Bose Sport Earbuds Truly Wireless Headphones Review

The Bose Sport Earbuds have a simple and basic look with a small Bose logo on each bud. However, the buds stick out of your ears, and overall, they're a bit bulkier than other truly wireless headphones on the market, like the Cambridge Audio Melomania 1+ True Wireless. If you're looking for another color scheme to match your style, they come in three color variants: 'Triple Black', 'Baltic Blue', and 'Glacier White'.

These buds have a comfortable fit. They don't weigh very much, and the ear tips don't enter your ear canal very deeply. Thanks to their stability fin design, they'll also stay put while you're moving. Unfortunately, the buds are a little bit bulky and stick out from your ear, which can be a bit annoying.

They have alright touch-sensitive controls. The right earbud handles everything call and music related, while the left earbud has no commands by default, but you can remap them via the companion app. While you get some audio feedback when connected, the touch-sensitive buttons aren't very clicky, so you can accidentally change a setting while adjusting them in your ear. If you're looking for sports earbuds with a better control scheme, take a look at the Jabra Elite 7 Active True Wireless.

On the left earbud:

• Double tap: Nothing by default, but you can customize this control via the companion app to hear the battery level or skip a track.

On the right earbud:

• Double tap: Plays and pauses audio. Also answers and ends calls.
• Swipe up: Increases the volume of your audio.
• Swipe down: Decreases the volume of your audio.
• Touch and hold: Accesses your mobile device via voice control. To exit this mode, double-tap the right earbud. This command also declines a call.

These buds have fantastic breathability, which is normal from in-ear headphones. They don't cover your outer ear or trap much heat. You won't notice a temperature difference, even if you're wearing them during long workouts.

They're outstandingly portable. Like most truly wireless earbuds, they're small and can easily fit in most pockets. Their portable charging case is a bit bulky, but it can still fit easily in your bag.

The charging case is decent. It's made of hard plastic and locks and unlocks to help keep the buds secure. There are also magnets inside the case to hold the earbuds in place while they charge and a 5-light LED battery indicator to keep track of their battery level.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have impressive build quality. They're mostly made of plastic, which feels solid and durable, and their silicone ear tips are flexible. They're also rated IPX4 for resistance against splashes of water. Overall, they feel sturdy enough to survive accidental damage without too much of an issue.

These earbuds are amazingly stable. They feel more stable than the Bose Sport Open Earbuds Truly Wireless, thanks to their stability fin design, which helps keep them in place in your ear. They won't fall out of your ears during casual listening sessions or while working out at the gym.

• Bose Sport Earbuds headphones
• 3x Stability fins/earbud tips
• USB-C to USB-A charging cable
• Carrying case
• Manual

These buds have a smooth and warm sound profile. While they're lacking a touch of low-bass, which can be disappointing for fans of bass-heavy music genres like EDM, their neutral, balanced mid-range makes them suitable for lots of audio content, especially vocal-centric content like podcasts or audiobooks. However, they lack sound customization features to help you adjust their sound to your liking.

In addition, these buds have an always-on 'Active EQ'. This EQ is designed to boost bass and treble based on volume to mitigate the effects of equal-loudness contours. When listening to audio at high volumes, you'll perceive more bass and treble than mid. Conversely, at low listening volumes, you'll perceive less bass and treble. Keep in mind that this effect is perception-based, and not created by the headphones. The Active EQ effectively counters this issue by adjusting the bass and treble of the frequency response according to the volume you're using.

These buds have great frequency response consistency. Although they're slightly prone to inconsistencies in treble delivery, once you achieve a proper fit and air-tight seal, you'll experience more consistent audio delivery each time you use them.

These buds have great bass accuracy. While they're lacking a thumpy low-bass, the rest of the range is slightly overemphasized, resulting in a bit more punch and boom in your mixes.

These headphones have impressive mid accuracy. Most of the range is quite balanced and neutral, so vocals and lead instruments are clear and present. However, the overemphasized high-mid makes them harsh. In songs like Britney Spears' Oops!...I Did It Again, female vocals at the beginning of the second verse sound bright and a bit honky.

These headphones have decent treble accuracy. Low-treble is overemphasized, so vocals and lead instruments are a little harsh or piercing. The underemphasized mid-treble makes sibilants like cymbals slightly weak and distant too.

These earbuds have decent peaks and dips performance. While they're missing a touch of low-bass, the peak across the bass range adds punch and boom to the mix. The dip in the mid-mids nudges vocals and lead instruments toward the back of the mix, while the peak in the high-mids and low-treble can make those same instruments sound honky or harsh. The mid-treble is uneven, resulting in sibilants that are both piercing and lispy.

They have excellent imaging. Bose generally has good quality control and ergonomics when it comes to imaging. Most of their traditionally designed headphones have well-matched drivers, ensuring that the stereo image is stable and balanced. Our unit's L/R drivers are also very well-matched, so sounds like footsteps or voices are accurately placed.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have a terrible passive soundstage performance, which is normal from in-ear headphones. By design, they don't interact with the outer ear, which is one of the key components in creating a speaker-like and out-of-body soundstage. As a result, audio seems like it's coming from inside your head rather than from speakers placed all around you. Also, they have a closed-back enclosure, so their soundstage doesn't sound as spacious as open-back headphones.

These headphones have an impressive weighted harmonic distortion performance. Aside from a small peak in the high-treble, which is difficult to notice with real-life content, most of the ranges fall within good limits, resulting in clean and pure audio reproduction.

These are the settings we used to test the Bose Sport Earbuds. Our results are only valid when using these settings.

While Bose advertises an 'Active EQ' feature, we don't consider this an EQ because you can't turn it off.

These buds have poor noise isolation performance. Unlike the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds Truly Wireless, they're not designed to isolate you against bass-heavy noises like bus or plane engines. They also struggle to block background voices or the hum from nearby AC units. However, you still may prefer this, as you can stay aware of your surroundings when running outdoors.

These headphones have a very good leakage performance. They leak a bit of audio, but it's mostly thin-sounding. If you want to crank up your audio to a high volume, people around you can hear a small part of it, even in a moderately noisy environment like an office.

The microphone has mediocre recording quality. Your voice sounds thin, muffled, and lacking in detail. However, the person on the other end of the line can still understand you.

The integrated microphone has poor noise handling performance. The microphone struggles to separate your voice from moderate background noise like a busy street. If you need to take an important call, it's best to do so from a quieter environment to be heard clearly.

These buds have a mediocre battery performance. The manufacturer advertises them to last five hours continuously, but we measured just over four, which won't be enough to get you through long days on the go. On the upside, their carrying case holds an extra two charges, which is handy in a pinch. If you forget to turn them off, they also have an auto-off timer to conserve battery life when not in use. If you're looking for wireless sports headphones with longer battery life, check out the Sony Float Run Wireless.

The Bose Music app is decent. It lets you remap the controls on the left earbud to hear the battery level or skip to the next track. You can also turn on or off the volume touch controls as well as the 'In-ear Detection' feature, which automatically answers your calls when you insert the right bud, and automatically plays/pauses your music when your insert/remove the right bud. However, even though the buds have an 'Active EQ' feature, you can't turn off this feature, and app itself lacks a true equalizer, so you can't customize the buds' sound.

The Bose Sport Earbuds have a fair Bluetooth performance. Unfortunately, they don't support multi-device or NFC pairing. Their latency on PCs is also high, which can cause lip sync issues when streaming video. That said, their latency is a lot lower on iOS and Android devices, ensuring that your audio and visuals stay in sync. Keep in mind that some apps and devices compensate for latency differently.

They can't be used with a wired connection. They come with a USB-C to USB-A charging cable for their charging case.

You can use these headphones wirelessly with full audio and mic compatibility via Bluetooth-enabled PCs. However, they aren't compatible with PCs using any other connection.

These buds come with a portable charging case that holds two additional charges. It has only one input, which is a USB-C port, so you can charge the case. Unfortunately, it doesn't support Qi Wireless charging.