TRN Black Pearl - Portable Hi-Fi Digital Audio Decoder

TRN Black Pearl review

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Hey guys and gals, I’m back again, and this time I have with me one of the most affordably priced, yet one of the best-sounding regardless of price, and the most feature-rich of any dongle DACs I’ve tried at this price point. It’s the TRN Black Pearl dongle DAC, priced at 37 US dollars. This affordable DAC not only sounds like the best sub-fifty-dollar dongle I’ve heard, but it also obliterates some of my more expensive dongle DACs in sound quality, so read on and I’ll explain why.
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I felt very lucky having TRN Shopee send this to me in exchange for my review, because the sound quality is way above my expectations. I’d like to thank TRN Shopee for letting me review this and share my experience with you, but as always, everything I say here are my own thoughts coming from my perspective, and no money exchanged hands in the making of this review.
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TRN has always been known for their very good budget offerings; they sell mostly affordably priced IEMs, cables, ear tips, and dongle DACs, and in my opinion, they are a very underrated brand, most especially because of the release of this Black Pearl dongle DAC, which sounds way above its price range based on all the portable dongles I’ve heard. It is so good to know that we don’t need to spend more money to get a very good-sounding product. Long live TRN.
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The spec:
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The Black Pearl is a regularly sized dongle DAC amplifier with a dimension of 57mm x 23mm x 13 mm (L x W x H). It utilizes a dual CS43131 DAC chip for digital-to-analog conversion, supports 32-bit/384 kHz DSD256 digital input signals, outputs 4 V rms in balance mode when connected at the 4.4mm jack at both 32 and 600 ohms loads, and outputs 2 V rms at its 3.5mm single-ended jack at 32 and 600 ohms loads. The spec sheet says it has a distortion and noise of negative 105 dB in single-ended and 110 dB in balanced mode; in practice, it is totally silent when used with my IEMs and click-and-pop-free both when plugging in to USB-C and output jacks. It has three buttons on the side; they are play/pause, volume up, and volume down buttons.
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It drives all my IEMs very easily with excellent authority to very high volume levels. It also drives my 300-ohm Sennheiser HD6xx effortlessly and properly. I said properly because some dongles might be able to drive the HD6xx to a good volume, but they don’t always sound good with it.
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The features:
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Independent volume control:
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It has a 90-step independent volume control, which means you can control the volume independently from your phone; you basically have two volume controllers, one on the phone and one on the dongle, that you can control independently. The advantage of this, aside from having volume control at the dongle, is that it prevents you from being blasted with a full volume of sound when you connect it to other phones that happen to be set at full volume or high volume. It also has the potential to decrease the interference noise coming from the upstream of the signal path, not that the Black Pearl needed it though, because it has been noise-free in my weeks of use of it and seems very resistant to radio interference noise, regardless of the volume position.
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Call support and remote control capability:
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I’m glad to report that it has call support, which means that IEM cables that have built-in microphones will work. You can talk to the mic in the cable when someone calls you while you are listening to music; you just press a button, if available, near the mic to answer calls.
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It also has remote control compatibility; aside from the press-to-answer-calls function mentioned above, it can be controlled in the mic cable for play/pause, volume up, and volume down.
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8-band EQ, built-in:
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It has an 8-band equalizer built-in, meaning once you set the EQ settings using the WALK PLAY APP on the phone, the EQ curve you set stays in the Black Pearl. You can connect it to other sources, and the EQ curve still stands; you can change it by using the APP again. The WALK PLAY APP can be downloaded at szwalkplay. com (no space between the dot and the com) using your Android phone. I got the link from the TRN representative, and I found that it is safe to install it.
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Aside from the personally customized EQ settings, there are eight EQ presets in the WALK PLAY APP: Pure, Pop, Rock, Vocal, Bass, Flat, Cinema, and Game EQ presets, all of which sound reasonably nice, depending on the IEM and the music used.
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Notes on the features:
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The manual says that the play and pause button can skip to the next track and go to the previous track when you double- and triple-click it, respectively. Well, only the play and pause work. This could be my music player, which is the Poweramp music player app, or my phone and its Android version, which is the Samsung S21 Ultra. I hope a firmware update fixes this, but as it is, it's not a problem for me.
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The manual says that when you long-press the volume buttons, they will automatically ramp up or down the volume. Well, it doesn’t work like that; I have to keep on clicking to adjust the volume to my liking. And again, it could be my music player, my phone, and/or the Android version. ( Please note that this was fixed with a firmware update; see the addendum in the last part of this review.)


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The volume starts at about 50 percent anytime you plug in the USB-C connector and not at the last setting from the previous session. I prefer it to remember the last session’s volume setting, but in practice, it’s fine. ( Please note that this was fixed with a firmware update; see the addendum in the last part of this review.)
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When using the cable with mic and remote control, its volume control directly controls the volume on the phone. I guess this is normal.
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Non-affiliated purchase link:
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https://shopee.ph/TRN-Black-Pearl-H...upport-3.5mm-Plug-Mic-i.410847120.25793224941

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The sound:
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This is the best part of this dongle DAC amplifier: the sound signature is very neutral, and the perceived frequency response is very flat; there are no frequency ranges that stand out from others—it sounds very even. The presentation is neither forward nor laid-back, aggressive nor smoothed out; it's just accurate.

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All the sound descriptions said above are just what every good dongle DAC should be, but what made the TRN Black Pearl special and stand out from the rest, especially in the under 50 US dollar price range, is the way the sound of music is represented. It sounds like an expensive piece of source unit; the sound presentation is big, like expensive digital audio players I heard or reviewed before, and not like other dongles in its price range or even much higher that sound small, thin, flat, and lifeless.
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The sound coming from the Black Pearl is very transparent and natural; the soundstage is big, and it has very good instrument separation, helping IEMs project very good imaging. It sounds energetic and bubbling with energy, and the bass is delivered in a powerful and punchy way with excellent sub-bass extension and presence. I also noticed that it helped my ultra-budget IEMs sound better than they should.
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Further observations during use:
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The TRN Black Pearl runs cool; it only got barely warm when I left it on the table running for hours to burn in an IEM in a room temperature of my tropical country, and summer at that. And cold to the touch when I was using it during my walking exercise inside a shopping mall. I think it is very efficient and has low power consumption because I noticed it barely eats the battery of my phone compared to other dongles that get very warm in use.
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Compared to the Moondrop Dawn Pro (59.99 USD):
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The Dawn Pro utilizes the same converter chip as the Black Pearl, but the Black Pearl sounds better. The Black Pearl has a bigger and wider soundstage, higher perceived resolution, more detail, higher perceived upper treble extension, a grander or bigger sound presentation (sounding like a much more expensive piece of source unit), better imaging, separation, and so on. Unless you like a warmer, less detailed sound, I’d say the Black Pearl beats the Dawn Pro in sound quality.
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In hindsight, I was expecting the Black Pearl to sound similar to the Dawn Pro, only more powerful, but I was blown away at first listen to the Black Pearl. I think Moondrop should update the Dawn Pro series soon, as it is getting old at this writing.
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Compared to Letshuoer DT03 (79 USD):
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The DT03 is one of my favorites under the 100 dollar price bracket. They have very similar musicality and soundstage presentation, but the DT03 sounds warmer in sound signature and more laid-back in presentation, while the Black Pearl is very neutral.
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Pros:
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+ Excellent sound quality regardless of price
+ Very affordable at 37 US dollars or less if on sale or with a voucher
+ Very well featured
+ Call support.
+ Remote control support
+ 8-band built-in equalizer
+ App support
+ Independent volume control
+ Elegant minimalist design

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Cons:
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- None
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Conclusion:
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Well, I think you know by now that I’m ecstatic about the TRN Black Pearl, and that’s because I was blown away by its sound quality. I have listened to and owned many dongle DACs at any price range, and I was at the Singapore CanJam event and have listened to several dongles that cost up to 300 dollars, and the TRN Black Pearl goes head-to-head with those in terms of sound quality. Suffice it to say that the price-to-sound quality ratio of the Black Pearl is very high, like you won't believe, like never before. So, if you are chasing the best sound quality with excellent musicality and accuracy for the least amount of money, I wholeheartedly recommend the TRN Black Pearl.
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Happy listening, cheers!.
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ADDENDUM:
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Just after I posted this review, I was contacted and informed by TRN Shopee that there is a new firmware that fixes the issue of the volume control not automatically ramping up or down when long pressed and the volume memory issue. I updated the firmware to Version V0.2 using the WALK PLAY APP, and it really did fix the issues. I can now long press the volume buttons, and they will automatically ramp up or down, and the it memorizes the last volume setting. It’s nice to know that this dongle can be firmware updated. Thank you so much, TRN Shopee.
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