TIN HIFI T1 Plus – warmth and thickness on a budget

February 28, 2021March 1, 2021 ZMarketChangers

Never had a chance to play with product from TIN HIFI brand before. We’ve seen a lot of positive feedback about various IEMs of this brand on Facebook pages, in posts or comments which have raised our expectations preliminary to the arrival of the today’s topic sample. It is always kind of tricky that the information coming from net builds our perception of a product that we have never seen or touched in a real life. Sometimes such expectations crashing against the wall of reality and sometimes become a proof that masses don’t lie. Anyway, today we would either prove or object that TIN HIFI – quite young but already popular brand – is worth of our attention.

Just a note about the company: yes, TIN HIFI is from China (Zhongshan Dongting Electronics Technology Co. Ltd.) and as declared at official website this company was long involved into OEM/ODM manufacturing of HiFi products before they’ve started own brand in 2017. Product portfolio consist of 9 IEMs and what is the most interesting – couple of those are planar driver-based models with very competitive pricing. Hope that we would grab one of those somewhere in the near future as such offers and technology in IEMs are still rare on the market. But we would review the cheapest of their single beryllium dynamic driver models today – T1 Plus.

T1 Plus specs:

Driver: 10mm beryllium diaphragm
Sensitivity: 105dB/mW
Impedance: 32ohms
Frequency response: 10Hz – 20kHz
Jack: 3.5mm
Cable: 1.2m±3cm, silver-plated, detachable,
Cable connectors: 2pin/0.78mm
Weight: 6g (without cable）

Packaging and design:

TIN HIFI T1 Plus IEMs come in relatively small square-shaped white box free of any elements except brand and product name printed at the front and company information – at the back.

Inner box space is split into three compartments: soft insert holding IEMs, audio cable beneath it and separate box for the accessories. Entire set consists of T1 Plus IEMs, 6 pairs of silicone ear tips and audio cable.

IEM shells consist of two parts – base and top plate. The latter can have different color paint which is actually filled from inside, leaving the facing side glossy and the paint protected from scratches.

Base part is totally transparent with all of the construction exposed to the owner. Shell material is not disclosed by the manufacturer but seems to be some kind of mix of plastic and resin. Couple of compensational openings per channel on the base and barely visible brand and model name imprints on the edges.

Sound output nozzles are molded as a part of a shell while protected with very thin nylon sound filter. Very good and durable cable connectors – both protrude from shells to eliminate bending.

On the other hand – such design of cable connectors is not universal and the choice of the spare cables with the best fit would be limited to few.

Stock cable seems to be pretty nice – aluminum elements with gold-plated 3.5mm TRS plug, transparent resin 2pin connector housings, in-built ear guides and channel indicators. It is formed by 28-core 0.05mm silver-plated copper wire.

T1 Plus fit should be good for most of the people due to the combination of quite long nozzles, light weight, ear guides on the cable and small/thin natural profile. 4 people tried and have not faced any issues which makes us believe in T1 Plus versality.

In overall, we like how T1 Plus IEMs are designed and made. Transparent units always caught our attention showing the accuracy of manufacturing and assembling processes. You can even see tiny cables and soldering points from 2pin connectors to dynamic driver unit – everything looks very neat.

Sound quality:

Our testing equipment: Hidizs AP80 DAP + xDuoo XD05 Plus DAC/AMP

Lows:

Seems to be the most accented range in T1 Plus with all consequences it makes further on the sound. Bass is deep, extension is impressive. It is neither too fast or too slow and doesn’t sound detached from the whole sound picture. Although, the resolution and texturing might have been better. Sometimes lows are kind of diffused and might bleed and overshadow mids. The influence of lows on the overall tonality results into fairly warm and dark sound, rich of bass and thickness on mids.

Midbass is decent — powerful and full-bodied. Great articulation and dynamics, drums do sound engaging. Warmth and thickness of lows result in interesting emphasis on volumetric parameters of soundstage.

Mids:

Instruments and voices in mids sound natural and rich. Appealing thick sound of tube-powered electric guitars rich with different harmonics that make those IEMs a good choice for rock, blues and other similar genres. Male vocals sound slightly more distant while upper mids are more elevated. Female vocals never sound harsh and don’t show any unwanted hisses. Mids are in fairly good balance with lows, enriched by its influence (thickness of notes) but sometimes struggle to stand out and loose the lead. This effect is not too harsh though and mids still make very good impression of warm and velvet timbre.

Treble:

T1 Plus treble range is slightly more powerful than mids, definitely leading in gain and somewhere close to the power of lows. Such slight V-shaped tuning helps T1 Plus sound to have enough air and transparency while not falling into very dark signature. Elevation is very reasonable, treble portion is clear and accurate but not excessive. Extension and resolution are moderate with the most of the potential revealed in music genres saturated with string or bow instruments. Although, treble might sound a bit indistinct and soft when it comes to bass-oriented tracks.

Soundstage:

Some controversial results here. Binaural recordings that are intended to create additional scene depth and width show moderate effect and distance with T1 Plus IEMs. Whereas some regular recordings sound more expanded to sides and show good instrument separation and larger stage.

Sound in overall:

We would say that TIN HIFI T1 Plus are closer to warm or dark signature IEMs with well-developed and accented lows that result in thick and vintage sound on mids. Midbass is decent, while treble might feel a bit soft. In overall, such IEMs are very good for slow vintage music and would suffer from feeding something from modern electronic genres. Also best to be used with high quality neutral or cold sources.

Compared to Hidizs Seeds:

Hidizs has lowered the price for Seeds down to $30 (from 70) which makes those one of the best IEMs in class. Seeds are more transparent and have much more developed treble range despite being based on single dynamic driver as well. Seeds sound more airy, precise and balanced but they are not so good in terms of fit and also don’t feature detachable audio cable.

Compared to Tanchjim Cora:

Core is another representative of single dynamic driver IEMs with bright and transparent sound with very good treble reproduction. Cora also wins over T1 Plus in this but lacks in terms of bass extension and midbass power. But the worst about Cora is very individual fit and non-detachable audio cable

Conclusion:

Budget IEMs with in $30 price range is kind of rare testing equipment for us. During this particular test we have came up with two main conclusions: even such low-priced IEMs as TIN HIFI T1 Plus might outperform more expensive models in some aspects of the sound and that T1 Plus is definitely providing one of the best price to performance ratio in its class. We did not expect such decent build quality in this budget, universal fit, detachable cable feature and what is the most important – sound that is almost on par with certain more expensive models. We are talking mostly about the performance of lows and midbass as well as about its pleasing influence on mids. Nowadays, T1 Plus warm signature with thick sound is encountered much less often than bright and cold V-shaped tuning. Interesting is that among all dark single dynamic driver IEMs T1Plus do sound the most engaging so far, despite being on a budget. Not saying the best since some lack of texturing and extension is evident, but definitely the most interesting – when the dark signature is obvious but the treble is still very adequate. Like!

TIN HIFI T1 Plus available at HiFiGO official store: LINK