After six years, I’ve just upgraded from the XM3s after trying out the XM4,5,6 in store and borrowing a friend’s Ultra Gen 1.

The driftwood sand colour is beautiful, isn’t nearly as pink as I thought it would be based on the photos.

Comfort: I’d say these are the most comfortable I’ve ever worn, slightly beating out the Ultra Gen 1. Noticeably weaker clamping force than all the Sonys. The comfort was night and day between this and the Sony XM6, and this is the biggest reason I went with the Ultra Gen 2.

Sound Quality: didn’t sound perfect out of the box on all songs, I’m no audiophile and am still playing around with the EQ. Sounded great on vocal tracks however EDM and bass heavy pop sounded a bit muddy for my taste. Some tracks sound wonderful and some still need a bit of tweaking. For now I think the sound isn’t clearly better than the Ultra Gen 1 or the XM6. But also not clearly worse. Need more time to test this category. Lossless audio over USC is one of the main reasons I bought these over the XM6 alongside comfort so will be looking forward to testing that.

Looks: Love this colour, case and overall design. The shiny bands look really good in person at least on this sand colour. Feels alright, doesn’t attract as many fingerprints as expected.

ANC: not in depth testing but my initial thoughts were that the ANC is significantly better than my old XM3 which isn’t surprising. Seems to be slightly better than the Ultra Gen 1 and on par with XM6.

Cons: Personally really hoped the Bose app would have 5 band EQ instead of just 3. The controls and buttons are lacking compared to Sony XM6.

Overall, happy with spending $699 AUD on these for my birthday after 6-7 years on the XM3. Let’s hope we get some good reviews on sound quality and ANC from actual audiophiles soon.