Is the Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) worth the upgrade from the Sennheiser HD 490 Pro?

Verdict

Meaningful upgrade

The Bose QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen) scores 6.7 points above the Sennheiser HD 490 Pro. That's a real improvement, though not the kind you'd notice on every track. None of the shared sub-scores move by more than half a point, so the two behave very similarly on the things reviewers measure. On paper: active noise cancelling, weight 260 g to 236 g and driver size 38 mm to 40 mm. One caution: this steps down a line tier (HD 490 Pro to QuietComfort Headphones (2nd Gen)), and base models usually trade away tier features - check the codec and ANC rows above before trusting the score gap alone. It's also $70 cheaper, which makes this an easy call. Worth doing if you're replacing anyway; harder to justify as a pure upgrade if what you have still works.