BOULT launched the BOULT Klarity 3, the company’s latest true wireless earbuds, last week. The main highlight of the earbuds are the compact design, 50dB ANC and long battery of up to 50 hours with the case. Is it worth the price? Let us find out.
Box Contents
- BOULT Klarity 3 in Smoky Metal colour
- Ear tips in Small and Large sizes (Medium pre-installed)
- USB Type-A to Type-C cable
- User manual
Design and Build quality
The charging case has a round-shaped box that has a smooth finish and metallic look and doesn’t attract fingerprints, but it is prone to scratches easily if you keep the case with keys. The Klarity branding is present on the front and professional series by BOULT branding on the back. You can see the large LED on the front, which only glows in white colour when the buds are charging.
The Boult Klarity 3’s case suffers from a design oversight. The earbuds are too large for the case, making it difficult to retrieve them without the lid obstructing the way, as you can see from the image.
The USB Type-C port is on the bottom.
Similar to the case, the headset also has a plastic build with a matte finish, so it doesn’t attract fingerprints, but the inner part of the earbuds have a glossy finish. You can see mics on the bottom and on the inside, and a vent on the top. On the bottom there are charging contact points. These feature an in-ear design, and it doesn’t fall out of your ears when running, cycling or during strenuous workouts.
It doesn’t have sensors for in-ear detection, so you will have to use the touch controls for play/pause. The earphones also have IPX5 ratings for splash resistance so that it can withstand splashes or light rain, but you can’t immerse in the water.
There are touch controls on the back of both the earbuds that lets you control play or pause or skip music, launch voice assistant, control ANC, control volume, accept or reject calls. The touch area is on the top, and lets you access it easily.
Connectivity, Pairing, and Controls
It has Bluetooth 5.4 with SBC and AAC audio codecs. The pairing process is very easy, just remove the buds from the case, and the lights blink to show it is in pairing mode. Enable the Bluetooth function on your device, and select the ‘Boult Audio Airbass’ and connect. It doesn’t have Google Fast pair support. I didn’t face any connectivity issues during my use with the Galaxy M35 and the Pixel 8.
This also has dual device connectivity, so you can connect the earbuds to two devices at a time and switch between them. For this, you will have to pair the earbuds with each device separately first, and turn on the Bluetooth later.
The earbuds turn on when you remove them from the case. You just need to place the buds in the case to turn them off. To save power, it turns off automatically when it is not connected to any device for 10 minutes.
This lets you skip tracks, switch between noise cancellation modes, and adjust volume – all with a tap. The controls can be customised in the Boult Amp app on Android and iPhone.
| Function | Left earbud (L) | Right earbud (R) |
| Play / pause, Answer a call | Single Tap | |
| Next track | – | Double Tap |
| Previous track | Double Tap | – |
| Volume Up | – | Triple Tap |
| Volume Down | Triple Tap | – |
| End or Reject call | Double tap | |
| Game / Music mode switch | Quadruple tap | – |
| Spatial / Hi-Fidelity mode | – | Quadruple tap |
| Switch noise cancellation modes | Press and Hold | |
You can customise actions for single tap, double tap and triple tap, but not for quadruple tap and tap and hold that set for noise control. The Boult Amp is simple
Audio Quality
The BOULT Klarity 3 packs 13mm BoomX drivers, which are tuned for bass. This is mainly tuned for bass, so the low frequency audio or bass is high by default, but it can also handle high, and middle frequencies, but these are a bit low, which you can manage with EQ. There is Spatial Audio, which can only be activated by tapping the shortcut of tapping the right earbud four times.
You can enhance treble, bass and treble in the EQ option, there are also several EQ modes – Natural, Rock, Pop, Classical, Jazz and Country. I am not a fan of these custom modes, but there is a custom option to adjust the EQ based on your liking. Since these are loud, it is good even in 50% volume. It doesn’t have much audio leaking.
Noise Cancellation and Call Performance
Regarding the Noise cancellation, the Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) blocks the ambient sound up to 50dB. It does a good decent in cancelling noise for indoors for AC and fan noise, but it is not that effective in noisy outdoors like traffic. You can switch between noise cancellation, transparency and no noise cancellation with tap and hold gesture. Even though the company calls it Hybrid ANC, it has only one ANC mode, which you can turn on, off and switch to transparent mode.
The Transparency mode allows you to listen to ambient sound so that you can recognize the surrounding situation and any potential risks. There is also a separate low-latency gaming mode called the combat mode that can be enabled by tapping the left earbuds for four times, which the company says will bring the latency down to 45ms. This is useful when gaming.
Coming to the call noise cancellation, this is decent for calls with triple microphones and the company says that it has Wind Noise Reduction, which works well to cut out the noise, and the traffic noise is faintly audible to the caller on the other end.
Battery Life
The company doesn’t mention the standalone battery life for the earbuds. During my use with AAC and noise cancellation enabled occasionally, I got slightly over 6 in about 50% volume with mixed use of with and without ANC. For calls, it lasts only for around 4 hours with ANC enabled. Charge of earbuds can be viewed in the app.
With the charging case, it promises up to 50 hours of total battery life without ANC. Charging the case fully with the earbuds takes about 2 hours, and charging the earbuds fully takes about an hour. It also has fast charge, so that you get 2 hours of playback with 10 minutes of charging.
Conclusion
Overall, the BOULT Klarity 3 are decent budget Bluetooth true wireless earbuds with ANC in the Rs. 2500 price range. It has a compact case, offers a good battery life and does a decent job in call noise cancellation. Wish it had in-ear detection, which is available in a few earbuds even in the price range, and the ANC is average.
Pricing and availability
The BOULT Klarity 3 earbuds are available for purchase on the company’s website, Amazon.in, and Flipkart.com for Rs. 2,499 (Rs. 1999 introductory price).
Pros
- Good audio quality tuned for bass
- Dual device connectivity
- Compact, lightweight case
- Long battery life with fast charging
Cons
- No in-ear detection
- Average ANC quality
- Case has design flaw