Bluedio Hurricane Turbine in-depth Review

Bluedio Hurricane Turbine H is a great piece of technology. I wanted to write a review for these headphones for a long time. The reason for this is that I am fascinated by how good and practical this thing is and after all how inexpensive.

Just because this pair of headphones doesn't cost a fortune some might think of it as of low-quality-ware right away. Well, my 5-months test of Bluedio Hurricane Shooting Break seems to show that the quality is reasonable and the value of the buy turns to be great. I present here an in-depth review of the great Bluetooth headphones for less than 30 Euros.

Table of Contents

• Quick summary
• Confusion with names
• Design
• Sound quality
• Price
• Features
• Ships with
• Some peculiarities
• Specifications
• Other reviews
• Conclusion

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For those who want it quick

Just the list of pros, cons and conclusion.

Pros:

• great sound quality
• good enough build quality
• 10 practical equalizers built-in
• incredible battery life
• low weight
• wired operation without power
• very convenient controls
• built-in microphone
• many additional features
• availability in different colors
• fantastic value for the price!
• very low price absolutely

Cons:

• relatively small size (not for bigger heads or ears) - check Bluedio T2S (Turbine 2 Shooting Brake) instead
• shiny plastic gets scratched and looses look a bit
• very loud sound might be disturbing or dangerous for hearing
• built-in microphone works badly in the wind
• lack of support from the manufacturer

Fazit:

• great value
• great sound
• highly recommended, but...
• check that it fits you ergonomically before buying and...
• be careful with the very loud sound

That said we continue to the more detailed review.

Confusion with names

There is some confusion with names going on about these headphones. So here is an amazon link to the product I review here: link.

The names of this piece are:

• Bluedio HT Shooting Brake
• Bluedio Hurricane Turbine H

I can't explain these name differences, so if you know, let me know, please.

There is also a similar Bluedio H+ version with an SD-card slot, it works as a player and has FM radio built-in. I review here a version without SD-card slot and radio, the built quality and sound should be equal though, I suppose.

Another version has the same electronics but better foldable body, it is called Bluedio T2S (Turbine 2 Shooting Brake).

Design

These are wireless Bluetooth on-ear headphones. The spring and the body is built out of plastic, there are no metal parts. The plastic feels a little bit weak but wearing the headphones for 5 months revealed reasonable durability.

Body

The photos you see on this page were made by me. The headphones shown are 5-months-old. I intentionally wanted to show you the wear plastic gets after some time. To be honest, I expected it to be worse. The plastic is not bad in fact.

The plastic cups are hard and stable enough. If you wear the headphones and hit them suddenly the noise will be quite loud and unpleasant.

The headphones have three cushions, one on top. The material is leather-like synthetics. It showed to be durable having no damage after 5 months.

The spring is relatively small even in the largest opened position. So these headphones will not fit everyone. Check this headphone which is the same but a big bigger and with a foldable spring: Bluedio T2S (Turbine 2 Shooting Brake).

To some the pressure of the spring might appear too strong. Make sure you try them before buying or have an option to send them back if you buy on-line. Once fit they will sit well not falling from the head even when doing sports. Tight fit also ensures better noise-isolation, which is medium in this piece.

The headphones are available in 4 colors: black, white, red and blue.

Controls

The controls you see on the back of the right earphone are very accessible. The point is that you have to access them blindly when the headphones are on your head. The index finger and the middle finger find easily the - and + buttons on top. Sliding down you find the power button. It requires a long press to switch the Bluetooth on and off. Down the power button there is a wheel. If you pull it up or down you skip tracks in the player, or jump in a single track, depending on how the player is built. You can press the wheel down to pause or resume the playback.

It is worth mentioning that this is a full set of controls a Bluetooth playback controller might have. Surprisingly, many headphones do not have all of these buttons built-in. Then you have to use your device to control the playback.

Another advantage is that the controls are very tactile-friendly: it is very easy to find them blindly and use them precisely. The buttons have nice deep click, the wheel is also responsive and easy to rotate.

Controls could be compared to much worse ones like these or these which are flat and do not provide good feedback when pressed. Worse so, if they are also symmetrically located on the device's body, then you have to find the buttons by looking on them.

Sound quality

Is great. You do not expect such sound from 25 Euros headphones. The headphones are loud, bass is responsive, trebles are there as well. Equalizers make it even better.

I am not as good as Tyll Hertsens from innerfidelity.com in finding adjectives to describe the headphones sound. So let me just compare it like this: these Bluedio headphones are subjectively 70% good of the best studio headphones I have listened to.

The sound quality should correspond to 150 Euros price tag or so. It is really impressive. It is much more then you need on your way, where Bluetooth headphones are usually used - in the noisy outdoor environment audiophile's precious pieces would make little sense anyway.

Price

You can get these headphones online for around 26 Euros in Europe, around 30 USD.

The price is really low for these sound quality and the set of features.

Price comparison. Or how many Bluedio Hurricane Turbine headphones you can buy instead of:

• 1 Bose Soundlink - 9 Bluedio HT
• 1 Beats Studio Wireless - 10 Bluedio HT
• 1 Beats Solo2 - 7 Bluedio HT
• 1 Sony MDR-10RBT - 7 Bluedio HT
• 1 Senheiser Momentum - 10 Bluedio HT
• 1 Philips Fidelio M2BTB - 10 Bluedio HT
• ...

Of-course, you may tell that I am comparing high-quality products to a close-to-no-name developer. But.. This is just plastic cans with speakers inside in most of the cases. Bluedio HT has great sound quality, it lasts, you won't have to buy again.

Features

What could be the features on headphones? Well, surprisingly they are quite a few.

Wireless playback and control

Well, this is an obvious one. You can enjoy your music wireless and control playback. A nice points here are the battery life and the convenience of control. The transceiveing radio range is good as well.

Headset feature

On the picture about next to the micro-USB slot you can see a little microphone hole. The device has two profiles: for high-fidelity audio playback, and for phone conversations. The microphone is used for the second use case. It is not very-well wind protected, so phoning outside is hard once there is wind. I recommend to use the phone's mike and speaker if it's windy.

Wired playback

On the left headphone there is 3.5mm headphone jack. Once your battery is dead (it never happens!) you can use the headphones as a normal wired headphone. Be aware of relatively low impedance: 16 Ohm. This results in a very very loud playback. Make sure to turn the volume down before clicking play!

Wireless receiver and music sharing

When playing from Bluetooth these headphones output the signal from the 3.5mm slot as well. You can connect a second pair of headphones or use the signal for a line-in in an amplifier.

Equalizers

The Bluetooth circuitry has 10 equalizers built-in. To switch them you have to click simultaneously + and - buttons. These equalizers compliment nicely very nice drivers and allow you to adapt the headphone to the audio content type and the environment. This is a very useful feature, and once you tried it, you miss it in other headphones: be it filtering away the dull bass of a podcast voice, or adding juicy trebles and kicking bass to some electronic music.

Equalizers do not work when playing from the wire.

Voice feedback

When operating the headphone you get a voice feedback. A nice lady voice with some Asian accent tells you, if you reached a maximum volume by clicking + too much, if device is paired or connected.

Voice dial

If you click the power button and hold it for a short time the voice dial feature is activated. I have never used it. But what I find problematic, is that because of this feature you have to hold the power button even longer to switch off the device.

Battery life

The battery life is unrivaled in this device. It works forever once you charge it! In 5 months of operation I have never had these headphones discharged! Charging them occasionally for several minutes once in 4 - 5 days is enough, to never reach the empty battery. I do not know even how it works when the headphones are discharged. Full charging cycle does not take much either.

Passive noise isolation

Is so to say good enough. The headphones are semi-sealed, having a set of openings on the wall. Like this the noise isolation can not be great. The headphones sit tight and this improves on noise isolation well. The size of the cushions and the speakers is big enough, so that not being over-ear they are getting close to be. So the noise isolation is getting closer to over-ear headphones and is better than typical low on-ear noise isolation (we do not talk active noise isolation here).

Ships with

Here is what you will get once you order these headphones:

• a nice box
• an instruction manual
• 3.5 mm male-male thin-jack-body cable
• USB-micro USB charging cable
• Headphones

No carrying case, no other accessories.

Check some images here.

Some peculiarities

Some feature you get to know only after a while. As I own these headphones for more than 5 months, I am sharing with you some insider-tips.

Volume regulation is done in not even steps. The minimum volume is much lower than the next step after minimum. So regulating the volume in the low range would require to lower done the source volume first, and then making volume up on the headphone.

Very bright LED the headphones have, mainly its blue light can be disturbing in the dark environments. It shines meters away. I forgot to switch Bluetooth off once in the cinema and got a comment to shut the light down, as the person was blinded by it!

Noise - some claim that the headphones produce background noise. It is in fact so, when on standby with Bluetooth. The noise is going away immediately, once the headphones receive a signal. The signal to noise ratio is great, I do not hear any noises during the playback. Tip: switch the headphones off or take them off when you do not use them.

Power-off on charge is what happens when a power is inserted when you are using Bluetooth. Just start the headphones again. Not sure, why it is designed to be like this.

16 Ohms impedance was mentioned already. As a result, the headphones are Loud. Make sure to tune volume down before clicking play. May it be dangerous for hearing? I think, yes, but this seems to be a trend now. Many headphones are excessively loud. Be careful with your health, use not more than 70% of the volume and not for a long time. Explain it to kids.

Two profiles kinds and switching between them is not flawless, at least with my Android tablet. High-quality audio and headset profile do not get together well. If you want to make a phone call after listening to music or vice versa  reset the Bluetooth connection in Android (off and then back on). It might be Android software problem. I am not sure if the headphones are to blame.

No wired headset feature is there. If you want to use the microphone, you have to connect over Bluetooth. This drawback is very expectable by design, I guess.

Outside noise is relatively low, you will not disturbed your colleagues or neighbors even when listening to louder music.

Manufacturer is not replying if you attempt to contact them. Well, maybe you do not need to, as the headphones are packed well, there is an instruction manual, and they just work. But this is something to consider. I have contacted them to ask for professional images. After no reply for days I took the photos myself.

Specifications

I think the specs do not matter a lot, after the test in practice shows what the headphones are really about, but for those of you who really like technicalities, here you go:

• Drivers: 57mm
• Bluetooth 4.1
• Bluetooth profiles: A2DP、AVRCP、HSP、HFP
• Operating distance: up to 10m (free space)
• Colors: White, Blue, Red and Black
• Impedance: 16Ω
• Frequency response: 20Hz-20kHz
• Sensitivity: 110dB
• Distortion:<0.1%(THD)
• Music time: up to 45 hours
• Talking time: up to 40 hours
• Standby time: up to 1625 hours
• Charging time: about 2 hours

The most noticable here is the size of the drivers and the battery life time. Specs seem to be true on practice.

Other reviews

Here are some other reviews and materials with more photos and details:

• A short review on Head-Fi - check it for more images!
  
• One more
• Next one
• And the last one

Check these other reviews for more opinions as well.

Conclusion

Lots of features, great value for the price, striking sound quality. Definitely worth trying!

Hint: You might like the foldable version for 5 Euros more better: Bluedio T2S (Turbine 2 Shooting Brake)

This is my first time to write an in-depth review of some electronics. If you like it, please, share a link to it or write me a feedback message below!