When noise-cancelling headphones first became a thing, their mission statement was clear: allow the user to listen to their Cliff Richard megamix uninterrupted by the piercing screams of a nearby baby. And with its previous headphones, the QuietComfort 35s (and then the QC35 II version), Bose continued to raise the bar above everyone else.
So what’s next? Well, having sorted out what you can hear when you’re wearing a pair of its cans, Bose is now focusing on how well other people can hear you. With its Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 (the first and last time we’ll refer to them by that stupidly cumbersome full name), Bose is able to isolate your voice from 360° of undesirable racket. The idea is that you’ll be able to have a conversation with someone at the height of rush-hour without needing to shout to be heard above the taxi horns and yelling van drivers.