Here's some short impressions of the TRN TA. This is a review set from TRN.
The TRN TA is an $18 USD 1 BA + 1 DD set. The selling point is a Knowles 33518 balanced armature at this price; you would have been laughed at just 2 years ago if somebody claimed that a Knowles containing IEM could be sold for such little coin!
Anyway,
accessories wise, the IEM itself comes with some generic tips and a thin microphonic cable without a chin cinch. Nothing to gripe about, that's par for the course at this price bracket.
The TRN TA comes in a transparent plastic shell, letting one see the internals inside. This does make it look a bit cheap though. It is
comfortable enough and light. The 2 pin connector is welcome in my book, they will probably have better longevity than MMCX (in general), especially with frequent cable changes.
Isolation on the TRN TA is average, it is also easy to
drive.
Graph courtesy of KopiOKaya from Audioreviews (IEC711 compliant coupler). 8 kHZ area is probably a resonance peak.
In a nutshell, the TRN TA is a warm bassy set, with a slight boost in the upper mids and a dark treble.
This set is mid
bass focused. Subbass extends moderately. The bass is just a level shy of basshead levels. Unfortunately, the midbass bleeds, the bass is slow and one-noted. In fact this smeared bass may give some incoherency in view of the bass being slower than the mids/treble handled by the knowles BA, and is more apparent on tracks with complex/fast bass movements.
Lower
mids are recessed, with a slight boost in the upper mids. The upper mids I'm glad to report, are very tamed by TRN standards (they have a rep for producing banshees and shouty upper mids tuning). The TRN TA is hence very non fatiguing and smooth.
Treble is dark, with minimal sibilance and little air. Trebleheads best look elsewhere, as there is marked loss of clarity and micro-details as such. Conversely, this set will suit treble sensitive folks. However,
technically, this set is below average and sounds lowFI, with a congested stage height/depth (width is slightly above average). Imaging, instrument separation, micro-details are honestly weak, and coupled with the dark treble, the TRN TA comes across as being congested.
There's BA
timbre present for acoustic instruments in the upper frequencies handled by the knowles BA.
In conclusion, the TRN TA is cheap and one can't be expecting sonic miracles at this price point, Knowles driver or not. Technically, tonally and timbral wise, this set isn't that proficient, and there are some budget single DD eg HZSound Heart Mirror that trounce the TRN TA, which is supposed to be a hybrid with a Knowles BA! (In general at the budget segment, the hybrids usually have better technical performance than single DD types).
Their TRN TA2, a $50 USD model in the same series, is much more expensive (with an added BA), but maybe only has a bit more air and technical performance in the upper frequencies handled by the extra BA. So between the TA2 and TA, gun to head, I'd say go for the TA due to them sounding ~80 - 90% similar but the TA costing 1/3 the price. But given a choice, both the TA siblings are below average in the pantheon of weekly CHIFI releases, and I have a feeling nobody will be talking much about them come a few weeks' time, that's how fast this industry moves.
I commend TRN for shifting away from a steroid infused treble boosted shoutfest of their previous multi driver behemoths, but it seems in the TRN TA and TA2, they have gone the opposite, for a darkish tuning with midbass bleed in spades, and lower technical performance. If they can get their tuning somewhere in the middle ground, that'd be ideal, but as it stands, I can't recommend these 2.
