Are Bose Headphones Good for Music Studios?

Bose, a well-known and very respected name in the audio industry has been making all types of audio equipment since 1964.

They’ve earned that respect through manufacturing high-quality products for decades. So when choosing recording headphones for your music studio, it may be tempting to go with a product from this familiar name.

Bose headphones are not a good choice for your music studio. Bose headphones are high-quality products, but in general, headphones are not suitable for mixing and mastering music production. A track mastered using imprecise headphones could lead to problems with the mix levels.

In the paragraphs below, I’ll explain why Bose headphones are not a good choice for your music studio. I will also explain some of the limitations and drawbacks of using these consumer headphones and discuss a few of the good things about Bose noise-canceling headphones.

Are Bose Headphones Good for Music Studios?

Are Bose Headphones Good for Music Production?
Why Bose Headphones Are Not Good for Music Studios
The Positive Things About Bose Headphones
- Noise Cancelling Headphones over Studio Headphones
- How to Incorporate Bose Headphones for Music Production
Why Are Monitors Better Than Headphones?
Final Thoughts on Bose headphones for Studio Recording

Are Bose Headphones Good for Music Production?

Read on to find out all this, plus why you should use monitors in your studio instead of budget studio headphones.

Why Bose Headphones Are Not Good for Music Studios

Bose headphones may seem like the right choice if you want studio headphones for your studio.

They offer excellent sound quality, are comfortable for long studio sessions, and boast active noise canceling technology.

But even though Bose headphones deliver superior audio quality and sound quality, studio headphones, in general, are not recommended for producing, mixing, or mastering tracks. The sound is just not as accurate as compared using monitors.

Using studio headphones can cause minor inaccuracies in levels you may miss during mixing and mastering.

You may miss the errors in the levels due to the limitations of the frequencies the studio headphones can attain. These inaccurate levels will show up clearly when the track is played through higher quality audio output sources like monitors.

Studio headphones just can’t reach a wide range of frequencies as monitors.

The response of the speakers can also be unreliable. Some users describe Bose headphones as sounding almost bouncy in terms of the frequency response with booming bass.

The bounciness of the frequencies and overpowering bass are not suitable for producing, mixing, or mastering tracks. This is why Bose is not the best headphones and is not recommended for music production in music studios.

A set of the best headphones will be a pair with a very flat response and a very clean and crisp quality sound. The audio quality needs to be super clean so that the producer can get the most accurate sound and adjust the track accordingly.

Bose high-quality headphones just don’t provide a reliable enough sound for music production.

They offer high sound quality, but it is a more consumer-quality sound than what a pair of more technically tuned headphones or monitors can produce.

The Positive Things About Bose Headphones

Bose noise canceling headphones are not bad in general, though.

They are very comfortable and come in a variety of models. There are lots of wireless models with long-lasting batteries. Bose also uses high-quality materials to manufacture its products, so you can expect the headphones to last a long time.

The fact that Bose closed-back headphones aren’t suitable for producing, mixing, and mastering music production doesn’t mean they don’t provide high-quality audio.

The highs are clean, and the bass is deep and reverberating. As I mentioned above, the Bose line of closed-back headphones is tuned with what an everyday consumer looks for in a pair of on-ear headphones.

The Bose Corporation offers a robust line of different commercial headphones. You can shop around and find the best headphone models for you. The Bose QuietComfort 35 II, available on Amazon.com, is a high-quality headphone choice if you can’t afford or just don’t want monitors for your studio.

Noise Cancelling Headphones over Studio Headphones

This model features Bose’s industry-leading active noise cancellation technology.

It has three levels of excellent noise cancellation, which work with two microphones to block out all the outside noise. It also has 20 hours of battery life and is exceptionally comfortable, making it an excellent choice for long sessions in the studio.

You could also use these noise-canceling Bose headphones with a set of high-quality monitors to create an easy recording environment.

You can do this by using wireless headphones and then making a high-quality mix using the recording studio monitors to finish the project.

How to Incorporate Bose Headphones for Music Production

Combining high-quality headphones for music production and ease of recording with good monitors to mix and master the track is the best way to get a good clean, detailed sound with accurate levels. Monitors are far superior to headphones sonically.

Why Are Monitors Better Than Headphones?

Headphones are inferior to monitors because the human brain perceives sound differently than headphones. The monitor’s sound is perceived as a more real sound by the brain instead of sound directly into each ear from headphones.

High-quality studio monitors plus an acoustically treated room – to flatten all the frequencies as much as possible – are the ideal environment and equipment for mixing and mastering tracks. Such tracks will sound amazing no matter where they are played.

This combination makes for a sound environment that allows music producers to dial in every aspect of the way the track sounds pretty accurately.

This ensures that the music production sounds great whether played in a car, on headphones, or over speakers.

The only problem with monitors is the fact that they are loud. And loudly playing the same snippet over and over to get a section mixed perfectly could annoy anyone you live with or your neighbors if you live in an apartment.

Living in a place where others would be disturbed by the music coming from your monitors is the only reason to use headphones rather than monitors.

You can still produce music production on a high-quality pair of Bose headphones. However, the final product will not sound as good when played on other audio sources as via the headphones you used to mix the track.

Final Thoughts on Bose headphones for Studio Recording

Saying that Bose headphones are not good for a music production studio is not disparaging the company’s high-quality products.

It’s just that monitors provide a better mix and master that sounds great from any audio output source.

Combining a set of nice Bose headphones and a set of monitors is the best way of recording music production. Using the headphones during the recording process will provide some comfort, and then you can adjust the levels accurately using the monitors, neighbors, and housemates permitting.