• Welcome to ASR. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Truthear GATE $17 IEM Review

Rate this IEM:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 7 2.3%

  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 7 2.3%

  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 19 6.2%

  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 275 89.3%
  • Total voters
    308
wavetechie said:
I'm grateful for the answer. I'll order the Truthear Gate, black with mic. What do you guys think would be an ok 3.5 mm to usb-c adapter to go with the Truthear Gate? I would prefer if there's something in the same pricerange and performance as the apple adapter but available on aliexpress.
Click to expand...
JCally JM12
 
wavetechie said:
I'm grateful for the answer. I'll order the Truthear Gate, black with mic. What do you guys think would be an ok 3.5 mm to usb-c adapter to go with the Truthear Gate? I would prefer if there's something in the same pricerange and performance as the apple adapter but available on aliexpress.
Click to expand...
I would think twice about ordering anything from Aliexpress. On two recent orders, I received an item that was not the size I ordered, making it totally useless for me. When complained about it, I was told to ship it back. That would have cost me twice the price of the item to get the full refund! It was ruled that I will receive half of the original price and I can keep something I have no use for.
On the last order, the item is over a month past the "guaranteed" delivery time. After contacting the seller, he advised me to request a refund. When I did that, the response from Aliexpress was that the item "may still arrive" so they can't issue the refund....
It appears that their "buyer protection" is an ongoing joke. Luckily, the loss I absorbed by dealing with them is not life altering. No matter how hard I try to stay away from Amazon, sometimes, even if it is slightly more expensive, protecting your nerves may be beneficial.
I ordered two Apple USB C/3.5mm dongles from Amazon and have no regrets.
 
ivayvr said:
I would think twice about ordering anything from Aliexpress. On two recent orders, I received an item that was not the size I ordered, making it totally useless for me. When complained about it, I was told to ship it back. That would have cost me twice the price of the item to get the full refund! It was ruled that I will receive half of the original price and I can keep something I have no use for.
On the last order, the item is over a month past the "guaranteed" delivery time. After contacting the seller, he advised me to request a refund. When I did that, the response from Aliexpress was that the item "may still arrive" so they can't issue the refund....
It appears that their "buyer protection" is an ongoing joke. Luckily, the loss I absorbed by dealing with them is not life altering. No matter how hard I try to stay away from Amazon, sometimes, even if it is slightly more expensive, protecting your nerves may be beneficial.
I ordered two Apple USB C/3.5mm dongles from Amazon and have no regrets.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the advice and I'm sorry you had that experience, but I've literally ordered hundreds and hundreds of products from aliexpress and generally speaking I've been really happy with the purchases, especially the price/performance/bang for the buck-factor. Latest purchases was a madeshow trimmer and a madeshow shaver, amazing quality and great prices. :) I think I'll buy the JCally JM12 to use with the Truthear Gate, if no one else knows a good reason why not to buy that specific product.
 
Last edited:
Maybe this will help someone else that's also a noob like me, I apologize if it's to off topic and I understand that the info will be in a lot of other parts of the forum but since the advice to buy the apple dongle was given here I thought it would be really valuable to state this information here:

I just found out that the EU-version of the apple dongle is different from the US-version and unfortunately limits voltage and volume too much for a lot of users on android phones (I live in the EU and use an android phone). I learned it from watching this crinacle-video:

 
Last edited:
ivayvr said:
I would think twice about ordering anything from Aliexpress.
Click to expand...
I had two recent (last couple months) chinese order related blood pressure spikes :)

One was Aliexpress ( a completely scam seller that fakes fedex shipments) and the second was a direct order from FOSI china web site.
For the Aliexpress fake seller, I reported the scam via ali's online form, and received total refund in a couple days. If I had bothered to read the scam seller's feedback first, I never would have ordered from them.
For the FOSI order, they used a no-name delivery service here in the states, and reported product delivered but I never received anything. Complained to FOSI via email and it took about one month to receive a replacement (local delivery via USPS per my specific request).

I would only order from China now if I really did not care if I lost my money...
 
LtMandella said:
I had two recent (last couple months) chinese order related blood pressure spikes :)

One was Aliexpress ( a completely scam seller that fakes fedex shipments) and the second was a direct order from FOSI china web site.
For the Aliexpress fake seller, I reported the scam via ali's online form, and received total refund in a couple days. If I had bothered to read the scam seller's feedback first, I never would have ordered from them.
For the FOSI order, they used a no-name delivery service here in the states, and reported product delivered but I never received anything. Complained to FOSI via email and it took about one month to receive a replacement (local delivery via USPS per my specific request).

I would only order from China now if I really did not care if I lost my money...
Click to expand...

Your FOSI story reminded me when I ordered my DS1. I ordered directly from FOSI and it shipped from China through some no-name delivery service. On the afternoon it was supposed to be delivered the tracking information showed it had been delivered to an address north of Tampa. I live about 140 miles south of Tampa. About 8:30 PM that evening a young lady driving an economy car delivered it to my door. I think she drove it down from Tampa. I thought it very odd at the time but was just happy it had been delivered. I don't understand how that delivery made any financial sense.

Martin
 
I found a Huawei CM20 in a drawer today, do you guys think that would be something that would suffice?
 
multiformous said:
Would this be one of those DAC-less audio passthrough-only dongles? I have one that came with a Huawei phone.
Click to expand...
I don't know how all of this works so this might be a really dumb question, but I thought that a dac is needed inside the dongle to convert the phones digital sound from the phones USB-C port to the 3.5 mm connected iem, can it really just passthrough the signal and use the phones dac before the dongle? The only thing I know is that it seemed to have good sound when I tried it with an iem and with my poco x6 pro. I also found 3 no name-dongles in a drawer but all of them had horrible sound quality with a significant amount of background noise and so on, so I put those 3 dongles in the electrical device-recycling bin.The Huawei CM20 works fine with the mic as well btw, but maybe that's a given, I don't know. :)
 
Last edited:
wavetechie said:
I don't know how all of this works so this might be a really dumb question, but I thought that a dac is needed inside the dongle to convert the phones digital sound from the phones USB-C port to the 3.5 mm connected iem, can it really just passthrough the signal and use the phones dac before the dongle? The only thing I know is that it seemed to have good sound when I tried it with an iem and with my poco x6 pro. I also found 3 no name-dongles in a drawer but all of them had horrible sound quality with a significant amount of background noise and so on, so I put those 3 dongles in the electrical device-recycling bin.The Huawei CM20 works fine with the mic as well btw, but maybe that's a given, I don't know. :)
Click to expand...
Are you able to test the Huawei dongle on a Windows PC?

Also, you can 'unlock' the Apple dongle on Android with the app USB Audio Player Pro (UAPP, ~$10). See here. (The EU limit will still apply, but not the Android one.)
 
multiformous said:
Are you able to test the Huawei dongle on a Windows PC?

Also, you can 'unlock' the Apple dongle on Android with the app USB Audio Player Pro (UAPP, ~$10). See here. (The EU limit will still apply, but not the Android one.)
Click to expand...
I've now tested it on my windows laptops USB-C port which works with my IEMs that has USB-C contacts, but it didn't recognize that I've plugged in anything when I plugged in this Huawei-dongle with the IEM connected to it, the laptop just played the sound through its built in speakers, does that mean no DAC in the Huawei dongle? Thank you for the tip about the Android-app, maybe it's easier to just buy a jcally jm12/jm20/jm20 max or something like that though? I'm very grateful for your answers and advice. :)
 
wavetechie said:
I've now tested it on my windows laptops USB-C port which works with my IEMs that has USB-C contacts, but it didn't recognize that I've plugged in anything when I plugged in this Huawei-dongle with the IEM connected to it, the laptop just played the sound through its built in speakers, does that mean no DAC in the Huawei dongle? Thank you for the tip about the Android-app, maybe it's easier to just buy a jcally jm12/jm20/jm20 max or something like that though? I'm very grateful for your answers and advice. :)
Click to expand...
Yes, that sounds like the Huawei dongle I have -- fairly certain it's just passthrough-only for audio over USB-C. Not sure if there's a specific name for that... but yeah, no DAC as far as I'm aware.

I have the JM12 and recently got the JM20 Max. If you want some on board EQ (save EQ settings to the dongle itself so it works across various devices), the JM12 is neat. But I find the dongle to be noisy. Though it will be louder than an EU Apple dongle on Android by default, regardless of firmware and whether you use it for EQ.

JM20 Max has been great for me so far. No issues. Measures really well and lots of power, and doesn't have the impedance sensing of the standard JM20 (JM20 will change the max output depending on the impedance of the connected device, for better or worse). It definitely gets a little warm to the touch around the USB connector, though.
 
multiformous said:
Yes, that sounds like the Huawei dongle I have -- fairly certain it's just passthrough-only for audio over USB-C. Not sure if there's a specific name for that... but yeah, no DAC as far as I'm aware.

I have the JM12 and recently got the JM20 Max. If you want some on board EQ (save EQ settings to the dongle itself so it works across various devices), the JM12 is neat. But I find the dongle to be noisy. Though it will be louder than an EU Apple dongle on Android by default, regardless of firmware and whether you use it for EQ.

JM20 Max has been great for me so far. No issues. Measures really well and lots of power, and doesn't have the impedance sensing of the standard JM20 (JM20 will change the max output depending on the impedance of the connected device, for better or worse). It definitely gets a little warm to the touch around the USB connector, though.
Click to expand...
That's very interesting, thank you for the answer.

So the audio from the USB-C port with audio out is already converted to analog sound in the phones USB-C port but not in the laptops USB-C port then, or am I completely misunderstanding something about how it works?

Do you think the JM20 would be a better choice for these IEMs, I mean I don't think I need the power from the JM20 Max so maybe I should prioritize the power efficiency? The noise issue with the JM12 sounds like I a good reason for just staying away from it.
 
wavetechie said:
That's very interesting, thank you for the answer.

So the audio from the USB-C port with audio out is already converted to analog sound in the phones USB-C port but not in the laptops USB-C port then, or am I completely misunderstanding something about how it works?

Do you think the JM20 would be a better choice for these IEMs, I mean I don't think I need the power from the JM20 Max so maybe I should prioritize the power efficiency? The noise issue with the JM12 sounds like I a good reason for just staying away from it.
Click to expand...
A JM20 would be fine; another option for Android is a CX31993-based dongle like the JCally JM6. I believe they use very little power, and should be plenty loud for IEMs and no Android volume limit shenanigans. The JM12 would almost certainly be fine as well, but it performs poorly with these test clips (see here and here) and various firmware options have their own trade-offs... but it's cheap and works fine on Android, so it's a good alternative to Apple dongle on Android.
 
The Amazon listing for the Huawei CM20 notes that it doesn't even work with all Huawei devices, and a few comments from dissatisfied buyers note that it didn't work at all with Samsung or Google Pixel phones.
 
multiformous said:
A JM20 would be fine; another option for Android is a CX31993-based dongle like the JCally JM6. I believe they use very little power, and should be plenty loud for IEMs and no Android volume limit shenanigans. The JM12 would almost certainly be fine as well, but it performs poorly with these test clips (see here and here) and various firmware options have their own trade-offs... but it's cheap and works fine on Android, so it's a good alternative to Apple dongle on Android.
Click to expand...
JM12 and JM6 can be close in those test clips depending on load and output level. JM12 with specific firmware is cleaner still but not everyone is open to frinware flashing. For portable use either way the lower power consumption of CX31993 matters more.
 
markanini said:
JM12 and JM6 can be close in those test clips depending on load and output level. JM12 with specific firmware is cleaner still but not everyone is open to frinware flashing. For portable use either way the lower power consumption of CX31993 matters more.
Click to expand...
Unironically, my favourite is the Samsung dongle.
 
mc.god said:
Both sets are silicone, they differs in shape and bore size, he was asking if you remember using the narrow bore or wide bore ones.
Click to expand...
May Amirm circle the pad he used in the tests?
Bundled PADs.jpg
 
Observing nearly the GATEs it seems that the cable connector holes are not air sealed, so changing the cable with one another cable (for example a balanced cable), if the connectors aren't exactly of the same shape/size of the original ones, the frequency response may change: is it right?
 
Another dumb question, I see that Truthear Gate sells from two different places on amazon in my country, one of them says "Fanmusic Truthear Gate" and lists the brand as "Fanmusic", the other more expensive seller just lists the brand as "Truthear" and the product as "Truthear Gate". Do you guys think it's guaranteed that it's the same original product? Could one of them be fake?


 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

amirm
  • Poll Poll
TRUTHEAR x Crinacle Zero:BLUE2 IEM Review
2 3
Replies
55
Views
25K
raif71
raif71
Matias
Truthear IEMs
2
Replies
32
Views
7K
goat76
G
amirm
  • Poll Poll
7Hertz Timeless IEM Review
2
Replies
35
Views
16K
Poiuyt23
P
amirm
  • Poll Poll
Shure SE535 Limited IEM Review
3 4 5
Replies
85
Views
30K
Peterinvan
Peterinvan
amirm
  • Poll Poll
Topping Hane IEM Review
11 12 13
Replies
245
Views
73K
Luciferium
Luciferium
Back
Top Bottom