main benefits of over-ear headphones. It’s also worth noting that the QC Ultra sport a single physical multi-function button and primarily rely on touch controls for volume and playback control, though you can customize the multifunction button using the Bose app.
Read our QuietComfort Ultra Headphones review.
If you prefer a portable Bluetooth speaker, you can also get the Bose SoundLink Max for around $329 ($70 off) from Amazon, Best Buy, and Bose, which is $30 more than its lowest price to date. It delivers powerful stereo sound and lasts up to 20 hours per charge, with a battery that can reverse charge other devices via a built-in USB-C port. It doesn’t support lossless audio through said port, but there is a dedicated 3.5mm aux input, which is rare these days.
The SoundLink Max is a bit heavier (and larger) than your average Bluetooth speaker at 4.9 pounds, but the removable carrying handle helps with transport. It’s also ruggedly built with an IP67 rating for protection against water and dust. We also like that you can pair it with up to two devices simultaneously, but we wish there were speakerphone and virtual assistant features, especially given the substantial price.
Read our SoundLink Max review.
A few more Bose deals
If the SoundLink Max is too heavy and costly, the latest SoundLink Flex — on sale for $129 ($20 off) from Amazon, Best Buy, and Bose — offers similar durability with a lighter, slimmer profile. It lasts up to 12 hours per charge, and while there’s no built-in stereo playback like the Max, you can pair two of them to gain that effect.
The Bose SoundLink Micro is even tinier, enough so that it can easily slip into your pocket. That also means it’s a lot cheaper at $79 ($40 off), which is its current price from Bose. It’s a little long in the tooth compared to the bigger SoundLink speakers, as evidenced by its Micro USB charging port (ugh, I know). It also doesn’t have multipoint support, though you can pair it with other SoundLink speakers. Plus, there’s nothing else in Bose’s lineup with an integrated clip that can easily attach to, say, the handlebars on your bike.
You can get the Bose Smart Soundbar 900 for $649 ($250 off) from Bose, which is $50 more than its lowest price to date. It can be a powerful home theater upgrade on its own thanks to Dolby Atmos support, which uses several proprietary techniques to simulate height and width without additional speakers. You can use HDMI eARC for one-cable TV audio and control, or sync devices over Bluetooth and hook up other Bose speakers via Wi-Fi for multiroom playback. It also supports Apple’s AirPlay 2, Chromecast, and voice commands via Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant.
