Customer Reviews and Ratings

I've had them for several months. One thing I can say to anyone who is reviewing them after only a few days. You haven't allowed the driver to "burn in". After about a month the sound quality improved tremendously.

The remote works perfectly with the iPhone 4. I Is a little too close to the ear.

My only complaints are the removable cord does come out at times, and when talking on the phone I tend to talk too loud because I can't hear myself.

8 of 9 people found this useful

pretty comfortable, great sound and nice materials and good portability, unfortunately that microphone is rubbish therefore that remote control too.
it is to close to your ears so you need to lift up too much your hand and the other person barely can hear you clear.
not worth bothering for this.

first version of the Bose around ear headphones are the best!

4 of 7 people found this useful

So I just picked these up yesterday at the Apple store in NC. Let me tell you that you can not go wrong with these headphones extremley comfortable, portable, and awesome looking. Sure a little high on price but worth every penny.

4 of 7 people found this useful

The headphones sound very clear. I've only been listening to them for a couple of hours, but from what I've heard, the quality is amazing. They are also outstandingly comfortable.

5 of 5 people found this useful

I'll start briefly with the good. The comfort is there for ever ear headphones, the design is nice and the Mic and remote work well. They're exceptionally light yet still feel sturdy and well built although I wouldn't think they are indestructible at all.

Now for the (tempered) bad: Sound wise they are a mixed bag for such expensive headphones. As other reviewers are saying, the mid range tones are a little grating and brash. The warmth that we all like isn't quite there and no matter what positioning I do with the phones, it never appears - they just don't have it. Vocals can be a bit shrill, guitar pieces can lack warmth. Overall the mid sits a little high in the treble area, which is a pity because if you nail the mids, the others aren't really so important.

Don't take this as all bad, other aspects of the sound are fantastic. It's incredibly tight, defined and well handled. Bass is grippy and sounds 3 dimensional, although sometimes suffers from the brashness of the mids and I often feel the bass should be more "bassy". It sometimes doesn't quite hit the lowest lows. But generally the sound is an improvement over what you might be used to.

Overall, give them a go at a local Bose shop if you can as they allow for 30 day returns.

27 of 31 people found this useful

While the comfort, fit, and build quality of these headphones is SUPERB, unfortunately they're not only lacking in the "warm" mid-bass frequency range, but in pursuing the goal of improving the "clarity" and "definition" of these, the engineers have shaped the 5K-6K range to be too loud, which causes unnatural sibilance on many vocals.

The bottom line is that these are okay for wearing all day at your desk in a very quiet environment where you won't miss the lack of any real bass in the mix, but if you have to deal with any background noise whatsoever, the small amount of bass that you can detect is utterly drowned out and you feel like you're listening to an old transistor radio. Plus the sibiliance is hard to ignore.

I can see how some people might enjoy these phones because they are extremely comfortable to wear for long periods of time and they do have very nice shaping for "clarity" in the frequency range where you hear some of the most interesting harmonics for acoustic instruments (and some electronica sounds), but overall they just don't have the warmth and bottom end that most styles of popular music call for.

25 of 32 people found this useful

The Bose AE2i are my third pair of "hi-fi" headphones that I do not regret purchasing, but feel could have improvements on.
The headphones themselves are sleek, and dare I say, "classy." The flexibility of the headband is impressive and I feel that they go where the rival(?) Beats Solo HD's (which were discounted to match the AE2i's price in-store, might I add) would have broken. The comfort is extremely amazing as even after long hours of usage, it doesn't make me feel any less comfortable than I did putting them on.
I must note, however, that these headphones, however good they are, MUST HAVE a burn-in period. I recommend about 100 hours of it just to feel the true power of the drivers.

Now for the one thing that peeves me quite a bit...I also can't help but notice that the left side of the headphones are more bass-heavy and louder than the right. It may just be me, but a few other people seem to notice this.
The 'phones, unfortunately, are also "cheap-feeling," even with its classy look. How? You can feel the headphone speakers underneath the thin foam screen.

All in all, the headphones are great for the price they have and I would definitely recommend them to anyone who is looking for a good pair of 'phones.

73 of 76 people found this useful