I bought the NC 700 headphones about three months ago and at first, I was pretty happy with them. I would turn them on and I couldn't hear a thing around me. Now I can't stand them. They amplify all sorts of noises that I don't want to hear at all. I'm sick of it. I bought these to help me sleep as I live in a crowded area and don't have a room to myself. I've tried resetting the headphones to no avail, I've waited for a patch to fix this problem and have seen that the quality of noise cancellation has just been getting worse and worse. I've tried texting the support number and got no response for days now after I explained the problem which was actually very irritating. At this point, I just want to return the headphones. I had $20 Skullcandy earbuds that were better quality than these headphones.
I usually don’t chime in on online forums but I bought the nc700s a week ago. They arrived, I tried them out (there was an immediate firmware update which I allowed because I like my products to be up to date), and I was disappointed. I just tried the noise cancelling out with my bose SoundTouch speakers next to me at a noise level of two and the noise cancelling at 10 and it sounded like there was barely any power to the noise cancelling. With music on it does drown out the outside noise but nowhere as good as the my AirPods pro, and didn’t even compare to my memory of a pair of monster headphones I had years ago, and of course I expected these to do a much better job.
I did think I was being hasty, so I took them on a walk for a different environment, again, no music, just NC and again the noise cancelling was weak. It was as if the difference between NC at a 1 and 10 was minuscule. I did think that this was a software issue, and someone I know who owns a pair of QC35 IIs has said that they have noticed weaker noise cancelling as of late too, but I didn’t want to wait for a fix that might not even work and it becoming harder for me to return these. After reading this thread and a similar one on the forum, I just returned them. I bought these from John Lewis so they were at £279 instead of full price but I definitely expected more from these headphones.
I don’t doubt that these are capable of being great headphones, and the design is mostly the reason I was drawn to them over Sony headphones, but that noise cancelling was not up to scratch, and I have no clue when/if they will issue a fix for this.
Ooooooh, how strange...
People complaining about the quality of nc700 After forced upgrade.
So and moderators, when do you chime in to explain us that "The intent behind these automatic firmware updates is to ensure everyone benefits from the improvements we make with each version, most of which are too numerous to mention in the release notes."
Are you mods at all bringing our feedback to your management? Or at all reading what we are telling you?
yes, I can also confirm the battery issue. My battery went down to 16hrs fully charged with the current update...
Hello, my Bose 700 headphones are also having the same problem. When I first turned them on out of the box I was so amazed. My boyfriend also tried them and he was surprised they worked so well. Then, they updated. They started to let in random noises and I could suddenly hear my family talking around me. Now, again, the quality of NC has gone WAY down. I was trying to do homework and I hear the TV blasting across the room, even though I hadn’t had this problem before. I only just bought these about two weeks ago. This is really disappointing. I’m pretty close to returning them.
ALSO, when I try to perform a reset on the device by connecting it to a power source and holding down the bluetooth/power button, it doesn't work. The white light keeps flashing and the blue light never turns on or flashes.
Hello Berlin,
Thank you for posting and welcome to the Bose Community! I'm very sorry to hear that you are also having this issue.
Can you please let me know if you have attempted all steps in this thread? In regards to the reset please try connecting the headset to a different power source and attempting the reset again. We advise that you connect the headset to a wall outlet when performing the reset.
I look forward to hearing back from you with further information.
I did try the steps. In attempting to reset the headphones I tried doing it while it was connected to a laptop, and also tried it while it was connected to a wall outlet. Neither of them worked. After that I also tried removing it and re-adding it to the app but the app is not letting me connect to the headphones and keeps saying an error has occurred.
Hi Berlin,
Thanks for giving these steps a go. Sorry to hear this persists.
At this point, I would suggest reaching out to your local Bose product support team for further assistance. You can reach out to your local support team via clicking this link and selecting your region, this will redirect you to our website. Please scroll to the bottom of the website and there you will find a 'Contact Us' tab, this will provide you with all the relevant contact information for your country.
Thank you.
I thought I was upgrading when I bought the 700 series after owning my QC15s for almost 8 years...but I was wrong. The "active" NC is not as good as the QC15s and is actually slightly worse than my Air Pod Pros at this point. My 700s were working great for 3-4 days...then all of a sudden I could easily hear light scratches on my desk and shuffling papers VERY easily. It almost sounds like the quad microphones are being used to amplify the external sounds around me instead of being used to figure out what sounds to cancel out.
...I am thinking about returning this product unless updates fix this glaring issue. This problem is making these headphone unusable as I need them to meet with my patients through telemedicine.