Bose® - Hearphones™ Conversation-Enhancing Headphones - Black

For $500 ( at the time of review) I did not want to like this device and really didn't expect it to work, however I bought it the same day I went to demo it in the store. Anyone who knows me, knows I never do that on big ticket items, but this device has the potential to improve my quality of life in a major way. Quick background on my situation...I have about 50% hearing loss in my left ear due to a hole in my eardrum and about 20% hearing loss in my right from loud concerts, loud car stereo systems that I built myself, and gun ranges without proper hearing protection. Most of these occurred years ago when I was young and dumb, but I must confess i still like to be front row at a live concert! These things sound good! Environment amplification for conversation, tv, and music all sound quite natural and good. At least, better than without these. Streaming music and phone calls sound very good. I've been told my voice sounds good over the phone. A good jack of all trades headset, but here is the real kicker... I can control what I hear and how loud. Music and no outside sound-done. Music and amplify my surroundings better than I can hear without anything in my ears-done. More sound to my left ear (that is more impaired) - done. Increase higher frequency or lower frequency tones in the real world-done!! Note: increasing treble reduces bass and is great for hearing female voices while decreasing treble, increases bass and works great for hearing male voices. More magic, you can choose where to block noise out around you. The main setting is global sound and you can hear things all around you (evenly, which is quite interesting). This setting is best for watching television and listening to the stereo. The next setting will block noise the comes from behind you. My best guess is it reduces those sounds by 50 to 70%. The final setting is called Focus, and amplifies sound originating right in front of you and I would guess that cone of sound to be approximately 45 degrees. You can still hear things to each side, but those sounds are subdued considerably. Finally, these do have noise filtering. I have not had them long enough to know exactly what it filters and doesn't, but to give you a few examples, wind noise will be reduced if it is consistent and water coming out of a faucet like when you are washing your hands. You will hear these noises at your set amplification, but then the noise reduction will kick in. The best thing about this feature (at least so far) is that it has not blocked or reduced any sounds that I do want to hear. Magic is the word I would use to describe my new Earphones. I love them and will definitely be keeping them. Now to prove this is a real review :P There are a few things that I do not love and would like to see be improved. 1. The neck band likes to turn off center ( normally to the left) anytime I am doing something. I am constantly having to re-center this around the neck. 2. Battery life- normally around 10 hours. I would like to see this increased to 15-20 hours. Maybe put additional battery in right side to balance out neckband and increase play time :) 3. Super picky, but would be nice. Ability to adjust tone (treble/bass) for each ear. In my case, my left ear is much worse at hearing higher frequencies than my right and would be nice to raise treble in that ear while increasing base in my right for "true balance". Final thoughts,--I own a Widex hearing aid for my left ear. I tried my best and multiple visits to my audiologist to incorporate it into my life, but the sound it produced was never adequate to be a life improvement for me. My brain would constantly tell me "this thing sounds terrible"! So, I just stop wearing it since it really didn't help in any given situation. However, headphones for music sound good and I have always wished I could take the sound from my headphones and amplify the outside world. THESE DO THAT!! So if you are in the same boat as me, you will also Love these and you must get a pair immediately. Bose offers a 30 day trial in case they don't work for you. BTW-I read a ton of reviews before I buy most anything, but rarely write them (selfish, I know) but these are helping me so much, that I couldn't help but write a review in hopes that it will help others like me to discover this great device. Thank you Bose for creating this device! It's such a great device for mild to moderately hearing impaired individuals, I know you guys will start having a hard time keeping these it stock once the word gets out. And Bose, if my review helps you sell a bunch of these, I could always use a back up pair of these! :P

Bose Hearphones Conversation-Enhancing headphones. Let’s start with the power cord supplied. It is 11 inches long, under a foot, how is this even usable. No charger is supplied however the manual state to use any USB style phone charger. You’re going to need a cord as well because the 11 inch power cord is useless. The headset comes with 3 sizes of ear adapters, small, medium, and large. These should cover almost all the ranges because they are very soft and form well to your ears. Charging took about 1 hour to complete. They are comfortable to wear, just remember they are ear buds and will at some point be irritating to your ears. The noise canceling works great. By changing the world volume with the control or the app, all outside background noise was gone. They can pair with 2 devices at one time. The real drawback to this is if they pair to a phone and a music player, the music player gets no adjustments from the app on the phone. The phone app only sends the world volume to the headset, the sound adjustments did not go to the headset. They only worked if the music was coming from the phone. When music was playing from the music player they sounded like very cheap ear buds. I think I might not have it set up correctly. The headset was very hard to get it paired with the phone and the music player. It would stay paired to the music player but lose the phone connection (Android 8.0) IOS 11.2 worked well and stayed connected. Once the connection seemed to be sorted out I found that starting the app resulted in the app wanting to re-pair the headset (not with IOS, only with Android). As far as being a headset for the phone, they are great. You can kill off outside noise, take calls, listen to music, all without any issues. The issue comes in when you want to use them as a headset with your phone but listen to music from another source. In this respect the app need some work, both in Android and IOS. As far as amplifying a conversation while removing background noise, they don’t handle this very well. You can kill off the background noise but the conversation, or TV goes with it. Adjusting for location of the source sound doesn’t really do anything except change the tone and background sounds. I attempted to use them because I need the TV turned up to enjoy it and my wife would like it turned down. I found that when the TV was adjusted to her listening level, I could hear every little thing in the room when I set them to TV. I tried adjusting them by myself and found a setting a little better but still all other noises, including eating chips, was just too loud. We switched places the next night. I set the TV where I wanted it and she put them on. This proved extremely successful. I was able to hear the TV with no issues and she was able to turn down the volume of the room and have a listening level she enjoyed. Next we tried them in a restaurant with mild background noise. While I was able to remove most of the background noise, most of the conversation went with it. When set to conversation mode they boost treble and attempt to remove sounds coming from other directions. Again they failed to provide me with acceptable results for their intended use. As a noise canceling headset for your phone they are great. As a volume leveling device to turn down conversation, or the TV, they work great. Don’t expect them to allow you to boost the volume of something like a hearing aid, they don’t do that. They do a superb job of lowering the volume of a room to a level that you are more comfortable with. I wanted to use them to listen to the TV and have my wife not get so annoyed because I turned the volume up to far. Turns out they work much better the other way around. I turn the TV up to where I want it and she uses them to turn the room volume down to what she enjoys. I don’t use my phone to listen to music, I have other devices that are far superior to a phone for that. My wife almost always listens to music from her phone, she loves them. To be able to listen to her music while turning down the outside noise is great for her. Overall they are a good set of noise canceling headphones with a few extra features. Weigh the cost before purchasing these. For me they would have been a complete waste. However my wife loves the extra features and she uses them all the time.

Review for Bose® - Hearphones™ Conversation-Enhancing Headphones - Black As a reviewer of a certain age, I was really looking forward to trying these earphones out. I have some trouble hearing in crowds, at restaurants, and when the TV volume is low. In many ways, these are a better answer than hearing aids. They help you focus sound in the direction you want: head-on, mostly front, or all around. You can adjust the volume, and the bass/treble for your personal liking. You can adjust the volume for each ear. The Hearphones come with three sets of tips to adjust for the best fit for your ears. It is important to find the best tip to get the most out of this device. Sadly, I found the tips a little difficult to change and tore one. The instructions show the best way to change them, and if you follow them carefully, you can avoid my mistake! Most of the settings can be adjusted using controls on the the neckband or cable, so I found it frustrating that I had to have my phone nearby so it could connect to the app. Don’t get me wrong, adjusting your personal preferences with the app is great, but once that is done, it would be nice to use them without the earphones searching and not finding your phone if it’s not nearby. This seems like a very forward-thinking product; the number of people who could benefit from it must be huge. I’d like to suggest just one other change. Older people with hearing issues also sometimes have mobility issues from things like arthritis. I think the controls on these earphones are very typical, but not very practical for older people. I especially found the on/off button hard to press and hold to power the unit on and off. A larger, easier to press button, tested by people likely to be using it, would be a great change to see!

I ordered these for my mom. Contrary to how she feels, she's struggling with hearing loss. Admittedly, she has looked to see if Medicare/Medicaid will cover hearing aids, which they don't. Hearing aids are incredibly expensive. Enter Bose. Everyone knows Bose for their audio products. You'll read different opinions of the quality/frequency response of their products. That aside, the Hearphones are outstanding. The benefit all comes from the free app available on the app store of your choice. You can control the level of outside sound, treble/bass, direction of sound as well as balance left/right. So how does it work? What's pretty interesting is you can play music as well as allow the sounds around you coming in. Normally, I'd say this is annoying, but I prefer to be aware of my surroundings. Given you can control the level of what comes in, this is a pretty great feature. To use as a hearing device, the app allows you to control the direction from where the sound comes - all around, 180* and focused. If you're in a noisy room, setting it to focused will allow the background noise to be less. If you're watching a movie with surround sound, set it to all-around and enjoy the same as your friends and family. I felt the default settings were too bass heavy. Once I changed the EQ to reduce the low end, the sound was more enjoyable. As we age, we tend to lose our high frequency hearing, so having this control is an awesome idea. Visually, the Hearphones are a bit large and not very discrete. Convincing those with hearing loss they need to have hearing aids is a tough conversation. Giving them something that isn't as obvious, would help sell the idea. I love the control that Bose is offering. Given everything is customizable based on the scenario users are offerered huge benefits over typical hearing aids. The biggest improvement would be to make it smaller. I still need to get my mom's feedback on the Hearphones. I'll update, but I'm sure she'll be impressed. Worst case, I don't have to hear her Facebook videos on full volume @ 7:00AM.

I have about a 70% hearing loss between 3-6KHz in my left ear. I don’t mean to gush, but I have a lot of high quality headphones, yet I find myself enjoying these Bose Hearphones more and more. The quality is superb and they’re very comfortable causing no wear fatigue. I love the fact that I can adjust the volume balance to compensate for my one-sided hearing loss. Not sure whether I like them better as substitute hearing aids or high quality earbuds for streaming music. They excel at both. And there’s the Bose Hear app! I’m a retired software engineer and I know quality software when I see it. Kudos to the Bose development team for building a high quality app with a very intuitive, interactive user interface. And it works great on both my Android smartphone and my iOS tablet. As a music streaming device I love the fact that I can dial up the music volume while at the same time dialing down the outside world with a separate control appropriately named World Volume. I have some very good hearing aids, but even those don’t have the incredible directional capability of these Hearphones. For instance, I was sitting at the dining room table reading the newspaper. The Hearphones were set on Everywhere (omnidirectional) when someone started making noise in the kitchen behind me. The Hearphones were picking up every bit of it. So I opened the app and set them to Front and then Focused Front. The irritating background noises behind me just faded away. It was amazing! My wife and I were dining out one evening and I had my Hearphones set to Everywhere. They were picking up too much background noise so I switched them to Focused. The restaurant noises faded away and I could hear my wife much better. There are a few slight negatives to mention. The Hearphones full battery charge only last about 5-6 hours and not the advertised 10 hours. About three times over as many weeks, the Hearphones just shut off for no apparent reason. And finally, the Power/Bluetooth button is very hard to engage. I have to press so hard I’m worried I might damage it. But, so far no problem. Overall, I’m very impressed with these Bose Hearphones and can highly recommend them to anyone who wants to improve mild to moderate hearing loss.

My father is in his late 60's and on top of suffering from some hearing loss is also dealing with tinnitus in his ears. He has some hearing aids, but he always complains about them falling out and he doesn't like to wear them around the house. So, consequently, when we visit, the volume on the TVs is SUPER loud. I have the Bose QC30's and I really like them, so when I saw Bose was making a version of the headset that was designed to help people with hearing troubles, I jumped on them. My Dad loves these things! Now, he can watch his NCIS, JAG, and Law & Order marathons while streaming the audio from his Apple TV without driving my mom insane. He also said that when he turns the volume up, there's white noise that helps drown out the tinnitus, which he really appreciates. He did say that Mom's had to watch what she says around the house now, because he can hear her better - so jury's out on if that's a plus or a minus. His only gripe with it was that the collar kept rotating, and this is a struggle I also have with my QC30's. For all the time and R&D Bose put into these, you'd think they could also had some counterbalance to the collar to keep it from moving. My Dad loves these things because he gets to listen to what he wants, when he wants and that these don't hurt his ears like some other buds I got him before. If you have a parent who has hearing troubles, or have some yourself, I highly recommend you check out this headset from Bose. The quality is amazing - and my only reason for rating this 4-stars is for the collar's inability to rest still around your neck. While these are not as good as "real" hearing aids, they can go a long way with some added benefits.

Bose does active noise cancellation well, which is why they have always been my go-to wired headphones (used a QC20i prior to this). Now, with the Hearphones I enjoy the same active noise cancellation benefits in a wireless package with the added bonus of being able to not only dull sound as needed but amplify it as needed too (Bose calls this world sound). The ability to amplify or nullify sound proved useful during flights. I peacefully listened to music and watched Netflix on my iPhone during the flight without the nasty sound of jet engines. When I saw the flight attendant making the rounds, I simply adjusted the world sound so that I could hear what she was asking instead of pulling the earbud out. One of the problems with the QC20i was that I did not like the popping sound it made when I turned off the active noise cancellation, thus the habit of yanking the earbuds out instead. With the Hearphones I do not get the unpleasant popping sound when deactivating the active noise cancellation. The Hearphones are not as packable as my QC20i, but the improvements in the Hearphones merit the extra footprint of the case. PROS: -Best noise cancellation -Best travel headphones I have experienced -Can amplify noise which is beneficial to those who are hard of hearing. -neckband wireless design -great battery life -minimalistic design CONS: - Surprisingly none

I was drawn to the Hearphones as a means to again hear conversation in mixed environments with background noise. Not only do they perform amazingly in that regard, but when streaming music they sound so much more musical and detailed compared to most other Bose headsets, including the QC 25, 30 and 35 as well as the Soundsports. Full control is available either directly on the device's control buttons or on the Hearphone's smartphone app. The immediate improvement in quality of life for those challenged with slight to profound hearing challenges in social and professional settings cannot be overstated. I would gladly pay 3 times what these cost now that I can fully engage in one-to-one and one-to-many conversation where there is heavy background noise. The QuietComfort noise-cancelling is here, too. The microphone is outstanding and callers say my voice quality has never sounded better. The music quality is great, probably attributable to Bose using a more expensive and better quality DAC in this product's circuit, hence the higher cost than their other ear/head-sets. I can't recommend the Hearphones enough. Truly a God-send.