Greetings! I’m back again with a new review. I’ll be reviewing not one, but two pairs of IEMs this time! The BGVP DM6 and TIN Audio P1 were graciously lent out by @antdroid for a Canadian loan tour. I have already sent these IEMs out to the next person in line, and I hope to see a review from them in the future. Now, onto the review. I’m going to try a shorter review this time.
BGVP DM6: A decent IEM with hot treble
The BGVP DM6 is a pair of all-BA IEMs. They’ve got five balanced armature drivers in a tightly packed configuration. There are four (Each unit is two BA’s. There are two units per earphone) Sonion bass/treble drivers, and one Knowles CI-22955 driver with a 1500 Ohm damper roughly 5mm away from the soundport in each unit. One tube from the Knowles BA, and another stretched out tube runs from the Sonion drivers, where it merges near the end of the nozzle. They have a bright sound signature.
The sound signature was rather close to my personal target signature, aside from an unexplainable treble peak in the mid treble. This treble peak added quite a lot of edginess, and even pierce to the sound signature. That’s one of the main things I experienced listening to them. The bass is very fast, and offers fast attack and decay, but lacked rumble (BA’s are notorious for the lack of rumble). It was quite thumpy, and had a fun element to them. Vocals and mids where quite accurate on this pair, but female vocals had a very harsh and sibilant quality to them.However, despite these faults, this is a decent pair. I’m not too sure I’d pay $200 USD for them as I have other IEMs in mind, currently
About the fit though…oh boy. I’m not the biggest fan of how these fit my ears. I found that they sealed very tightly, and offered great isolation, but at the cost of comfort. It never marred the sonic abilities of this driver, but I feel this is worth considering, namely because they tend to push against part of my outer ear, and the seal sometimes ended up with some suction. These housings are comfortable for most people, but due to my small ears, I ran into some fit issues.
Taking everything into account, I see these as a decent pair. They come with a very stiff cable as well, and I can say it’s not what I’m looking for. I prefer a cable that is soft, and sort of “flops” around. I would consider them good if they fixed the harsh treble in a later model, but as for now these stand as a decent, albeit solid pair.
TIN Hi-Fi P1: My first foray into the world of planar IEMs
The TIN Hi-Fi P1 are a pair of planar IEMs that have come out over the summer from the earphone company TIN Hi-Fi, also known as TIN Audio. I personally was rather excited about these seeing as it’s such a small shell. How could they possibly fit a planar-magnetic driver in there? Well, I listened to these for close to a month, and…well, we shall get on with the review.
The first thing that hit me when I first listened to them, was the wow factor. These sounded great, nice and airy, a little closed off and tight soundstage, and had great treble extension. The bass had a little bit of thump, but it felt slow. They were just a bit anemic with bass. The mids were barely recessed, and most of the signature was generally flat on a graph, except when you got to the upper mids and treble. Oh. God.
The upper mids were very held back compared to the rest of the signature, then there was a massive resonance peak at 7-8KHz, which introduced pierce. I found that many songs sounded, just, eugh. After a couple weeks of listening, the former “wow” I felt with these IEMs melted away. These aren’t good. Not one bit. Listening to any music with female vocalists gave me a brief headache. The sibilance was unimaginable. Anime or ‘weeb’ music suffers badly on this pair. The upper treble sounded very unnatural. The upper treble seemed to raise at an angle rather than down, like it does in real life. This made many sparkles or shimmer of cymbals sound terrible. Not to mention, the soundstage was very closed in, and instrument placement was messy. Yes, these had detail, but at what cost? Somehow the instruments were closing in.
The cable on the P1 was very soft and sort of “flops around”. However, braiding was suspect, as it was very loose. Decent cable for sure, I like it. Braiding is bad but, I doubt it would come apart. Comes with a nice cable cinch too. Easy to slide up.
I don’t really know how to end this second review, but I view the BGVP DM6 as a decent pair that needs less of that huge treble peak, and a slightly smaller housing. Something in the shape of the KZ ZS10 Pro, in order for them to really be a solid pair for me. The TIN P1 on the other hand, were mediocre. I can’t recommend these to anyone. I can recommend the DM6 to people who want a slight-V IEM with bright treble, but I can’t recommend P1.
