I am creating this topic for TRI Audio, who have various IEMs and also have released a portable DAC/Amp that I am going to post the review of next.
I am not sure how much traction this brand will get here on the forum but, to be totally honest, I couldn’t really find anywhere suitable to leave my review of the TK-2.
So… TRI Audio discussions go here.
TRI TK-2
The Tri TK-2 has been very kindly loaned to me as part of a European Tour which was organized for this unit. To be totally honest, I wasn’t even part of the tour, however, my fellow reviewer Cqtek, of hiendportable.com, spoke with the organizers and arranged for me to get to try out this device while it is in Spain. I am very grateful to both Cqtek for sorting this out, as I am towards the organizers of the tour for letting him include me.
As I have had no contact with the actual organizers, I have obviously not received any requests from them, so I will leave the two links that Cqtek published in his review in the version of this review posted on my blog.
I will also leave this link to the review of the TK-2 by Cqtek (available in English and Spanish) here: TRI TK-2 English Review - Hi End Portable
Obviously, all of this means that I will aim to be, as always, unbiased and honest in my review, but it is always good to factor in that it hasn’t cost me anything to try out this device.
Presentation…
I honestly know absolutely nothing about this device. Before I received it, I hadn’t even seen pictures, so I can’t say of the packaging and contents are any different due to it being a tour unit, but my guess is that it is the retail packaging and contents.
The TH-2 arrives inside a black rectangular box, showing an image and logo on the front, with plenty of specs on the back. I was surprised at some of the stated specs (as I said, I knew nothing about this device) and also learned that it is in fact a collaboration between TRI and KAEI. The reading of the box actually made my interest grow before opening it.
Anyways, inside the box we get the TK-2, a short USB-C to USB-C cable with 90º connectors (always appreciated!), a longer USB-A to USB-C cable, a couple of rubber rings to attach it to another device, a USB-C to Lightning adapter and a microfiber cloth. I have never been so happy to receive a microfiber cloth with a device, but more on that in a moment.
So, a simple presentation with not a huge amount of contents but certainly enough to enjoy the product out of the box.
Build and aesthetics…
Let me start by saying that the aesthetics are beautiful, until you touch the device. This is the biggest fingerprint magnet I have ever had in my hands, this being the reason for me being extremely happy to receive the microfiber cloth I just mentioned. Just to take a few photos of the TK-2, I must have cleaned it 30 times, and there are still fingerprints in the photos 
However, when it is clean, it does look amazing. The top is a black glass finish with the Tri logo in a mirrored finish, as are the sides and bottom. The volume wheel and connector surrounds are in a gold colour and they just all work well together. As I always say, aesthetics are a very personal thing, and I am not usually one for gold, but it does work well with the aesthetics of the device.
Along the top there are 5 status lights that indicate the Hz of the signal, along the front we get a 2.5, 4.4 and 3.5mm outputs, along with the volume wheel. At the back of the unit there are two USB-C ports (one for charge and one for data) which are slightly recessed, along with a line out/phones out selector, and the rest of the unit is just one big flawless mirror, with nicely bevelled corners and in gener, a very good build quality.
I will say though that this device is big and heavy. It is not the biggest (or heaviest) portable device I have used, I think that still belongs to the Diablo, but it is bigger than the Gryphon, in width, depth, length and weight.
I would certainly class the TK-2 as transportable rather than portable, I don’t think you would want this in your pocket along with whatever source you are using, in fact, unless you are wearing cargo pants, I doubt you could even fit it in your pocket.
So, it is big, heavy and a fingerprint magnet… but I love it 
Functionality…
There really isn’t much to explain here, you connect whatever your source is to the USB-C port on the back, you connect your headphones of choice on the front, you turn it on and you listen.
The TK-2 is a fairly powerful unit, in fact, it’s a very powerful unit if we consider it portable, using a class A/B amplifier that can push 1250mw @32Ohms. This is obviously not on par with something like the Diablo (which is just crazy) but is more than the Gryphon puts out.
It is also not terrible on battery life. The specs claim 9 hours and I haven’t really managed to deplete it, even when running it almost all day at the office (around 6 or 7 hours of listening), so I guess it is true. It will obviously depend on what headphones you are using and what levels you listen at, I have mainly been using easy to drive headphones and my listening levels are not high.
There really isn’t much more that I can say about the functionality, its simple, it works, and it works well. It supports all kinds of PCM and also native & DOP DSD up to 256. So it should cover most of your files, unless you are someone into MQA.
Sound…
My dreaded section of any DAC or amp review, how does it sound?
Well, it sounds good but… it doesn’t pair well with everything. I’ll get to why in just a moment.
When I first got the device, I was obviously at my office and the headphones I had on hand were the HD6XX, which have been living here recently. As you may already know, based on previous comments, the HD6XX can go from excellent to terrible depending on my mood. Well, I must have been in a good mood as I plugged them in to the TK-2, opened Foobar and just enjoyed music for the rest of the day. I listened to a lot of blues, jazz, instrumental and acoustic music and I really couldn’t have asked for enjoyment. I really enjoyed things like the Cooltrane Quartet, Nick Cage and the Bad Seeds, B.B.King, Clapton, Genevive Leclerc and many other bands and artists. With the HD6XX, it reminded me quite a bit of the Asgard 3 when I am in a good mood
I was a bit surprised to find that to reach my usual listening levels with the HD6XX, I was above 50% on the volume knob but a bit of investigation informed me that the unit automatically switches to high gain when going above 60% and I must say that the difference between 55% and 65% is fairly large and there is a little bit of a digital click when it happens but I only actually did this for tests as I never needed to go that high for my usual listening (and I dropped the volume on the PC before managing to hit the gain change over). A little thing to mention is that 60% is actually where you would expect 75% to be on the knob, so when I was thinking I was above 50% for my usual listening levels, I was actually probably around 40%.
I also noticed no channel imbalance at low levels, although I did notice that the first 10% of the volume wheel doesn’t produce any sound at all. This is actually not a bad thing as you hit silence quite a bit before you hit the “off” part of the knob, avoiding accidental disconnects when reducing the volume.
So, my next test was to move away from the dynamic drivers and 300 Ohms of the HD6XX and try something planar. As I still have the Edition XS and the Arya v3 in my office from when I recently reviewed the CMA15, my first choice was the Edition XS (only because the box was on top of the other one). I only had balanced cables on hand so I proceeded to connect the Edition XS to the 4.4mm output of the TK-2.
My first surprise came when I realised I needed the same level on the dial to achieve similar listening levels as with the HD6XX. This is just an estimate as I did not measure the volume but usually I do find that I need a little more power with the HD6XX than the Edition XS.
I proceeded to listen for a while and there was something about the headphones that just didn’t sound right. The usual clarity and separation of the low end was not as good as I am used to with these headphones. It sounded a little congested and even a little bloated on occasions, while on other occasions it just sounded like there was something missing. As I didn’t have an unbalanced cable on hand, I couldn’t A/B with the Atom, which is usually a quick reference point for me, so I decided to swap headphones instead.
I unplugged the Edition XS and moved over to the Arya V3, again running balanced from the 4.4mm output. The Arya sounded much better, cleaner in the low end, but still did not sound as good as they usually do. There was still a hint of that bloated sensation with certain tracks and the detail in the low end just wasn’t as separated as it usually is. Now, the Edition XS are not headphones that I listen to everyday, I mean, they are great headphones, but when I get chance to pick something up for pleasure, it is usually the Arya (not always, but a lot of the time), so I know the sound of these headphones pretty well, especially with my test tracks, songs that I have listened to thousands of times.
Listening to “The Room” by Ostura, a track which can get quite busy in the lower mids and midbass, I found that these low notes of the guitar and bass were not as easy to separate as they usually are but still sounded decent. I moved back to the Edition XS and there it was, the same track became less defined in the low end and again exhibited a bit of bloat in certain parts of the tracks.
Later in the day I moved on to the DT1990 Pro, a set of headphones that are very rarely affected by the source and sure enough, they sounded just like they always do.
The next day, I brought in the Gryphon in order to A/B it with the TK-2 and sure enough, with the two Hifiman headphones, the bottom end just sounded cleaner and better represented on the Gryphon. At first I was thinking that maybe the TK-2 didn’t have enough current to keep up with the planars but I then skimmed the review by Cqtek, who presents measurements of sources, and there was my answer, the TK-2 has an output impedance of 20 Ohms when using balanced. This doesn’t play well with the Arya (35 Ohms) and even less with the Edition XS (18 Ohms), which seems to have been causing the issues that I was experiencing.
Then I decided to move on to IEMs, starting off with a cheap set of IEMs that I had just finished reviewing, the Moondrop Chu. Now, the Chu aren’t exactly a set of IEMs that I would choose to determine the qualities of an amp and DAC but they happened to be on my desk and also happen to be 18 Ohms.
With the Chu, which I had just recently reviewed so I had them fresh in my mind, I really didn’t notice any difference that I could put my finger on. At least nothing that stood out that couldn’t be attributed to my expectations now that I had looked at the output impedance (one of the reasons that I try to avoid reading anything about a product before reviewing, if possible).
So, I moved to the Letshuoer S12, another set of IEMs that I have fresh in my mind as I have been using them a lot lately. These are planar IEMs and have an impedance of 14.8 Ohms. Once again, from the balanced output, I noticed what seemed like bloat on a lot of music and while the low end didn’t sound as congested as it did on the Arya, they were certainly not as clean as I expect them to be after using them on many other devices.
Moving through a few other IEMs, I didn’t really notice any issues with any of the ones that I use the most, which are actually all dynamic drivers for the bass. I do have a few hybrids, such as the Dusk, that I use regularly, but they all use DD for bass. The few IEMs that I do have that use BA’s for the low end are not models that I use enough to be able to make a sensible comparison without spending much more time with the IEMs and the TK-2. Yes, I could probably A/B the quickly against other set ups, but I feel that expectation bias would interfere a lot in such short comparisons.
Conclusion…
The Tri TK-2 is a very interesting piece of equipment. It has a lot of good things going on and a few not so good things also.
As far as build and aesthetics, absolutely no complaints. Yes, it is heavy, large and you will need to clean it each time you touch anything more than the volume wheel, but when it is clean, it looks great. It is well built and honestly looks like something of high quality. A quick search online brough back results starting at just over 250€, which is not exactly cheap for a portable DAC/Amp, but is a lot cheaper than things like the Gryphon that come in at around 600€. Admittedly the Gryphon has everything you could wish for and a bit more, whereas the TK-2 is a simple DAC/Amp, but I still expected a price that was a little higher based on the spec and build.
As far as functionality, it is pretty basic, it is, as I just said, a simple DAC/Amp. The major benefits are the power ratings, the A/B class amp and the ESS DAC chips, which obviously offer far more performance than something like a dongle set up.
As far as sound, well it seems to depend on what you are planning on using it with. With dynamic driver headphones, it sounds very nice, very reminiscent of the Asgard in some ways, with that slight smoothness to the sound. With planar magnetic headphones, at least the ones that I tried, it doesn’t do so well. The same can be said for planar magnetic IEMs, or at least the S12. That 20 Ohms output impedance doesn’t work well with them.
With DD IEMs, it also works well, with no real issues at all, even with low impedance IEMs (or at least the ones that I tried didn’t seem to suffer). I did sometimes get the impression that the bass was a little bloated but I am going to chalk that up to my expectation bias after finding out the output impedance.
For example, with the HD6XX, I think the TK-2 would be something that would make 95% of people happy with the sound and performance, with a great sounding system that comes in at around 500€ for the whole set, and allows you to move around freely from the sofa, to the office to the front porch.
Personally I wouldn’t choose this over the portable set ups I already have, the Go Blu and the Gryphon, but even the tiny Go Blu is already nearly the price of the TK-2, so it really isn’t a fair comparison.
(As always, this review is also available in Spanish both on www.achoreviews.com and on www.youtube.com/achoreviews)
TRI i One
The Tri i One have been sent to me by KeepHifi for me to try out and share my opinions on them. The only request from KeepHifi was that I reviewed them in a short time frame as they are a new launch and there is not much in the way of reviews out there just yet, or at least there weren’t when they sent them to me, I haven’t checked since.
I was happy to accommodate their request, I always am when the request is a fair one and doesn’t become a habit, as long as they are happy with my opinions being honest about what I think about them, which is something that KeepHifi has always respected.
You can find the Tri i One via KeepHifi by visiting the link I have published on my blog (link to my blog at the end of this review).
As always, it is a non-affiliate link, I do not benefit in any way by people clicking or buying via the link.
Intro…
As I said a moment ago, these are a new launch from Tri and were only released very recently. I promised to review them as quickly as I could and I have had these IEMs a little over 2 weeks, which is basically the minimum I like to spend with a set to be able to review them coherently, 1 week for burn-in and 1 week for listening and testing etc.
The i One are classed as the flagship model of Tri, using a single Carbon PET dynamic driver and coming in at around 250€ at the time of writing this review. This means that they are certainly not a budget set of IEMs but they are still way more economic than “flagship” models from other brands.
I have to say that my experience with them over the last week has been a bit of a roller coaster, going from dislike to like and back again on various occasions, which is one of the main reasons that I like to spend at least 4 or 5 days of continuous use before actually putting together impressions.
Now let’s get on with what those impressions actually are and what my conclusions are regarding the Tri i One.
Presentation…
I have to say that the unboxing of the i One’s was quite an unexpected experience. They arrive in a large box which is white and simply shows the name and not much more. However, once the box is open, everything turns orange!
The box extends both to the left and the right, with the whole interior being orange, I mean, just look at the photos that speak a thousand words.
Everything is neatly packed and they have really put some care and effort into the presentation of these IEMs. For some reason there is a picture of a deer included that, combined with the orange, sort of reminds me of a hunting store, but I would rather have the deer than some of the anime art that appears with so many other sets.
As far as contents, it is also a very respectable amount. We get the IEMs, the cable, 3 sets of “balanced” silicone tips, 3 sets of “Clarion” silicon tips, a cleaning tool, the user manual, a small net storage bag and a very nice storage case in orange to match the box.
I really can’t complain about the contents as I feel they are more than acceptable for a set of 250€. Ok, they could have included a balanced cable also to really surpass expectations, but I feel that they have covered everything that is needed.
Build and aesthetics…
All of the contents seem to be well made and of good quality but let’s focus as usual on the IEMs and the cable, starting off with the IEMs.
Using Aluminium alloy shells, they opted for a shape that is quite simple but at the same time, uses small curves and deviations to what would have probably been quite boring. The faceplate uses a mirror like insert with the model name and a simple block design, however, the way the mirror finish is done, it changes from light to dark depending on the angle (and makes it rather difficult to photograph, at least for someone like me who isn’t really well versed in photography).
The TRI logo also appears on the forward part of the shells and in general, they do look fairly elegant and I feel they live up to their price as far as aesthetics and build goes.
The cable is a bit on the large size for me personally, as I am someone who prefers thinner cables for IEMs (within reason) but there is no denying that it is a well built cable. According to Tri it is a “OFC shielded pure silver wire”, which is individually wrapped in a cloth type material using a quadruple twist that then splits to two double twists.
Sound…
Here is where I couldn’t make up my mind with the i One. I did graph these IEMs before listening to them, so let’s start there:
So, straight away we see how far the frequency response of these IEMs is from my preferred target and we can also see a huge peak at 5kHz, my dreaded frequency for peaks. In fact, in the next graph we can see how it compares to two IEMs that I have also tried recently and disliked quite a bit, the Rhombus and the Cencibel (which I believe I haven’t actually published the review for yet, so I guess this counts as a spoiler).
So, let’s just say that I went into this with expectations of suffering that peak. I have to say that upon first listen, that was exactly what I experienced. I was listening to some indy style rock and found that the electric guitars were just piercing in the 5kHz range, along with certain parts of the percussion. This straight away put me in the “I don’t want to spend a week with these” frame of mind.
However, I do know that spending more time with something will sometimes make it grow on me (and sometimes bring me to dislike things that I initially liked), so I persevered and the next day I put on the included grey tips (the Balance tips) and sat down at my desk, hitting play on a jazz playlist while focusing on my work load. After a while I realized that I was enjoying the music and I started paying a bit more attention. I found that some of the brass instruments in the specific tracks I was listening to were actually rather smooth and not coming across as harsh and unpleasant as I expected things like saxophones and trumpets to do.
So, for the next few days, I spent time with the i One and found that they would go from unpleasant to very enjoyable depending totally on my music selection, something that we often forget when talking about IEMs (or headphones), someone’s experience will vary wildly depending on the kind of music they listen to.
But anyway, let’s try and give this review some kind of organization and focus on my test list that I always use for final impressions and opinions. It’s been a while since I mentioned it but you can find the full test track list that I use here: List of test tracks Also, each of the tracks mentioned here is a clickable link that will allow you to open the track in the streaming service of your choice.
Starting off with the lowest notes and using my usual test of “Chameleon” for the subbass performance, there is no shortage of rumble in the low end. The performance of these IEMs in the subbass notes is impressive, giving enough of that lowest presence for any subbass lover to be happy without actually being too overpowering. They also do a good job of keeping the subbass clean and defined, even when trying out a track like “Royals” which has a subbass that is not as clean and controlled as it could be, the i One do a good job of presenting it without it taking over the song.
With something like “No Sanctuary Here” or “Sun Is Shining”, which are tracks that focus more on the midbass side of things, the i One does a good job but there can be just a little too much in the lower end of the midbass (the crossover point between subbass and midbass you could say) which can make it feel sometimes like the bass is not quite working together with the rest of the frequencies. This is something that is difficult to explain but think of it like a speaker set up where the crossovers between subs and midrange drivers are not quite set up correctly. This is something that I experience on things like the DT1770 Pro and while it is not terrible, it can just sound a little “off”.
With tracks that use instruments rather than electronic created bass, such as “Bombtrack”, on the heavier side of things, or “Back It Up” which is more of a double bass track, I do feel that there is a little too much presence. This gives a nice round edge to the low end but it does detract from the actual sound of the instruments, or at least the timbre I would expect.
The mids are the point that I most find I changed my mind about. Depending on vocals, some of them can seem a little too recessed. This is mainly in the case of male vocals but I did experience it also with Caro Emerald in “Back It Up” that I just mentioned, or Sade in “No Ordinary Love”, where the voices lose out to the bass playing due to increased midbass and the dip in the mids.
The upper mids are even more of a lottery depending on music though, at least in my opinion. I would find that certain tracks would be extremely exaggerated in those upper mids (with that 5kHz peak stabbing me), such as the upper mids of “Killing in the name of” by RATM or “Light Years Away” by Oliver, whereas other tracks would come across as smooth in those areas such as “Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa or “Breezeblocks” by alt-J (a track that can be very aggressive in the upper mids).
Up into the higher regions, I find the extension to be pretty good, giving a nice sensation of openness and air in those ranges. Sibilance is also not bad, with Patricia Barber being just a little hotter than her usual “on the verge” in “Code Cool”. It is not overly exaggerated as far as sibilance goes, but it certainly doesn’t tame it down either.
Details I feel are a strong point of the i One. They are not the most detailed IEMs I have ever heard but they do portray a lot of the smaller details of music very well, without the need to focus on them to appreciate them, yet not pushing them forcefully towards you either.
Soundstage I also find to be above average, with things seeming to be nicely spread out and well placed across the stage. I never really find IEMs to be overly spacious in this regard (at least in comparison to open back over ear headphones) but I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the i One.
The i One do a decent job of isolation in the upper mid and higher ranges. The lower frequencies do leak through a little more but are still better isolated than the average of the IEMs I have measured so far.
Conclusion…
The i One are a set of IEMs that are going to depend very much on the music preferences of the listener. I feel that if someone was to try out these IEMs with just a song or two, they would either love them or hate them (again, depending on the choice of those songs). After trying all kinds of music through them, I have to say that my opinion on them literally changed from track to track (when listening to a random playlist).
I have tried to relay some of the information while focusing just on my test tracks but I feel that a different review of these could probably be written on a track by track basis.
In the rest of the categories I have no doubts I would recommend them, the build is good, the aesthetics (very personal I know) are good, comfort is good, presentation is good, details are good, performance is good… it’s just the actual tuning and the way it reacts with difference music that will be the polarizing part for people.
I have to say before I finish this review that I have heard a lot (too many?) of IEMs with a very similar tuning to this set recently and the i One are the only ones that I found to be so different depending on music, the others have just been something that I have not enjoyed.
I you can get your ears on a set, I highly recommend you do so, as they might be something that fits you perfectly, or they may not.
As always, this review is also available in Spanish both on my blog (www.achoreviews.com) and on YouTube (www.youtube.com/achoreviews)
All FR measurements of IEMs can be viewed and compared on achoreviews.squig.link
All isolation measurements of IEMs can be found on achoreviews.squig.link/isolation