I can't believe how good these $25 earbuds sound - Truthear Gate review

One of the most common recommendations I’ve come across for good sound quality at under $25 is the Truthear Gate. If you can actually get full and detailed sound at that point, it would be a great value, but do these IEMs sound as clear as they look? Let’s find out in this SoundGuys Truthear Gate review.

What’s it like to use the Truthear Gate?

Despite the budget pricing, you get the regular fare of items with the Truth Ear Gate. I didn’t expect a carry case with the price, but one is included in the box, which is a nice bonus. Unfortunately, the case uses a terribly stiff spring steel closing mechanism. I only bother using this for storing the 3 remaining eartips, as I normally ungraciously shove the IEMs directly into my pocket. The wire is pliable but a little stiff, with an in-line microphone, terminated in a 3.5mm connector. The cable can disconnect from the earbuds themselves, connected via a 2-pin connection.

Through the transparent earbuds, you can see a nice view of the internal dynamic driver of the Truth Ear Gate. It’s a nice design touch that they kept the internals neat, as the wires are neatly tucked into one side. They don’t seem to pick up fingerprints, but they are susceptible to micro scratches. They fit in my ears just fine, and they’re light without any notable points of pressure. Wearing these for a long time at over 6 hours, didn’t pose any issues either.

What are the best features of the Truthear Gate?

The Truthear Gate has a supple cable with an in-line mic. The see-through design is neat, a window to what drivers are in your earbuds. These are old-school wired earphones, nothing new, with no unique features or companion app.

How does the Truthear Gate connect?

The Truthear Gate terminates in a 3.5 mm TRRS connector for the inline mic. They are rated with an Impedance of 28Ω. I found no need to run the Truthear Gate with an amplifier to get adequate volume.

How well do the Truthear Gate block out noise?

The Truth Ear Gate are a normal pair of IEMs, which means no active noise cancelling. Our testing shows that the passive isolation can block out up to 9dB of low-frequency noise and up to 35dB of high-frequency noise, which is about normal for IEMs. I found they block out a little bit of low-end sounds, reducing the hum of air purifiers or PC towers. These earbuds take the edge off higher frequency noise, such as the screeching of train tracks as the train halts to a stop, but is still obvious and present. People’s voices still push through, they are muffled but still legible

How does the Truthear Gate sound?

For the price, the Truthear Gate have excellent sound quality that will please most listeners, even if they are lacking some treble detail.

Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Scores (MDAQS)

The chart below shows how the Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Score (MDAQS) algorithm from HEAD acoustics assesses the sound of the Truthear Gate. The sound quality is rated on a scale from 1.0 (very bad) to 5.0 (very good).

With a score of 4.9 for Timbre, most people are going to enjoy how they sound without needing to adjust with an equalizer. The Distortion score of 4.2 is still within the range of what most people find difficult to notice, still on the higher end for IEMs. The Immersiveness score of 3.6 is within the typical range for most IEMs.

Reviewer’s notes

Editor’s note: this review uses a hover-enabled glossary to describe sound quality based on a consensus vocabulary. You can read about it here.

Objective Measurements

For our lab tests the Truthear Gate isn’t a complete departure from the Soundguys preference curve. The bass is slightly boosted at 20Hz sub-bass region, compared to our preference, but is lower than the preference over all. The mids are lower than our preference with the dip from 200Hz to 500 Hz, other than following the curve closely up to 3KHz. The treble is much lower than the preference, with a huge dip at 10KHz

Can you use the Truthear Gate for phone calls?

Yes, there’s a microphone on the right earphone cable that picks up voices clearly. The problem is the hissing sound that is there all the time.

Truthear Gate microphone demo (Ideal conditions):

Can you game with the Truthear Gate?

You can game with the Truthear Gate, depending on the type of game you’re playing. In dialogue-heavy story games, like Cyberpunk 2077, the dialogue doesn’t get lost in the mix, even with background music and other environmental noise.

For cozy games like The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, high pitched sounds like the crystaline chimes of summoning aren’t painful, and the Truthear Gate are easy to listen to for hours on end without much issues, although some might find it annoyingly unnatural due to the lack of brilliance from the treble.

Action games like Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, where you punch and shoot bad guys after sneaking around a bunch, are a little underwhelming. Firing a weapon doesn’t come with the loud and powerful crack of a gunshot, and the exaggerated sound of punches from the game audio falls flat.

In competitive shooters like Apex Legends, it’s difficult to pick out the specific location of a sound. The ability to locate sounds from left and right on the Truth ear gate is the bare minimum. It was difficult to pick up the L-star firing behind me, or notice the direction of sounds other than somewhere to my right or left. They also have a shallow sense of depth, where most sounds are either near or close by, and seemingly nothing in between.

On a MOBA(multiplayer online battle arena) such as League of Legends, it’s hard to pick out distinct sounds like the teleport twinkles, but passable only because you can easily hear coms even mid-clash.

Should you buy the Truthear Gate?

The Truthear Gate doesn’t sound bad for the price. It comes with some compromises; it is lacking in treble, which makes the sound a touch boxy, pretty compressed, and with little detail. You can get much worse from over-the-counter IEMs you can buy from your local Walmart or Target, despite the Truthear Gate sounding a little boxy. For those that are looking to spend as little as possible without compromising too much in sound quality, the Truthear Gate are worth picking up.

What should you get instead of the Truthear Gate?

At this price point, you could spend a little bit more on IEMs like the Tangzu Wan’er. It also includes an inline mic, and has a similar but much clearer sound with more bass precision than the Truthear Gate for $20.69 at Amazon.

Truthear Gate review: FAQs