Hisenior T4 or Accepting the Nihilism of Balanced Armatures
You will have to excuse the nature of the metaphor in the title because it’s a stretch. But if you’ve followed my journey at all, you know that I have a difficult relationship with all-balance armature sets. I especially struggle with the bass performance/tuning that we get in all-BA sets. I find them to be generally tuned for sub-bass over midbass performance, as if they are dynamic drivers that may bleed into the mids. This flies in the face of the fact that BAs execute bass with a premium on speed and decay. The problem, for me, is that these IEMs lack midbass emphasis that is convincing for me in any way, which is vital for my personal enjoyment of bass playback. Even the very best BA sets I’ve heard (like Neon Pro, Butastur, or Supernova) haven’t overcome this issue for me.
Which brings us to the T4. I had a curiosity about this set where, graphically, it presents like the midbass has some more emphasis in it, and could be the type of BA tuning that could possibly win me over. So did it? Lets find out.
THE SOUND
Cause When Its Over I Won’t Have to Do This No More; Like a Drug, All My Love, Still the Same as Before
Like a Drug - BRKN LOVE
(IEM Tuning Style: Midcentric)
So I’m going to cut to the quick: I did all of my listening in the bass setting on the T4’s tuning switches. I found the bass switch is mandatory for my ability to enjoy the set and played it as such, (I turned off the treble switch and did not activate the soundstage setting. If you want a little more air and treble energy, then pop it on, but I did not. All impressions will be in the bass setting). Saying that, the bass on T4 is fine. You get enough quantity in sub and mid-bass, with enough warmth in the sound. It is not my preferred quantity but it’s okay. The quality is also alright: If you like BA bass, this is good. If you don’t like BA bass, this won’t convert you. And I don’t feel converted either, but like I said, it is enough because this set is more concerned with making sure you get that clean midrange performance.
The midrange is the make or break for this set and it is much more make than break. The low-mids are clean, with some warm, but never muddy or congested. There is an uncolored palette for the vocals to play from, and they sound very good. Vocals are clear, forward and present, and always getting the proper emphasis. I think my personal nitpick is that the pinna gain could use a couple of dB pulled back on them. The upper mids are not in any way harsh, sibilant, or unpleasant, but I could do with a bit of an edge of metallic sounding timbre getting taken off. It’s not a dealbreaker but it is something for me.
The treble, I would obviously leave the way it is; considering how I did not prefer the sound of the boosted treble. It over-accentuated what I didn’t like in the upper-mids, so I wouldn’t want to put more emphasis on that. Clarity and resolution are more than enough at this level for me to take it as is. I didn’t find anything in the soundstage to knock my socks off: I hear more depth than width, but it’s not very dramatic on either axis. It’s fine and good enough, but there’s no huge hall feeling and no crazy 3D bubble. It’s adequate IEM staging. As for technicalities, I like the imaging and separation capabilities: Listening to Swashers, I get some dynamic range that makes it sound like a pretty good IEM playback of the water flowing, but it does not give me the feeling of the best transducers, where I feel like I hear water swashing back and forth rather than hearing a playback of water swashing. There’s no shame in T4’s game, but it just doesn’t go to that next level.
THE GOOD
- Solid performance across the board
- Affordability
THE BAD
- Lots of good but nothing special that blows me away
- Good enough bass still doesn’t equal good bass
- Can show BA timbre
WHO IS THIS SET FOR?
- Completionists who want an IEM of as many transducer configurations as possible and doesn’t have an all-BA set
- People who prefer to emphasis mids and/or treble (depending on switch choices)
WHO IS THIS SET NOT FOR?
- Anybody who is generally anti-BA set
- this isn’t the set that you’d have to get, to change your mind
- Someone who wants a set with special sauce
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
So I started writing this feeling like it was going to be a very positive review overall and I’d be like “this is the all-BA set you should get, if your budget minded and wanted to try this transducer type”, and I still think that’s the case in the end. But the longer I have these in my ears, as I write this, I’m just slowly getting hit with the BA-timbre and I would not find myself using them regularly. They do a lot well, are well priced, and my nitpicking ass is just not the target for most BA sets. And that’s okay, I accept that. If you’re more open-minded about BA sets than me, then this is 1000% a contender, so I do not want to run away anybody that could be into this set. The more I try, however, the more I just have to come to accept that all-BA sets (at any kind of affordable price) aren’t for me…which is a spoiler for soon-to-come review, so stay tuned. And that’s going to be it for this review. Enjoy your days, and take care till next time!
Rank for Hisenior T4: B
Rank With Personal Bias: B
Recommendation Level: Lukewarm Recommendation Relative to Other Choices (Midcentric)
Rank As a Food: Apple sauce
