Boltune BT-BH024 Aptx IPX7 QCC3026 Qualcomm Chip Stem Earbuds
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RC007
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Model: Boltune BT-BH024 (Now rebranded as the TaoTronics BT-BH024)
Price: Approx. $39.99 from Boltune direct
Vendor Website: Boltune
Review Reference: RC007
Manufacturer Specification:
1 x Pair Wireless Earbuds
1 x USB Type-C Charge Case
1 x USB Type-C Charge Cable
3 x Pair Silicone Tips
1 x User manual
Real Life Experience
The Boltune BT-BH024 are a real mystery. They've stayed in my collection for years, because the specification was MILES ahead of it's time when they were released, and they've periodically dropped as low as £10 on Amazon before being unceremoniously dropped during the Amazon 'vouchergate', likely due to their parent company Shenzhen NearbyExpress Technology Development Company. Doing some investigation work on them revealed very little. I suspect they are part of the same group of companies as TaoTronics, Hootoo and Anjou, but the branding doesn't seem to have taken off - I found little of interest on social media and even their website looks like it was written in Dreamweaver.
Now initially the BT-BH024 did not exactly get the excitement flowing for an audio extravaganza., but looks can be deceiving, and the BT-BH024 remain a firm favourite with many, and with good reason too.
The Unboxing - 6/10
The unboxing as about as clandestine as you can get. The logo and design are etched in red...and that's about it. You'll need the manual, as the controls are not exactly intuitive, and there is one - I just didn't take a picture of it. Sorry! You get the usual USB-C charge cable and spare tips.
The Case - 8/10
The Boltune case is unique - very intelligently designed with a cloth-style finish, a change from the usual matte black plastic. The hinge is robust, a little stiff if anything. It is charged with USB-C to the rear, and provides up to 42 hours playtime - very impressive for any earbuds, let alone a budget set. It also supports quick charge, giving 1 hour playtime from 10 minutes juice.
A single LED on the front signifies charge. Some will dislike this, as it doesn't tell you exactly how much charge the case has, in the way that 1More or Boya do with their traffic lights or multiple lights methods, but for most it will be an adequate trade off.
Inside the case, it tells you which slot is right and which is left. The magnets are powerful enough to withstand being held upside down and unlike many the buds snap in intuitively.
There is a reset button at the back in case you need to hard reset. I've never needed to, and it needs to be held down for long enough that initiating it by accident is unlikely.
Despite this, it is lightweight and portable - heavier than average topping the 50g mark, but has stood the test of time really well.
A point of note - like many cases, it does have a tendency, with both foam and larger silicone tips to 'retrain itself' to not bother fully closing, kinda like my fridge door. This may result in the buds connecting to your device and will result in the battery draining. A way to combat this is a few weeks of using kids 'Bobby clips' or elastic bands around the case to retrain it closed again. Job done.
The Fit - 7/10
I reduced this from an 8 retrospectively, as since there have been releases from QCY and Boya that set the bar high for comfort.
The stem is one of the longest I've tested, topping the 40mm length that seems to be the average of this type. They are shorter than the Taotronics 80...and that's about it, the majority are shorter these days. That's not necessarily a bad thing - it brings the mic closer to your mouth, for one.
Getting a good seal is always a challenge with the supplied tips, regardless of vendor. I tried all three sizes of the supplied silicone tips and none quite fitted properly. This meant keeping them in my ear was problematic, and of course readjusting them means touching the controls and the things skipping tracks or cancelling calls. Spinfits didn't work for me here either as they were too narrow.
I've always been a fan of foam tips so thought I would give my trusty INAIRS a go. Sadly they were too deep for the case to close. This would be the same with Comply if you prefer paying for the name
Eventually I found the Ikko I-Planet. Problem kinda solved. These were designed for the Jabra 65T (I think). It took a little edge off the upper mids but suddenly the fit became outstanding, with no issues at all, and the case closes fine too. If you don't like foam, then the Feaulle latex h360 are also an excellent (and my prefered) option.
The angular neck is rather odd for a tws design and this makes getting the tip right important. Ergonomically they are OK, but also bear in mind the battery connectors like most of this style are on the inside of the stem, which can increase the probability of a skin flare up should you be allergic to the alloy used.
At 4.2g they are certainly not heavy, and this helps with their stabilility.
Passive Isolation - 7/10
In listening mode there are no claims from the vendor that noise is cancelled. The shape is not designed to passively cancel noise either - whilst they are bulbous, they aren't shaped in the same way the 1More Pistonbuds are, for example. They practically track your ear, making noise isolation very straightforward.
With the ikko foam tips, PNI is good. Chatter is reduced, low rumbling is reduced. These, as you can tell, come to life with the right tips.
Mic noise 'cancellation' should not be confused with hybrid or active noise cancellation but often is. Boltune advertise cvc8.0 and it is evident here- it works ok - applying a slight muffle to very low frequencies but letting high frequencies through freely (see Call Quality)
Sound Quality - 7/10 (Price Weighted), Raw Quality - 6/10
For the money, it is difficult to argue with the BT-BH024. With a full, albeit rather bloated bass representation and only minor recess to the mids, EDM and dance tracks sound beefy and thumping without bordering on fatiguing.
The trebles can vary - there is a clear dip around 8k, and that removes some of the sibilance you hear on budget buds, at least without hammering the volume.
Vocals are clearly brought to the front but the soundstage is somewhat narrow and predictable- again, this is a feature I find synonymous with almost all earbuds, especially at their date of release and considering their form factor.
One added bonus is they have a default template in Wavelet designed to give you the ideal EQ for this model - great for Android users. This does allow you to improve the sound quite nicely. The sound quality and latency on Windows is far better than iPhone, which suggests they are probably better for Android users, as Android will, like Windows, pull the aptx stream.
AptX is a codec which stipulates certain parameters very clearly, unlike SBC or AAC which can be variable. This ensures that sound is compressed to a level commensurate of a 320k mp3 and also minimises latency to sub 180Ms, give or take a few % owing to the device you're playing it on. In order to offer the Qualcomm codec you need to use the Qualcomm chip. Qualcomm are not cheap compared to Realtek, Airoha or Pixart, three of the commonly-used vendors for buds of this price point, from the perspective of the chip or the license you have to pay them to support and advertise the codec, so the offer prices always surprise me to the point of 'How are they actually making any profit?!'
Call Quality - Indoors - 7.5/10, Outdoors - 6.5/10
For relative unknowns, they designed these buds very intelligently to optimize calls. The first microphone is on the inside of the earbud, the second is dispersed through an array of holes at the edge of the stem.
This works surprisingly quite well. It cuts out a fair bit of low end, air conditioning and other ambient noise. However, whilst it was passable at cutting out adult voices, it seemed to struggle with Children's voices, which overpowered my own at times. This is closer to a 'let everything through' set than 'compress like mad', but bear in mind the price and compare to something like the Anker Soundcore Life P2 or Aukey EP-T25, both of which you could easily pay double for depending on Amazon's latest giveaway price, and they destroy both.
Overall though - very decent. Your voice sounds quite natural, not robotic, and motion does not detract from clarity - often a problem for stem style buds.
Temper expectations. Wind will have an impact. CvC8.0 is designed to cut out frequencies outside your own, but this only goes so far. Subsequent tests however, which involved me taking no less than 8 sets of earbuds out in wind, rain and heavy traffic, saw the Boltune perform better than the Edifier TWS NB2, 1More Colorbuds and many other more expensive earbuds. Bravo!
These were my findings on 31.10.2020:
Clarity is decent but a little inconsistent - moving them around changed the dynamics, there is virtually no high end suppression despite claiming CVC8.0 so rather than traffic flying past instead you hear the puddles splashing where the traffic flew past. These were tested on a main open road with probably the worst conditions and yet they performed better than some of the more expensive buds. Voice sounded much more natural than some of the others.
Clarity - 8/10
Affected by the environment - 6/10
Suppression - 6/10
Naturalness - 7/10
Connectivity, Controls and Other Features - 7/10
The buds connect to the previously connected device no problem. Nearly 12 months later with little use I took them out the box and they connected to the last device immediately!
Range is OK - they struggle around the 10m mark despite being advertised as 20m. I tested these initially pre-COVID and had no connectivity issues in busy London stations. This is the norm.
They can be paired individually if you want one ear free. It shows up as Boltune BT-BH024 L in the bluetooth pairing list. This is a little less intuitive than newer models that do it automatically, but I find these models often suffer from getting 'stuck' in single mode and need multiple hard resets to redress the issue, so horses for courses.
The high IPX rating (IPX7/8) means they can be rinsed under the tap- surprising given the double mic array. I can confirm they've been pushed to the limits and are still running fine.
Controls are the achilles heel. Whilst volume, skipping tracks, activating SIRI can all can be done via the touch control, which is not the norm at this price, I have never found them to be particularly accurate. In fact, they are a pain in the ass. The touch controls are comfortably the worst feature of the buds and whilst consistently a problem area for earbud vendors, the shape makes it difficult to adjust them without doing something unintentional.
Tactile buttons tend to place extra pressure on the ear canal and unless you have a flat surface, which is starting to become more popular with the likes of FIIL and Redmi both introducing this form factor, but nevertheless every adjustment is going to cause a problem to a lesser or greater degree. The Tronsmart Onyx Free have great tactile buttons and the FIIL T1 Pro have decent touch control, but don't let touch control govern your purchase decisions - for many of us it will matter very little in the grand scheme of things.
Finally, they have automatic ear detection. It worked when I first got them, I just re-tested and it still works well. They lack some features now that are more commonplace, such as wireless charging, app support, etc, but when they were released they ticked nearly all of the boxes - only father time has caught up with them.
Battery Life - 8.5/10
Battery life is still performing well nearly 12 months later - I can get most of a days work out of them, and a stellar 35 hours plus with the case is worthy of a 9/10. There has been no degradation at all, which was nice for my first earbuds after the Anker Soundcore Liberty Duo, whose battery life diminished within a few months.
Final Comments
Never judge a book by its cover. These had no right to be any good. Who the hell are Boltune? They don't even have a proper website! Their history in the audiophile world is hardly up there with Sennheiser, or even generic tech brands like Anker, and yet they tick a lot of boxes. I am fairly sure these are a sub-brand of Taotronics, who we know of much better here in the West.
For stem-based earbuds I actually found them better than the Anker SLP2, which have no volume control and iffy connectivity, and better than the Aukey EP-T21 or QCY T5 on handling ambient noise for calls. In fact I have only found one set of stem-based silicone buds - the Omthing Airfree - that I like more, and they unfortunately suffer from the shortest battery life outside of KZ!
Considering they are a few months old now, and this market moves fast, they still command top spot for me at the sub $40 silicone stem price point. That they are often on offer and available through Amazon is a no-brainer. With the Qualcomm 3026 chip these have and will stand the test of time better than the Airoha or Realtek releases of around that time. It's surprising how good they were on release, so naturally this still makes them a solid purchase even in q1 2021 (at the sale price anyway!) Battery life and water resistance are good and have remained strong in the year I've had them, and sound profile is passable even by 2021 standards and with Wavelet really pretty much good enough for the average user.
Overall the BT-BH024 are a no brainer. They are not especially great at anything but have no real flaws either, and when you're playing in this ball park that's your barometer for success really. Yes they are better with foam tips but you could get away with silicone and be satisfied. Yes the design could leave them more prone to the battery connectors getting obscured and the user feeling like one bud has stopped working - but plenty do the same, and good maintenance will keep these from having any issues.
Price Weighted Score: 86%
Raw Score: 75%
2022 Score: 72%
How I review: (See Previous Reviews)
Instagram: regancipher
YouTube: regancipher
Model: Boltune BT-BH024 (Now rebranded as the TaoTronics BT-BH024)
Price: Approx. $39.99 from Boltune direct
Vendor Website: Boltune
Review Reference: RC007
Manufacturer Specification:
- Brand: Boltune
- Model: BT-BH024
- Driver: 10mm PEEK PU Dynamic Drivers
- Chipset: Qualcomm QCC3026
- Mic: 4, cVc 8.0
- ANC: No
- Volume Control: Yes
- Codecs: AAC, SBC, AptX
- In Ear Detection: Yes
- Earbud Weight: 4.21g
- Earbud Dimensions: 44.7mm stem length
- Gross Case & Buds Weight: 54.23g
- Case Dimensions: 74mm (width) x 39mm (height) x 29mm (depth)
- Case Charge Capacity: 400mAh
- Input: 5v 500mA
- Full Charge Time: 2 hours
- Quick Charge: Yes, 1 hour from 10 minutes
- Wireless Charging: No
- Single Use Playtime: Up to 7 hours
- Playtime with Charge Case: Up to 42 hours
- App Support: Yes (Android only)
- Bluetooth Range: 10m advertised
- Bluetooth: Bluetooth® 5.1
- Bluetooth Protocols: HSP/ HFP/ A2DP/ AVRCP
- Water Resistance: IPX8
1 x Pair Wireless Earbuds
1 x USB Type-C Charge Case
1 x USB Type-C Charge Cable
3 x Pair Silicone Tips
1 x User manual
Real Life Experience
The Boltune BT-BH024 are a real mystery. They've stayed in my collection for years, because the specification was MILES ahead of it's time when they were released, and they've periodically dropped as low as £10 on Amazon before being unceremoniously dropped during the Amazon 'vouchergate', likely due to their parent company Shenzhen NearbyExpress Technology Development Company. Doing some investigation work on them revealed very little. I suspect they are part of the same group of companies as TaoTronics, Hootoo and Anjou, but the branding doesn't seem to have taken off - I found little of interest on social media and even their website looks like it was written in Dreamweaver.
Now initially the BT-BH024 did not exactly get the excitement flowing for an audio extravaganza., but looks can be deceiving, and the BT-BH024 remain a firm favourite with many, and with good reason too.
The Unboxing - 6/10
The unboxing as about as clandestine as you can get. The logo and design are etched in red...and that's about it. You'll need the manual, as the controls are not exactly intuitive, and there is one - I just didn't take a picture of it. Sorry! You get the usual USB-C charge cable and spare tips.
The Case - 8/10
The Boltune case is unique - very intelligently designed with a cloth-style finish, a change from the usual matte black plastic. The hinge is robust, a little stiff if anything. It is charged with USB-C to the rear, and provides up to 42 hours playtime - very impressive for any earbuds, let alone a budget set. It also supports quick charge, giving 1 hour playtime from 10 minutes juice.
A single LED on the front signifies charge. Some will dislike this, as it doesn't tell you exactly how much charge the case has, in the way that 1More or Boya do with their traffic lights or multiple lights methods, but for most it will be an adequate trade off.
Inside the case, it tells you which slot is right and which is left. The magnets are powerful enough to withstand being held upside down and unlike many the buds snap in intuitively.
There is a reset button at the back in case you need to hard reset. I've never needed to, and it needs to be held down for long enough that initiating it by accident is unlikely.
Despite this, it is lightweight and portable - heavier than average topping the 50g mark, but has stood the test of time really well.
A point of note - like many cases, it does have a tendency, with both foam and larger silicone tips to 'retrain itself' to not bother fully closing, kinda like my fridge door. This may result in the buds connecting to your device and will result in the battery draining. A way to combat this is a few weeks of using kids 'Bobby clips' or elastic bands around the case to retrain it closed again. Job done.
The Fit - 7/10
I reduced this from an 8 retrospectively, as since there have been releases from QCY and Boya that set the bar high for comfort.
The stem is one of the longest I've tested, topping the 40mm length that seems to be the average of this type. They are shorter than the Taotronics 80...and that's about it, the majority are shorter these days. That's not necessarily a bad thing - it brings the mic closer to your mouth, for one.
Getting a good seal is always a challenge with the supplied tips, regardless of vendor. I tried all three sizes of the supplied silicone tips and none quite fitted properly. This meant keeping them in my ear was problematic, and of course readjusting them means touching the controls and the things skipping tracks or cancelling calls. Spinfits didn't work for me here either as they were too narrow.
I've always been a fan of foam tips so thought I would give my trusty INAIRS a go. Sadly they were too deep for the case to close. This would be the same with Comply if you prefer paying for the name
Eventually I found the Ikko I-Planet. Problem kinda solved. These were designed for the Jabra 65T (I think). It took a little edge off the upper mids but suddenly the fit became outstanding, with no issues at all, and the case closes fine too. If you don't like foam, then the Feaulle latex h360 are also an excellent (and my prefered) option.
The angular neck is rather odd for a tws design and this makes getting the tip right important. Ergonomically they are OK, but also bear in mind the battery connectors like most of this style are on the inside of the stem, which can increase the probability of a skin flare up should you be allergic to the alloy used.
At 4.2g they are certainly not heavy, and this helps with their stabilility.
Passive Isolation - 7/10
In listening mode there are no claims from the vendor that noise is cancelled. The shape is not designed to passively cancel noise either - whilst they are bulbous, they aren't shaped in the same way the 1More Pistonbuds are, for example. They practically track your ear, making noise isolation very straightforward.
With the ikko foam tips, PNI is good. Chatter is reduced, low rumbling is reduced. These, as you can tell, come to life with the right tips.
Mic noise 'cancellation' should not be confused with hybrid or active noise cancellation but often is. Boltune advertise cvc8.0 and it is evident here- it works ok - applying a slight muffle to very low frequencies but letting high frequencies through freely (see Call Quality)
Sound Quality - 7/10 (Price Weighted), Raw Quality - 6/10
For the money, it is difficult to argue with the BT-BH024. With a full, albeit rather bloated bass representation and only minor recess to the mids, EDM and dance tracks sound beefy and thumping without bordering on fatiguing.
The trebles can vary - there is a clear dip around 8k, and that removes some of the sibilance you hear on budget buds, at least without hammering the volume.
Vocals are clearly brought to the front but the soundstage is somewhat narrow and predictable- again, this is a feature I find synonymous with almost all earbuds, especially at their date of release and considering their form factor.
One added bonus is they have a default template in Wavelet designed to give you the ideal EQ for this model - great for Android users. This does allow you to improve the sound quite nicely. The sound quality and latency on Windows is far better than iPhone, which suggests they are probably better for Android users, as Android will, like Windows, pull the aptx stream.
AptX is a codec which stipulates certain parameters very clearly, unlike SBC or AAC which can be variable. This ensures that sound is compressed to a level commensurate of a 320k mp3 and also minimises latency to sub 180Ms, give or take a few % owing to the device you're playing it on. In order to offer the Qualcomm codec you need to use the Qualcomm chip. Qualcomm are not cheap compared to Realtek, Airoha or Pixart, three of the commonly-used vendors for buds of this price point, from the perspective of the chip or the license you have to pay them to support and advertise the codec, so the offer prices always surprise me to the point of 'How are they actually making any profit?!'
Call Quality - Indoors - 7.5/10, Outdoors - 6.5/10
For relative unknowns, they designed these buds very intelligently to optimize calls. The first microphone is on the inside of the earbud, the second is dispersed through an array of holes at the edge of the stem.
This works surprisingly quite well. It cuts out a fair bit of low end, air conditioning and other ambient noise. However, whilst it was passable at cutting out adult voices, it seemed to struggle with Children's voices, which overpowered my own at times. This is closer to a 'let everything through' set than 'compress like mad', but bear in mind the price and compare to something like the Anker Soundcore Life P2 or Aukey EP-T25, both of which you could easily pay double for depending on Amazon's latest giveaway price, and they destroy both.
Overall though - very decent. Your voice sounds quite natural, not robotic, and motion does not detract from clarity - often a problem for stem style buds.
Temper expectations. Wind will have an impact. CvC8.0 is designed to cut out frequencies outside your own, but this only goes so far. Subsequent tests however, which involved me taking no less than 8 sets of earbuds out in wind, rain and heavy traffic, saw the Boltune perform better than the Edifier TWS NB2, 1More Colorbuds and many other more expensive earbuds. Bravo!
These were my findings on 31.10.2020:
Clarity is decent but a little inconsistent - moving them around changed the dynamics, there is virtually no high end suppression despite claiming CVC8.0 so rather than traffic flying past instead you hear the puddles splashing where the traffic flew past. These were tested on a main open road with probably the worst conditions and yet they performed better than some of the more expensive buds. Voice sounded much more natural than some of the others.
Clarity - 8/10
Affected by the environment - 6/10
Suppression - 6/10
Naturalness - 7/10
Connectivity, Controls and Other Features - 7/10
The buds connect to the previously connected device no problem. Nearly 12 months later with little use I took them out the box and they connected to the last device immediately!
Range is OK - they struggle around the 10m mark despite being advertised as 20m. I tested these initially pre-COVID and had no connectivity issues in busy London stations. This is the norm.
They can be paired individually if you want one ear free. It shows up as Boltune BT-BH024 L in the bluetooth pairing list. This is a little less intuitive than newer models that do it automatically, but I find these models often suffer from getting 'stuck' in single mode and need multiple hard resets to redress the issue, so horses for courses.
The high IPX rating (IPX7/8) means they can be rinsed under the tap- surprising given the double mic array. I can confirm they've been pushed to the limits and are still running fine.
Controls are the achilles heel. Whilst volume, skipping tracks, activating SIRI can all can be done via the touch control, which is not the norm at this price, I have never found them to be particularly accurate. In fact, they are a pain in the ass. The touch controls are comfortably the worst feature of the buds and whilst consistently a problem area for earbud vendors, the shape makes it difficult to adjust them without doing something unintentional.
Tactile buttons tend to place extra pressure on the ear canal and unless you have a flat surface, which is starting to become more popular with the likes of FIIL and Redmi both introducing this form factor, but nevertheless every adjustment is going to cause a problem to a lesser or greater degree. The Tronsmart Onyx Free have great tactile buttons and the FIIL T1 Pro have decent touch control, but don't let touch control govern your purchase decisions - for many of us it will matter very little in the grand scheme of things.
Finally, they have automatic ear detection. It worked when I first got them, I just re-tested and it still works well. They lack some features now that are more commonplace, such as wireless charging, app support, etc, but when they were released they ticked nearly all of the boxes - only father time has caught up with them.
Battery Life - 8.5/10
Battery life is still performing well nearly 12 months later - I can get most of a days work out of them, and a stellar 35 hours plus with the case is worthy of a 9/10. There has been no degradation at all, which was nice for my first earbuds after the Anker Soundcore Liberty Duo, whose battery life diminished within a few months.
Final Comments
Never judge a book by its cover. These had no right to be any good. Who the hell are Boltune? They don't even have a proper website! Their history in the audiophile world is hardly up there with Sennheiser, or even generic tech brands like Anker, and yet they tick a lot of boxes. I am fairly sure these are a sub-brand of Taotronics, who we know of much better here in the West.
For stem-based earbuds I actually found them better than the Anker SLP2, which have no volume control and iffy connectivity, and better than the Aukey EP-T21 or QCY T5 on handling ambient noise for calls. In fact I have only found one set of stem-based silicone buds - the Omthing Airfree - that I like more, and they unfortunately suffer from the shortest battery life outside of KZ!
Considering they are a few months old now, and this market moves fast, they still command top spot for me at the sub $40 silicone stem price point. That they are often on offer and available through Amazon is a no-brainer. With the Qualcomm 3026 chip these have and will stand the test of time better than the Airoha or Realtek releases of around that time. It's surprising how good they were on release, so naturally this still makes them a solid purchase even in q1 2021 (at the sale price anyway!) Battery life and water resistance are good and have remained strong in the year I've had them, and sound profile is passable even by 2021 standards and with Wavelet really pretty much good enough for the average user.
Overall the BT-BH024 are a no brainer. They are not especially great at anything but have no real flaws either, and when you're playing in this ball park that's your barometer for success really. Yes they are better with foam tips but you could get away with silicone and be satisfied. Yes the design could leave them more prone to the battery connectors getting obscured and the user feeling like one bud has stopped working - but plenty do the same, and good maintenance will keep these from having any issues.
Price Weighted Score: 86%
Raw Score: 75%
2022 Score: 72%
