TRN T300 Review (3) – TWS With A Nice Timbre

Alberto Pittaluga (Bologna, Italy) — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 16:57:00 +0000

In my continued effort to get the best output sound quality for my listenings during my always so short music enjoyment time I a-priori avoid lossy protocols. That’s why I normally don’t use bluetooth other than for calls, basically.

That said as a dutiful introduction, my friends at TRN (find their AE store here) anyway insisted on sending me a pair of their latest TWS IEMs called TRN T300 for me to share my opinion about them. I’m pleased to say that I’ve been quite impressed by their performance on music output. Maybe that’s because my expectations were low? Could be, but I am very honest in saying that I auditioned much, much worse-sounding wired IEMs!

TRN T300 Review I – Blue In The Tooth

TRN T300 Review II – The Big Meh…

What I particularly liked, besides their well done ergonomics and their ease of use, is their well calibrated warm-natural timbre and tonality, paired with remarkable imaging on a quite horizontally extended soundstage.

Amongst the downsides I would mainly note the lack of AptX-HD nor LDAC support, and a disappointing microphone making them hardly usable for professional-level calls.

Allright, let’s get to the details…

At-a-glance Card

PROs	CONs
Nice timbre and tonality.	Rolled off sub-bass.
Good soundstage and imaging.	Lean female vocals.
Solid BT connectivity.	Amendable details and separation.
Good autonomy thanks to the charging case.	No AptX-HD / LDAC.
	Bad microphone (for calls).

Full Device Card

Test setup

Sources: Sony NW-A55 mrWalkman – Stock tips – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC tracks.

Signature analysis

Tonality	A quite well calibrated and pleasing U-shaped presentation delivering an overall pleasant, quite balanced tonality with a definite warm-ish, unoffensive timbre.
Sub-Bass	Evidently rolled off although not totally missing. It succumbs to midbass most of the times
Mid Bass	Bodied but slow – at least for my taste – its presence is often somewhat excessive and bloats into mids more often than not. Midbass is also the primary cause of the quite evidently warm general timbre
Mids	Moderately recessed and on the lean side, I like their detail all accross the board including highmids which are well polished and dont glare out easily
Male Vocals	Quite natural and more than decently textured. Could use some more body but that’s it
Female Vocals	Average at best, definitely lean and in some rare occasion they come dangerously close to sibilance. No easy glaring though, which is good.
Highs	While not bad at all, trebles do lack some extension and air for my “jazzy” preferences. What’s lacking apart, what’s in is indeed good: quite well textured and not screechy. A definite step in a more “mainstream appreciable” direction when compared to most other (wired) TRN models I know and tested, delivering definitely hotter trebles, rather “dedicated” to treble lovers.

Technicalities

Soundstage	Taking into account APTX connectivity limitations, technicalities are in general very nice. Soundstage is sizeable in width and preserves more than a hint of the width and depth granted by a quite sophysticated DAP like the one I’m using.
Imaging	Same as for soundstage, imaging have to be considered very good based on APTX connectivity structural limitations. Instruments are definitely positioned around, although the generally limited stage depth makes them appear primarily along the horizontal axis.
Details	Treble lack of air and extension certainly don’t help the treble details case, and APTX noise does the rest, delivering a slight above average result also considering the asking price. On the opposite end of the spectrum bass articulation details struggle to emerge to to midbass slow-ish decay.
Instrument separation	Hindered by the slowish bass in the lowend up to the mids, it becomes much better in the highmids and treble where I think they score a very good remark

Physicals

Build	Housings seem convincingly resistant for ordinary manipulation although I wouldn’t dare test how they bear hard hits or falls. Touch sensitivity is well calibrated. On another note the charging case, its lid especially, invites me to use it quite gently.
Fit	Very easy for me, I find their shape very good for my ear. Nozzles are also comfortably long and offer easy and firm instertion even with stock tips. It’s worth noting by the way that adopting custom chips may not be easy or even at all possible, as they my interfere when fitting the housings back in their case for charging.
Comfort	Very good. Allthough I wouldn’t say they “disappear” once worn, their very good fit paired with a remarkably low weight make them extremely comfortable at least for me. Needless to say, YMMV.
Isolation	Not more than average for music – the housings do not “precisely fill” my concha. Automatic noise canceling fixes the situation during calls only.
Connectivity	Very easy to pair, and signal stability is very solid. Sadly, only 1 host can be paired at a time but I guess I can live with that. On the other hand, lack of APTX-HD and LDAC connectivity are a serious pity as the maximum supported inbound resolution, using AptX, is 24bit / 48Khz. The carrying and recharging case has the right features: opening/closing the lid turns the earpieces on/off and connects/disconnects them to the host (if paired), a readable LED display gives an updated reading of the residual juice in both battery sets – in the case and inside the earpieces – and Wireless Charging.
Microphone	T300 are equipped with a cVc-technology noise cancelling microphone. That’s supposed ofc to exploit them for calls, besides music listening. Well this might be the single most disappointing aspect of the product: mic is extremely sensible to housing positioning / insertion into my outer ears, and depending on the situation my call counterparts pass in a whiff from hearing me loud and clear to barely understand what I’m saying – a quite annoying experience especially if used for work.

Specifications (declared)

Housing	IPx5 water resistance rating. Touch sensor. Integrated microphone for calls, with Qualcomm cVc noise cancelation technology. Batteries on earpieces offer 4h continuous playback, 27h standby time. Battery charging carry case with 600mAh battery, supporting Wireless Charging technology and offering up to 5 full charges to earpieces.
Driver(s)	1 dual magnet 8mm dynamic driver + 2 30019 Balanced Architecture drivers
Connectivity	Qualcomm QCC3046 chipset, bluetooth 5.2. SBC/AAC/AptX codecs, 24bit/48KHz max resolution
Package & accessories	One set (S/M/L) silicon eartips, battery-charging carry case, USB-C charging cable.
MSRP at this post time	$126,36 ($67,82 on special deal)

DISCLAIMER

The TRN T300 can be purchased here: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001313332794.html

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