QCY Crossky C30S Review
The QCY Crossky C30S is a 5-gram-per-earbud open-ear Bluetooth clip set with 10.8mm drivers, LDAC support, multipoint connectivity, an IPX5 rating, and a USB-C charging case. QCY rates it for up to six hours per charge and 40 hours including the case.
Marcus Bell's review
By Marcus Bell ·
Category scores
- Battery life 4
QCY claims six hours per charge. EarbudsArena measured five hours and fifty-four minutes at 60 percent volume on AAC, which is about as close to a manufacturer claim as these things get. The case is rated 460mAh for 40 hours total, and a 10-minute charge is claimed to return an hour. Two things keep this off a higher score: the app shows earbud charge but not case charge, so you are reading an LED, and nobody has published a measured LDAC runtime. LDAC costs power, so the six-hour number does not describe the mode QCY is advertising.
- Sound 3
Clear mids and vocals, bass that EarbudsArena calls present and controlled rather than booming, highs that are clean if slightly soft at the top. That is a good result for an open-ear clip and a mediocre one against sealed earbuds at the same price, because the physics are not negotiable. An open ear canal loses low frequencies and no codec fixes that. LDAC is a real improvement in data rate over AAC, but it is working on the wrong bottleneck.
- Isolation and leakage 2
This is the cost of the design and it should be scored as one. There is essentially no isolation, and EarbudsArena found leakage becomes noticeable past roughly 50 to 55 percent volume. In a noisy environment you need more volume than that to hear anything, which means the situations where you most want the volume up are the situations where you are broadcasting to the room. Fine outdoors, poor on public transportation, bad in a shared office.
- Fit and comfort 4.5
Under 5 grams per side with a nickel-titanium clip and nothing inserted into the ear canal, so there is no pressure buildup and no occlusion. This is the reason to buy them. IPX5 covers sweat and rain, which is what a running headphone actually meets. Half a star off because clip position affects both sound and call quality, so it takes some fiddling to find the spot that works on your ear.
- Value 3.5
$47.99 at QCY for hardware that does what it says on battery and comfort. The catch is that you may be paying for a feature list you cannot fully use. LDAC does not work on iPhones and never will, and spatial audio is the kind of feature people switch on once. Strip those out and you are buying a well-built, honest, comfortable open-ear clip at a fair price, which is still a decent purchase. Just do not pay the Hi-Res premium expecting to hear it.
- Build and durability 3
No score here is confident, because the product has not been on sale long enough for a real ownership record to exist. The construction is sensible: a flexible nickel-titanium bridge, a USB-C case, IPX5 sealing. The wear points are obvious and worth watching. The bridge is flexed on every insertion, and the charging contacts sit on an earbud that gets sweated on. A middling score here means unproven, not bad.
The review
QCY claims six hours per charge. EarbudsArena measured five hours and fifty-four minutes at 60 percent volume on AAC. That is a six-minute gap, and after fifteen years of reading battery claims I can tell you that is close to unheard of. Start there, because most of what follows is less flattering.
The hardware: under 5 grams per side, a nickel-titanium clip, a 10.8mm driver, Bluetooth 6.0, IPX5, a 460mAh USB-C case rated for 40 hours total, and $47.99 direct from QCY. Nothing on that list is a lie. The question is which parts of it you'll actually use.
Take LDAC, since it's the headline. LDAC is Sony's codec, it carries more data than SBC or AAC, and Apple has never implemented it. If you own an iPhone you cannot use LDAC on these. Not with a firmware update, not with the QCY app, not ever. You'll be on AAC, which these also support and which is fine. That's not a defect, it's how the iPhone works. But it's half the reason the box exists, and it doesn't apply to a large share of the people who'll buy them.
Here's what the codec argument keeps missing anyway: these don't seal your ear canal. Nothing does when the driver sits outside the ear. A higher bitrate can't put back low frequencies that are leaving through an open canal. EarbudsArena describes the bass as present and controlled rather than booming, and honestly that's the ceiling for the form factor. If you want low end, buy sealed in-ears. A $47 pair of sealed buds will out-bass this and every other clip on the market and it won't be close.
What the open design buys you is the thing that matters to a runner: you hear the car. That's a real safety argument and I don't want to undersell it. The trap is what happens indoors. Weak isolation pushes you to turn the volume up, and EarbudsArena found leakage becomes noticeable past roughly 50 to 55 percent. On a quiet bus or in an office, the volume you need is the volume that makes you everyone's problem. These are outdoor headphones. Treat them that way.
Two things worth knowing that the spec sheet won't tell you. First, the app reports charge for the earbuds but not for the case, so your case gauge is an LED. Second, the six-hour figure is an AAC number and LDAC costs power. I haven't found a measured LDAC runtime I'd stand behind, so assume meaningfully less than six hours and plan around it rather than around the box.
Calls are clean indoors and merely usable outside, per EarbudsArena, which is the normal result for dual-mic ENC in this price band. Touch controls responded well in their testing. Fine. Neither of those is why you'd buy or skip these.
Durability I can't tell you about, and I'd rather say so than guess. These have been on sale for months, not years, and there's no owner record long enough to mean anything yet. The parts I'd watch are the nickel-titanium bridge, which gets flexed every single time you put them on, and the charging contacts, which sit on a sweaty earbud. On that: IPX5 is a low-pressure water jet. It covers sweat and rain. It is not immersion, so don't let anyone tell you these are waterproof.
So: $47.99 for a comfortable, secure, genuinely useful open-ear clip with an unusually honest battery claim and a marquee codec that a lot of buyers can't use. Buy them if you run or walk outdoors and want to hear traffic. Don't buy them for LDAC, don't buy them for bass, and don't buy them to wear on a train.
Frequently asked questions
Does the QCY Crossky C30S support LDAC on iPhone?
No, and it never will. LDAC is Sony's codec and Apple has never implemented it in iOS, so no earbud can use LDAC with an iPhone regardless of firmware or app settings. The C30S also supports AAC, which is what your iPhone will actually use, and AAC is perfectly adequate here. If LDAC is your reason for buying these, pair them with an Android phone that supports it.
How long does the battery really last?
EarbudsArena measured five hours and fifty-four minutes at 60 percent volume on AAC against QCY's six-hour claim, which is unusually accurate. The case is rated to bring the total to about 40 hours. Two caveats: LDAC draws more power and no one has published a measured LDAC runtime, so expect noticeably less than six hours in that mode, and the QCY app reports earbud charge but not case charge, so you are left reading the case LED.
Do they leak sound?
Yes, past a certain point. EarbudsArena found leakage becomes noticeable above roughly 50 to 55 percent volume. Below that, in a normal room, you are mostly fine. The problem is that noisy environments push you above that threshold to hear anything, so the bus is exactly where these are worst. Keep them for outdoors.
Are they waterproof enough for running in the rain?
IPX5 covers a low-pressure water jet from any direction, which in practice means sweat, rain, and splashes. It does not cover immersion. Running in a downpour is fine. Dropping them in a puddle or a sink is not covered, and neither is swimming.
Should I buy these instead of regular sealed earbuds?
Only if awareness is the point. Open-ear clips exist so you can hear traffic, announcements, or someone talking to you, and the C30S does that well while staying put. If what you want is bass, quiet, or private listening, sealed in-ears at the same $47.99 will beat these comfortably and it is not a close contest.
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