note: this review is my own opinion this is not a review unit I bought it myself blah blah blah.
I apologize this review was originally going to be longer but that was before when trying stock tips I had a lot more to say about the nuance of the sound and how the treble affected the presentation. I do not have such thoughts now after switching tips to double flange which improved seal and overall sound quality(for me). I’ll get into it a bit later.
You already know probably if reading this that the Gate is a budget entry from Truthear replacing the Hola. On its own merits I thought it was fantastic, even before switching tips.
Build/Comfort
I can’t comment on these too much except in a vacuum because I don’t have its predecessor the Hola. I’ll take everyone’s word that the Hola was built better. These are built just fine, plastic feels maybe a *little* cheaper than the zero:reds but they don’t seem bad at all especially for the price. Build seems slightly better than my wan’ers…the included cable is 100x better than wan’ers, fantastic. The carrying pouch is nice too.
I have a small nitpick for comfort in the sense where the shell shape is great but I wish in general that IEMs have a longer shape to allow for deeper insertion. Zero:red had a long enough shell and the chonky nozzle doesn’t bother me.
The standard tips provided are small narrow bore and wide bore. I tried narrow bore tips first and I liked them but the wide bore fit and sounded maybe a bit better. Wide bore tips are what I used originally to judge the sound.
Note: standard double flange tips certainly provide more than enough of a deep insertion now.
Sound
Like I said my experience with double flange tips has changed things a bit but i’ll try to give my initial review impressions too. The tips really only affected sound from 7khz upwards so my impressions from around 20hz- 6khz are more or less the same although the better seal has brought out tiny bit more bass and warmth than initially perceived. I mixed in some comparisons to my best sounding gear ya I know it’s a little disorganized…sue me(please don’t)
Bass
Alright this where things are gonna start getting real flipping nerdy
Please let me geek out here because this goes into a bit of theory surrounding bass and lower mids curves and i love talking about that shizz…711 couplers in general *say* one thing, however the perception of it is completely different. IEMs have a bass bleed compared to real life humans(most of them anyways…sharur doesn’t count)
the good news? This bleed also extends into the lower mids”mud” region. So IEMs naturally bleed mud and a muddy looking bassline may actually sound perfectly normal.
This leads me to my grand point: *The gate sounds like it has a proper subwoofer bass shelf without being muddy*
Compared to the esteemed, dare I say legendary hd650? The gate has less warmth in the midbass but more subbass impact. To say this bass is good is an understatement. It is *excellent*. No bleed, but also no sterility and coldness. bravo truthear
Mids
because of the controlled bass and the extended upper mids/presence, the midrange has a lot of room to play here. Overall the mids sound about as separated as the zero:red and moreso than the hd650. In some ways these sound more open than those cans. very impressive for the price
Treble
Treble is undoubtedly the hardest part of any sound device to get correct. The gate(especially with proper tips) gets treble correct. with original wide bore/narrow bore tips these were my impressions
Doing a sine sweep curve 2khz bumps up a little from 1khz and stays relatively constant and consistent to 5khz. at sround 7-8khz there is a bump and then it dips at around 9khz and rises after 10khz. Then finally somewhere in that upper treble is another bump before my hearing cuts off(30 yo boomer memes are real)
The gate are definitely forward in the upper mids and treble region by a couple of dbs compared to a “true” neutral set such as the zero:red. I don’t mind this overall as I find the zero to be slightly laid back and especially as a guitar player do not mind “Harman-esque” 2-6khz region if done properly, which the Gate does.
now that being said…time to get into some more nerd crap…because head related transfer function
Let me start with a graph to show what i’m talking about
So a set I reviewed before, the ziigaat nuo is overlayed over the gate with wide bore tips. Now we’re getting into the weeds.
From 20hz to about 5khz these two sets measure somewhat similarly with the gate taking a slightly brighter tilt, and that shows up in my impressions. Now I’m sure you’re all looking past that in the treble region and thinking “Holy crap Gate has a big hole at 10khz. Nuo is endgame! I’ll take that treble extension any day”
tldr: microphone measurements don’t account for an individuals HRTF. Long story short the Nuo to most ears has *too much 9-12khz energy*.
The Gate with normal tips to my ears indeed has a slight dip starting at 9khz-10khz and then rises back up to normalish levels. So the truthear(sorry couldn’t help myself) is somewhere in the middle of the two graphs.
but.
We can do better.
Shallow insertion tips will typically have a resonant peak somewhere between 6-8khz.
…what if we align the resonant peak with where the naturally occurring dip on the Gate lies?
Spoiler alert: magic is what happens.
With double flange tips that peak is shifted further deeper and higher right around where the gate dipped with normal tips.
What does this mean? It means perfection. I’m not kidding. It just means smooth treble all the way to where my hearing cuts out. No perceived peaks or dips anywhere.
The trade off is that the gate is slightly less bright but more tonally correct and even the soundstage opens up.
This is the best sound reproduction device I have ever heard. Granted take that with a grain of salt, I have not heard many things, especially high end.
I don’t really care to now. I’m done. I’ll keep tabs on this hobby but in essence the gate to my ears with proper tip selection is…”good enough”
Good enough is when my hd650 get obliterated in technicalities and are on par if not better in tone and timbre.
it’s over. I don’t need more. Hopefully you can find the same. Find an iem and tip combination which suits your HRTF and leave this hobby forever lmao.
I apologize this review was originally going to be longer but that was before when trying stock tips I had a lot more to say about the nuance of the sound and how the treble affected the presentation. I do not have such thoughts now after switching tips to double flange which improved seal and overall sound quality(for me). I’ll get into it a bit later.
You already know probably if reading this that the Gate is a budget entry from Truthear replacing the Hola. On its own merits I thought it was fantastic, even before switching tips.
Build/Comfort
I can’t comment on these too much except in a vacuum because I don’t have its predecessor the Hola. I’ll take everyone’s word that the Hola was built better. These are built just fine, plastic feels maybe a *little* cheaper than the zero:reds but they don’t seem bad at all especially for the price. Build seems slightly better than my wan’ers…the included cable is 100x better than wan’ers, fantastic. The carrying pouch is nice too.
I have a small nitpick for comfort in the sense where the shell shape is great but I wish in general that IEMs have a longer shape to allow for deeper insertion. Zero:red had a long enough shell and the chonky nozzle doesn’t bother me.
The standard tips provided are small narrow bore and wide bore. I tried narrow bore tips first and I liked them but the wide bore fit and sounded maybe a bit better. Wide bore tips are what I used originally to judge the sound.
Note: standard double flange tips certainly provide more than enough of a deep insertion now.
Sound
Like I said my experience with double flange tips has changed things a bit but i’ll try to give my initial review impressions too. The tips really only affected sound from 7khz upwards so my impressions from around 20hz- 6khz are more or less the same although the better seal has brought out tiny bit more bass and warmth than initially perceived. I mixed in some comparisons to my best sounding gear ya I know it’s a little disorganized…sue me(please don’t)
Bass
Alright this where things are gonna start getting real flipping nerdy
Please let me geek out here because this goes into a bit of theory surrounding bass and lower mids curves and i love talking about that shizz…711 couplers in general *say* one thing, however the perception of it is completely different. IEMs have a bass bleed compared to real life humans(most of them anyways…sharur doesn’t count)
the good news? This bleed also extends into the lower mids”mud” region. So IEMs naturally bleed mud and a muddy looking bassline may actually sound perfectly normal.
This leads me to my grand point: *The gate sounds like it has a proper subwoofer bass shelf without being muddy*
Compared to the esteemed, dare I say legendary hd650? The gate has less warmth in the midbass but more subbass impact. To say this bass is good is an understatement. It is *excellent*. No bleed, but also no sterility and coldness. bravo truthear
Mids
because of the controlled bass and the extended upper mids/presence, the midrange has a lot of room to play here. Overall the mids sound about as separated as the zero:red and moreso than the hd650. In some ways these sound more open than those cans. very impressive for the price
Treble
Treble is undoubtedly the hardest part of any sound device to get correct. The gate(especially with proper tips) gets treble correct. with original wide bore/narrow bore tips these were my impressions
Doing a sine sweep curve 2khz bumps up a little from 1khz and stays relatively constant and consistent to 5khz. at sround 7-8khz there is a bump and then it dips at around 9khz and rises after 10khz. Then finally somewhere in that upper treble is another bump before my hearing cuts off(30 yo boomer memes are real)
The gate are definitely forward in the upper mids and treble region by a couple of dbs compared to a “true” neutral set such as the zero:red. I don’t mind this overall as I find the zero to be slightly laid back and especially as a guitar player do not mind “Harman-esque” 2-6khz region if done properly, which the Gate does.
now that being said…time to get into some more nerd crap…because head related transfer function
Let me start with a graph to show what i’m talking about

So a set I reviewed before, the ziigaat nuo is overlayed over the gate with wide bore tips. Now we’re getting into the weeds.
From 20hz to about 5khz these two sets measure somewhat similarly with the gate taking a slightly brighter tilt, and that shows up in my impressions. Now I’m sure you’re all looking past that in the treble region and thinking “Holy crap Gate has a big hole at 10khz. Nuo is endgame! I’ll take that treble extension any day”

tldr: microphone measurements don’t account for an individuals HRTF. Long story short the Nuo to most ears has *too much 9-12khz energy*.
The Gate with normal tips to my ears indeed has a slight dip starting at 9khz-10khz and then rises back up to normalish levels. So the truthear(sorry couldn’t help myself) is somewhere in the middle of the two graphs.
but.
We can do better.
Shallow insertion tips will typically have a resonant peak somewhere between 6-8khz.
…what if we align the resonant peak with where the naturally occurring dip on the Gate lies?
Spoiler alert: magic is what happens.
With double flange tips that peak is shifted further deeper and higher right around where the gate dipped with normal tips.
What does this mean? It means perfection. I’m not kidding. It just means smooth treble all the way to where my hearing cuts out. No perceived peaks or dips anywhere.
The trade off is that the gate is slightly less bright but more tonally correct and even the soundstage opens up.
This is the best sound reproduction device I have ever heard. Granted take that with a grain of salt, I have not heard many things, especially high end.
I don’t really care to now. I’m done. I’ll keep tabs on this hobby but in essence the gate to my ears with proper tip selection is…”good enough”
Good enough is when my hd650 get obliterated in technicalities and are on par if not better in tone and timbre.
it’s over. I don’t need more. Hopefully you can find the same. Find an iem and tip combination which suits your HRTF and leave this hobby forever lmao.