Tanchjim Blues Review – Pickin’ the …?
Pros — Super small, light, and comfy; forward midrange; excellent imaging and resolution.
Cons — Short nozzles; brightness in upper the midrange not for everybody.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Tanchjim Blues is a very clean, detailed, and slightly bright sounding single DD iem that appeals to audiophiles and purists. Its tiny size and virtual weightlessness sets it apart from the competition.
INTRODUCTION
So, you expected a rustic, gritty sounding earphone, good for listening to slide guitar and steel drums? Spaghetti Western soundtracks? Actually no — not at all. The Tanchjim Blues are quite refined sounding little rascals for the sophisticated, demanding listener.
Tanchjim is yet another upsurging company out of China that has impressed the audiophile with their Oxygen model, and the budget listener with the Cora.
SPECIFICATIONS
Tested at $79.99
Product Link: HifiGo or Aliexpress HifiGo Store
PHYSICAL THINGS AND USABILITY
Speaking of usability: the earpieces are small, really small – and extremely light. And they do not stick out of the ear. The Tanchjim Blues sport a shape and ergonomics not seen since the now discontinued Brainwavz B100 and B200 v1.
This means, the Tanchjim Blues can be worn in bed or under a winter hat. And by men, women and children or anybody with small ears. The earpieces are rounded like a kidney bean and built well, the outer half of metal and the inner half of plastic. The cable comes with a chin slider, it is fixed, soft, pliable, and not rubbery — it is about Sennheiser quality. The whole assembly looks and feels like quality. None of the included eartips fit my teutonic ear canals so that I used these third party tips. All included accessories are depicted above.
Fit of these rounded “beans” could not be better. Very comfortable. Isolation depends on the tips but is acceptable. The Tanchjim Blues are easily driven just with my iPhone SE.
TONALITY AND TECHNICALITIES
My tonal preference and testing practice
The frequency response graph already tells us half the story — but not the other half.
What sticks out is a linear response from the low end into the midrange, and a broad peak at about 2.5 kHz. This points to a flat tuning as found in Etymotic Research iems. But unlike some Etys, the Blues do not sound sterile. In reality, the Blues’ low end offers a satisfying, punchy, impactful listening experience. The DMT (Diamond material technology = same as DLC, for details see HERE) is fast for a DD; to me, it has just the right speed. When listening carefully and with the right tips, the extension is actually quite good. In fact, I find them quite bassy for their size. In summary, a pretty good low end.
The speed of the driver avoids any bleeding into the midrange. The latter is crisp and clear – and a bit bright fuelled by that 2.5 kHz peak (and possibly by the 6 kHz spike, too). It is evident from the graph that the lower midrange is not recessed, which is rare in this price category. Vocals are accurate/neutral, slightly bright and can be a bit pointy or sharp at high volumes, and they are clean and clear at low to all volumes. Brightness and lack of bass smear create lots of clarity in the midrange, similar to the Moondrop Starfield.
Treble is well extended, well resolving, very clean, and not piercing. The Blues deliver accurate reproduction of even the highest notes in a J.S. Bach violin concerto.
The technicalities of the Tanchjim Blues are very good: the soundstage is surprisingly wide, as expected not too deep (but deep enough), and it could be a bit taller. Note definition is excellent (note weight could be bigger), and so is speech intelligibility (if you have no better idea, these work perfectly with audiobooks in bed). Also impressive for their class are resolution, separation, and layering. Dynamics is good: piano attack is crisp. Timbre is natural but brightened up a bit. The fast driver polishes up old recordings nicely. For example, the 2019 remaster of the Beatles Abbey Road sounds stellar.
When you consider the whole package: fast driver with crisp and clear note definition, no smearing, good resolution, speech intelligibility, but some brightness, and then add the ergonomics, all this qualifies for a great listening experience, best at low to moderate volumes…even in bed (as you can lay down sideways with them in). The Tanchjim Blues can handle even the most complex music well, and gritty, bassy Blues music is probably not the genre they excel at most. Also, people who exclusively subscribe to Lynyrd Skynyrd, noise rock, death metal, and Gangsta’ Rap may look for some bigger-driver earphones. This earphone is for the refined, cultivated listener.
TANCHJIM BLUES COMPARED
There is not much in their category to compare them to. The $30-40 Blon BL-03 are much bassier and less resolving. The $79 KBEAR Diamond and the $109 Moondrop Starfield are heavy monster cherries in your ears compared to these small beans. The Diamond have a narrower but deeper soundstage and are darker…and they are more suited for louder volumes. The Starfield’s sound is also “bigger” but they also are 50% more expensive. The $49 Tanchjim Cora have a mainstream “fun” tuning and may be a good alternative for people who don’t like the Tanchjim Blues’ somewhat tighter sound. Compared to the KBEAR KB04, the Tanchjim Blues sound more organic and more neutral.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
The Tanchjim Blues are an underrated marvel that had been prematurely dismissed by some questionable YouTube influencing for no reason at all. Sure, they may not appeal to sheep (who believe what they are told in videos) and the mainstream crowd because of their audiophile, flat and slightly bright tuning, but earphone aficionados, other advanced listeners, or anybody with small ears may treasure them, particularly such who seek excellent ergonomics. Tanchjim may not have done themselves a big favour by the misleading model name and the nice packaging.
The Tanchjim Blues is an interesting and useful quality earphone that will certainly find its followers – and it will have a fixed place in my collection.
Happy Easter 2020! Keep on listening!
You find an INDEX of all our earphone reviews HERE.
DISCLAIMER
The review unit was submitted by HifiGo for my analysis and I thank them for that.
BUY IT AT: HIFIGO OR ALIEXPRESS HIFIGO STORE
Our generic standard disclaimer.
You find an INDEX of our most relevant technical articles HERE.
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