The Tin Hifi T2 (Aka Tin Audio T2) is one of the product that I think has stir up some hype during the time last year and is one of the product that has put Tin Hifi on the audio map for a lot of people. After considering all of the odds and the gains for selling my Raspberry PI 3B this is one of the first thing I purchased. Needless to say, this was a blind buy with me having no experience on audio and such but... was it worth it?

Before going into the post, if you are new, please read this before having any comments regarding my writing or point of view‌

Informations:

  • Price: 25$ - 50$
  • Driver: 2DD
    This unit is from an audio local store in my country: Xuan Vu Audio.

Contents:

  • Fake leather box
  • 6 pairs of Silicon ear tips
  • 1 pair of foam ear tips
  • 1 unbalanced 3.5mm MMCX cable
  • The product itself

Nothing out of ordinary for me with the box itself, considering my last purchase was the KZ ZSN I had expect similar things come out of this product.
The T2 build quality is metal just by judging on how it looks, yet for me it is pretty light in my hand. The only complain that I would give about this thing upon my first use is the application of tips: This thing has a 6mm nozzle diameter and it was a painful experience for me to remove the foam ear tips (which didn't fit my ears even after rolling) and replace it with a silicon ear tips that fits my ears. Going pass that then the everything else about this IEM is fine, isolation is not the best but usable, stuff usually fits my ears anyway as long as a small silicon tip is present.
The cable is soft yet seem really study. There is no memory silicon attached near the connector so you can wear it whatever you like. Some people around me has complained about how it can be easily tangled or some quality control issues but since I usually put it in a soft case, this isn't a problem.

Sounds:

It all comes down to the fact that how this thing performs. The Tin Hifi T2 features a neutral bright sound signature. Upon my listening, I found out this earphones has a slight boost on the mids which seem to give the vocal a little bit "thickness" to it. The bass on this product might be one of the thing where I wouldn't recommend for bassheads. It is not to the point of non-existant or anything, just that the subbass seem too be hidden among the other sounds which might result in a flat, uninteresting experience for some people unless you pay attention closely. The treble is tuned well for its price although one of my complain is that it is easily prone to sibilance issues which becomes a significant problem for me on a lot of Japanese "weeb" songs. While I myself has coped with this sound, I can imagine some people ears will get fatiguing because of the issue with the treble I mentioned.

The timbre of the T2 is pretty much on point for me, nothing much I can complain about. Soundstage and resolution is another story: During my hearing I had got a slight issue with the cymbal where it is all fuzzy and kind of blend in together, this is something that occurs occasionally on some of the Rock, Metal genre song that I usually hear. The soundstage of this thing seem narrow, combining with the clear sound of pretty much any instruments (except the cymbal) it can still create some trouble on recognizing the position of the instruments, not something I would recommend to an orchestra listener.

Overall:

I think the reason for the hype of this product is that it is basically tuned well as a neutral iem, especially in its 50$ price range. While I think after a year the hype is pretty much died out, the hit on the timbre of this thing can be a good reason why it is still a solid choice for a lot of people as casual listeners.
For anyone who wants to get into the Audio scenes and basicly have no idea of what you like, this earphone can be a baseline for starters due to its budget pricing and a work for all solution (after accounting all of the variables, not just Sounds) that not everyones like but might just take it anyway.

Edit (16/10/2019): I have planned to use better pictures for the thumbnail I swear, but seem like Samsung is doing some stupid black magic that keeps preventing the image manipulation engine of Ghost to get into work, will fix this later.