[Update: We've finally got out hands on these nifty cans – read our hands-on Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 review for our initial thoughts. original story follows below.]
For years the Bose QuietComfort 25 were the reigning champs of noise-canceling headphones for travelers. Now, Bose might have just figured out a way to hook the everyday office worker too thanks to the new Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700.
The headphones, which are coming out on June 30 and cost $399 (around £300, AU$575), will offer two built-in personal assistants – the default Amazon Alexa and also Google Assistant – plus Bose’s new voice system technology that uses an eight-microphone array to eliminate noise and focus on your voice.
In short, while Bose has always been known for its great noise-cancellation technology, the Bose Headphones 700 looks to up the headphone-maker's audio game even more for those of us who are constantly on phone calls.
"The Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 have been engineered from the ground up as an integrated system, with a new acoustic and electronics package, new digital signal processing, and a new eight microphone system for the most complete, effortless headphone experience ever," Bose said in an official press release.
"Six microphones dramatically cancel noise, so it doesn’t reach your ears. Two of those microphones combine with two others to dramatically improve voice pickup. A beamform-array isolates your speech, suppressing everything else that’s audible. A rejection-array adds a second line of defense, tracking then blocking the most disruptive remaining sound — from a coffee grinder to other dialogue nearby. It all happens in real-time — adapting as you move, turn your head, and your environment changes."
That being said, sometimes you don't want complete isolation – like, say, when you're waiting for an announcement at the airport or you're out running and you want to be aware of your surroundings. That's why Bose will also introduce a new Conversation Mode that lets you hear others speaking to you, and a complete transparency mode that pipes all outside audio into the headphones.
In-ear noise-cancelling? Bose has that, too
Alongside the new Noise Cancelling 700 Headphones, Bose also unveiled two new in-ear earphones that will scale down its noise-cancellation tech to a smaller size. To that end, we can also expect to see the new Bose Earbuds 500 and Noise Cancelling Earbuds 700 join the Bose headphones family in the near future.
According to Bose, the truly wireless Bose Earbuds 500 are super-compact, versatile, and will be available this year, while the truly wireless Bose Noise Cancelling Earbuds 700 will follow next year with more details to come as we get closer to launch.
While there aren't any more details to go off of right now, the timing is interesting – especially as rumors continue to swirl about Apple's noise-cancelling AirPods that we expected to see this year, only to receive the less-than-ideal Apple AirPods 2.
If Bose and Apple square off next year with new noise-cancelling true wireless earbuds, well, that could be a win-win for everyone.
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