QCY H3 Over-ears Wireless ANC Review – Close Enough For Government Work

INTRO

If there were backrooms in forums, you might hear someone whisper about QCY earphones and headphones such as the $40 QCY H3. They are the Sketchers of the headphone world – from what I remember tended to copy other CHi-Fi brands mostly KZ.

Sometimes they have a model or two that hit it off. Our own Alberto spoke “praises” towards a budget TWS because we all enjoy no wires, but we also hopefully understand we are willing to accept compromises and are not critically listening.

My breadth of experience with over ears is shallow, and even more so with wireless models. I did get excited about the QCY H3 in part to a trip we had planned. I was ultimately curious could any of these budget ANC models compete with the mainstream everyone congregates towards?

My “expertly” conducted consumer sampling indicated most plane riders gravitate towards Sony, Apple, and Bose, with an occasional JBL thrown in. I did not even see a Sennheiser, but I am sure there are a few. So where does the QCY H3 fit in, I had my thoughts and I was hoping my expectations were met.  

My budget foray into over-ears led me to the ever popular ISK MDH9000 derivatives years ago such as the Marantz MPH-2 or (Stellar Labs version which are still available I believe). I have a few others as well, Philips SHP9500 is so comfortable and decent to listen to for open backs, they are my gold standard in comfort due to the weightless feeling and soft clamping force. 

The QCY H3 had a niche I wanted to fill though, budget ANC that I can let my wife or son use for travel for the once or twice a year trip. Neither enjoy sticking anything in their ears, so over-ears is the only logical choice when ANC is important. I wear glasses, so sealing issues prevent me from getting the most from over-ears.

DESIGN

From a design standpoint, the QCY H3 is built with plastic that feels every bit as “luxurious” as what is found on the Sony WH-1000XM3. The center packed headband padding along with the earpads feel soft and equivalent to mainstream brands.

I have confidence it would probably hold up just as long as anything from the mainstream, but this is a gut feeling I have no way to test longevity. The earpads are approximately an inch thick or 25.4mm for the rest of the world, and the large L/R markings inside the earcups are clearly visible.

The folding mechanisms snap securely and are robust enough for everyday use. The QCY H3 is majority plastic construction so YMMV might vary with kids usage, but everything else in the market is also plastic. They are not flimsy plastic however. The sliding headband was a strip of metal, so there is strength there. I noticed the top headband easily transmits noise to the ear cups. 

Perhaps there is room for improvement for reducing transmitted noise. They do not currently exhibit any creaking noises while my Sony WH-1000XM3 will creak and moan when stretching them out to go on my head. Maybe in due time the QCY H3 will suffer this as well, but so far they are solid. Point for QCY H3 over Sony WH-1000XM3.

PACKAGE CONTENTS & FEATURES

The QCY H3 comes with a USB-C charging cable, and a 3.5mm cable for hard wire connections, but no case and no charging adapter. With no case, that tells me they are targeting a certain demographic (maybe teens/young adults) that wear headphones as accessories or to block out the outside world. It fits perfectly inside the Sony WH-1000XM3 case, and folds nearly identically.

I was happy to see the 3.5mm cable as that gives two uses, one for those “oops forgot to charge my headphones” days and two, if you want to use a splitter to watch a family movie. Ok maybe there are other use case scenarios, but those are the two I think about with budget cans.

I was completely let down by the second scenario, we quickly realized the ANC would turn off the second the cable was plugged in. I was hoping the analog input would run through the processing chip and provide hard-wired ANC as well.

That meant no ANC movie sharing, and wearing over-ears on the plane without ANC is annoying as the noise is amplified with over-ears. The QCY H3 includes multi-point connections which if you wanted to use them for office use connected to your PC and also to your phone at the same time allows multitasking.

One final scaled down feature on the QCY H3 involves minimal control buttons, but they are multi-functional. There are buttons to turn volume up and down, ANC toggle, power and pause. Previous and Next track can be controlled with holding volume up/down. The power or multi-function button (MFB) controls call answering, gaming/video low latency mode, or voice assistant. All of this is easily described in the included manual.  

SOUND

Tested with LG G8 (wired/bluetooth) and IPhone SE (bluetooth only)

The QCY H3 sound can be described as boxy bloated bass honking its way into the midrange with muted treble when connected with the cord. It’s ok to use in a pinch, but it is clearly not optimized unless you put it into bluetooth mode where some of these qualities are tamed down. Treble still sounds veiled and hazy and sprinkle in the compression of the bluetooth codec used, you can hear the low bitrate impacts quite clearly throughout the treble. 

QCY did EQ out some of the lower midrange, midbass bloat but it still sounds wooly. I suspect some of this hollowness is the result of the earcups. Some dampening mods might assist, but in stock form set your expectations.

Bass only has some minor lift however feels constrained and not super detailed. It has a little punch with some lower registers that can be heard but not necessarily believed. The QCY H3 is ok for less discerning listeners…again my target would be children who may or may not care, although in my pre-teen years I longed for earbuds attached to my Walkman that could faithfully reproduce the bass lines present in LL Cool J tunes. Not exactly an audiophile era, but kids can have opinions too.

The treble is swishy, and lacking in proper timbre a lot of this is the codec, but even in wired mode I was only mildly amused by the cymbal reproduction. I could not handle listening to these myself for very long, I would equate to mylar speaker tweeter reproduction, you know those commonly found in stock automobile “stereos”.

I checked the specifications page, the manual included and absent is any mention of codecs available. I am confident these are using a basic SBC codec, not Apt-X, Apt-X HD, LDAC or even AAC which is most likely the reason for such heavy compression and mutilation of high frequencies.

FINAL COMMENTS

I would consider the QCY H3 nearly acceptable for younger ears that might need ANC for air travel purposes or even roadtrips. For budget over-ears ANC they provide some value and construction is above my expectations at a $40 price tag, and can easily be equivalent to what you find in name brand models costing 10 times as much. 

The overall sound ability is however substantially lower in quality as a result of the lower quality bluetooth codec in play, so there will not be any confusion as to why they cost $40. Set realistic expectations given the 4.5 star reviews and these might fulfill your goal, but otherwise they are not ear pleasing budget busters for me.

Disclaimer: We thank QCY for reaching out and sending these gratis, these are my opinions, my words, typed on my computer.

QCY H3 ANC SPECIFICATIONS

• Product name: QCY H3
• Model Number: BH23H3A
• Compatible system: iOS/Android
• Dimension & Weight: 160.2*81.7*196.8mm, 293g
• Driver Unit: 40mm Dynamic driver
• Connection Type: Bluetooth, AUX
• Microphone: Built-In 3 Microphones
• Bluetooth Version: V5.3
• Supported Profiles: A2DP/AVRCP/HFP
• Effective Range: 10 meters
• Frequency Range:2.4 GHz band (2.4000–2.4835 GHz)
• Multi Device Connection: Supported 2 Device
• Pairing name: QCY H3
• Communication distance: 10 meters
• Bluetooth version: 5.3
• Supported Profiles: A2DP/AVRCP/HFP
• Hybrid Active Noise Cancellation (ANC)
• Environment Noise Cancellation (ENC)
• Wind Noise Reduction
• Transparency Mode
• QCY H3 Over-ear Headphones
• Type-C Charging cable
• 3.5mm Audio cable
• User Manual

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DISCLAIMER

Get it from retailers Amazon, Aliexpress, or direct from QCY.

Our generic standard disclaimer.

About my measurements.