It’s a crazily crowded market down there below the $50 mark and TRN VX compete in that segment. It does it with quite some authority, too: VX is not bad at all.
Actually, its sole real tuning “flaw” is that excessive peak at 8 Khz which I doubt can be considered nice even by die-hard trebleheads (although you never know…). Anyhow… it can be quite effectively tamed down with some simple EQing, thus making the entire presentation more pleasant – at least on my score. It’s worth noting that some users found that applying some micropore tape on the nozzles produces a similar peak-taming effect, which may be worth trying too.
Once that’s taken care of, VX is a bright V-shaped driver which can deliver quite some pleasure to treble lovers looking for a lot of air and detail up there, for an after all modest price.
Taking its tuning as a reference, the most direct competitor I can think of for VX is KBEAR KB04 which for even less money delivers however less coherence amongst the various sections of the presentation (particularly in the passage between mids and trebles) and somewhat poorer technicalities. Simply put, VX can be seen as an upgrade to KB04.
I recently auditioned and reviewed TRN BA8 which, oppositely, can be with good reason considered a direct upgrade to TRN VX – for twice its price though.
Before getting to the analysys, a dutiful disclaimer: I got this pair of VX from my friends at TRN, entrusting me to an unbiased analysis and openhearted subjective evaluation, which is what I’m reporting here. You can purchase VX at TRN official store.
At-a-glance Card
| PROs | CONs |
| Good tight midbass. | Thin unengaging mids. |
| Bright unsibilant detailed highmids and trebles. | Excessive 8KHz peak. |
| Good instrument separation | Imaging limited to stereo placement. |
| Bad cable. |
Full Device Card
Test setup
Questyle QP1R / Apogee Groove + Auglamour GR1 or iBasso T3 – stock silicon tips – KBEAR/TRI 4 Core 5N Single Crystal Copper cable – lossless 16-24/44.1-192 FLAC tracks.
Signature analysis
| Tonality | Treble-inclined V-shape. Timbre is bright, clear and lean-ish. |
| Sub-Bass | Quite extended, not much elevated (less than midbass) but enough to offer some rumble. Not much texture though. |
| Mid Bass | Probably the best part of the product, midbass is good, punchy, fast (in DD terms) and very controlled. No sign of bleeding into the mids, and nice texture and layering. Good job here. When it doesnt come accross as sufficiently elevated, it’s in my opinion more due to over-pushed trebles than depressed bass (which is not). |
| Mids | Recessed and thin, almost hollow. A good attempt has been conducted at making their lowend coherent with the (fuller) bass, with some partial success. On the opposite end, highmids are quite forward and somewhat pretentious at times, but not bad. |
| Male Vocals | Clear in spite of the recession, yet unbodied, too lean. |
| Female Vocals | A tad better than males but still too lean and sharp for my taste. I heard no sibilance. |
| Highs | Crisp, a bit grainy, dominated by an excessive 8KHz peak, and quite rapidly rolled off after that. Taming the 8K peak down by 3-4dB and nudging 16K up by 1dB the situation gets better, revealing a nice (for the price) resolving treble section, which would anyhow benefit of more air. |
Technicalities
| Soundstage | Not bad, decently wide and high, lacks in depth |
| Imaging | Instrument positioning is clear and precise. On the flip side, it’s limited to a left-right effect. |
| Details | Average in the bass in spite of the quite snappy DD tuning. Good on the highmids and trebles, where hihats cymbals and bright brass instruments come out very nicely. |
| Instrument separation | Quite good also in crowded tracks |
| Driveability | Very easy due to a good sensitivity, which however does not generate hiss on my sources. Good. |
Physicals
| Build | Convincingly sturdy metal body, with a nice brushed finish available in green and black variant. Not bad at all. |
| Fit | Not outstanding at least for my conchas: housings are a tad too small for me and tend to move and fall out. |
| Comfort | Very good as long as I avoid moving too much to avoid my fitting limitations (see above). YMMV |
| Isolation | Not great at all, probably also due to the “un-filling” fit (see above) |
| Cable | Shameful: it presented an evident channel unbalance. Swapped it instantly with a spare one I had. By information I collected it looks like my cable is not the sole bad one bundled with TRN VX. |
Specifications (declared)
| Housing | CNC-milled “aerospace”-grade magnesium alloy + reinforced inner structure |
| Driver(s) | 1 x 10mm DD, 3 × Knowles 30095 and 3 × Knowles 50060 BA |
| Connector | 2-pin TFZ |
| Cable | 1.2m 3.5mm terminated |
| Sensitivity | 107 dB |
| Impedance | 22 Ω |
| Frequency Range | 7-40000Hz |
| Package and accessories | 1 sets of S / M / L silicone tips |
| MSRP at this post time | $ 102,37 ($ 45,00 street price) |