Truthear Gate

[markanini]

 

[Matias]

This one is not so excited about the Gate.

 

[mc.god]

This one is not so excited about the Gate.

We'll see, mine is on the plane.
Anyway HBB generally likes more bass, he said the exact same things about the Led Zeppelin drums intro in his Sonus review, so I'm pretty confident I'de like Gate a lot

 

[lashto]

Truthear Gate was announced, no pricing yet. I guess it may be the Hola successor as entry level 1DD IEMs. Graphs very close to a Red, which is great news imo.
...

looks pretty good. When I saw the tiltle of the thread, I thought it'll be some watergate story about TruthEar
Hope the Gate will be more solid than the Hola, I had two of those going bad in less than a year.

 

[mc.god]

Hope the Gate will be more solid than the Hola, I had two of those going bad in less than one year.

Too bad, what specifically went bad?

 

[lashto]

Too bad, what specifically went bad?

The particularly troublesome usecase seems to be sleeping with IEMs. Quite often one of the IEMs goes bad: i.e. at first it starts getting quieter and quieter and sometimes goes full silent. Most of the time it is the right ear/side .. no idea what am I doing in my sleep to cause that

The new lowcost asian IEMs seem to be particularly bad, some died after just a few weeks. The Holas were among the worst. But I had some that worked fine up to 2 years

 

[mc.god]

The particularly troublesome usecase seems to be sleeping with IEMs. Quite often one of the IEMs goes bad: i.e. at first it starts getting quieter and quieter and sometimes goes full silent. Most of the time it is the right ear/side .. no idea what am I doing in my sleep to cause that

The new lowcost asian IEMs seem to be particularly bad, some died after just a few weeks. The Holas were among the worst. But I had some that worked fine up to 2 years

oh well, I hope mine lasting long, use them rarely and only at home and never sleep with iem.

 

[markanini]

 

[mc.god]

Mine arrived in Italy yesterday, but from now final delivery time is totally random

 

[staticV3]

Just received my Gate. Boy do they feel cheap compared to the Hola.

The shell seems to scratch very easily. My left Gate has scuffs from the factory:


Also, there's a somewhat disconcerting hole in the plastic shell which leads straight to the exposed driver:

Strongly suggest not using them anywhere near moist environments.

Edit:
The new cost-cut, injection-molded shells make the GATE 30% lighter:


The cable is identical to the Hola, so that's nice.

 

[USER]

Interesting to see measurements from the better squig.link sites. So very close to Harman. This seems like an improved but cheaper Crinacle Zero Blue.

Paul Wasabii's Gates to my Zero Blues.

Also interesting to compare 711 results to the latest B&K ones. Diffuse field target doesn't seem far off from Harman 2019. 200Hz region differences are interesting.

Are the nozzles as wide as those on the Blues and Reds?

 

[mc.god]

Just received my Gate. Boy do they feel cheap compared to the Hola.

The shell seems to scratch very easily. My left Gate has scuffs from the factory:
View attachment 373867 View attachment 373868

You confirm what already seemed evident from pics and video, Hola finish is on another level and maybe too expensive to maintain at that price tag so they discontinued it switching to a cheaper manufacturing.

Also, there's a somewhat disconcerting hole in the plastic shell which leads straight to the exposed driver:

View attachment 373864 View attachment 373865
Strongly suggest not using them anywhere near moist environments.

Wow, so that big hole is an opening to the interior cavity? I thought it was for attaching them to a key ring... So I can imagine poor isolation too.

PS.
Beware of your posted pics, we can get your fingerprints and steal your identity

 

[Jimbob54]

Just received my Gate. Boy do they feel cheap compared to the Hola.

The shell seems to scratch very easily. My left Gate has scuffs from the factory:
View attachment 373867 View attachment 373868

Also, there's a somewhat disconcerting hole in the plastic shell which leads straight to the exposed driver:
View attachment 373864 View attachment 373865
Strongly suggest not using them anywhere near moist environments.

Edit:
The new cost-cut, injection-molded shells make the GATE 30% lighter:
View attachment 373870 View attachment 373871

The cable is identical to the Hola, so that's nice.

This is my problem with the $20 market. They can sound as good as you like but if they feel awful and /or break easily it's a complete false economy.

 

[staticV3]

PS.
Beware of your posted pics, we can get your fingerprints and steal your identity

Thanks for the heads-up!

I double-checked, and ASR seems to remove any sensitive EXIF data upon upload.

Am I mistaken?

Edit:
You meant my actual fingerprints, I'm stupid
You legit had me concerned that the pics still had GPS metadata attached ("digital fingerprint")

 

[Octopie]

@staticV3 Hola seems to have the exact same unprotected hole in its shell.

 

[Matias]

So far the main complaint on the reviews has been the rather cheap chassis. Tonality wise it is mixed: people who like and expected Hola were frustrated with the slightly lighter balance of the Gate, while those who felt the Hola too dark enjoyed the Hola more.

 

[mc.god]

@staticV3 Hola seems to have the exact same unprotected hole in its shell.

Hola's hole (no jokes intended) is on the inner side and doesn't go all the way through to the outer face, or at least it's closed by the metal faceplate. If it's there I suppose it's has it's function for venting\tuning, sure it's seems a bit exposed.

 

[FrantzM]

Hi
A bit O.T.

Reading this and it is sobering... Here we have a serious audio transducer for around $20.oo and we are asking more from it ...

Let's not forget transparent DAC at $9.95, 100 WpC transparent audio amplifier for around $ $100.oo...

Waiting for these companies to become interested in loudspeakers... I don't buy the argument that speakers are different. I currently enjoy a $500/pair glorious speaker (JBL LSR308) ... See the review here on ASR.

Again, many thanks to ASR (and a few others), that allowed us to discover the value of a Science-based evaluation as opposed to the formerly, subjective approach.


We're living interesting times.


Peace.

 

[muza_1]

This is my problem with the $20 market. They can sound as good as you like but if they feel awful and /or break easily it's a complete false economy.

I received the KZ Libra Balanced ($12) a few days ago and yes they look cheap and are nearly weightless but they are well made, sturdy and comfortable, I actually prefer them (sound wise) over the $120 CCA Hydro which are built like a tank but they are uncomfortable, big and heavy.

I never had one of the low-cost sets I own broke or stop working on me (about 8-9 pairs) in fact some are some really well built for the price like the KZ D-Fi (metal shell), KZ Castor (metal/resin shell), TE Hola (plastic shell), Moondrop Chu/Chu II (metal shell), I guess it depends on the set and/or brand.
There are some horror stories on mid and high-priced sets too, which is worse and not expected (falling nozzles, imbalances, cracking shells, pealing paint, driver flex, silent re-tuning, etc).

*RANT*
High-priced IEMs ($500+) are the ones I have a problem with, most seem to be specialty sets and non seem to work for all kinds of music equally good. Hype, pseudo-science, bandwagon effect, reviewer and reviews are some of the things that fuel the market while science is looked down upon.
How can a 1 DD cheap set be better than a multi-driver, multi-technology high priced one? It cannot is not logical (whatever that means) nor common sense so of course if you care about music you should spend a lot of money just to start enjoying it./s
*RANT over*

 

[Octopie]

Hola's hole (no jokes intended) is on the inner side and doesn't go all the way through to the outer face, or at least it's closed by the metal faceplate. If it's there I suppose it's has it's function for venting\tuning, sure it's seems a bit exposed.

There is no hole on the faceplate of the Gate. I’m not understanding what you are saying here. The Gate and Hola housings are essential the same design, just differing materials and production methods. Both venting holes are in the same spots and same size on both. Both faceplates are sealed with no exterior venting. You just can’t see inside the Hola’s opaque faceplate to have known how obviously open the larger back vent hole is.