Page 3 - Subjective Audio Analysis
There are many challenges when it comes to reviewing headphones, because of how subjective the experience is. It takes experience and time to train your ears to be able to make a proper judgement for an audio review. These challenges force us to take quite some time to listen and compare it to other sound equipment to have the best results, and to be able to give it a fair observation. Unfortunately, since different people have different tastes in their headphones and what they should sound like, it is hard to come to a truly objective conclusion. I will also make it clear that I am not a bass head in any sense of the term, but I personally prefer a deep and distinct bass that stays balanced with the rest of the frequencies. As such, the Tesoro A3 Tuned In-Ear Pro earphones were put through a series of subjective tests to come to the best conclusion. For portable tests, I used the earphones with my phone, which is a OnePlus One, and the rest was done with my computer. I attempted to balance out the gaming tests and portability tests, as these earphones are good for either use. The product was also broken in for an extended amount of time to ensure the best listening experience at the time of testing. All tracks were uncompressed CDs, FLAC, or LAME encoded MP3s at 192kbps or higher.
Overall, the sound character was flat, which was surprising for a gaming-grade earphone. This came in conjunction with a mostly well-balanced sound character. I will start with the bass, which was generally defined and smooth, although it lacked punch. That said, there were elements that were curiously hollow at times. The bass still had an acceptable sound to it in the grand scheme of things, given the low end was not a bad experience at all. It did not leak into the other frequencies, and instead it was always present in the background balanced out by the midrange and treble. The bass was good for gaming, as I could still effectively hear players' footsteps in session.
The midrange was decent as well. Guitars sounded clear, and the vocals were thick. For the most part, the midrange sounded saturated and reasonably rich. However, the upper midrange came through recessed. I heard this the most with strings, such as a cello, where the sound would lack warmth and instead sound slightly blanketed. It was not raspy, as the sound was still clear and sounded mostly natural -- this was mainly an issue with the recessed upper midrange. As for the treble, it was mostly clear and sharp. Through and through, the treble had some good energy, although it could be a little dry in certain parts. Again, the Tesoro A3 Tuned In-Ear Pro was just not able to reach the higher frequencies, and so was missing some sparkle. The higher frequencies were recessed, much like the high midrange. That said, even though the treble was a bit recessed, the sound came through clean and clear, albeit with a dark overtone.
When the entire range was being played, the layering was still distinct enough. Most of the time I could properly distinguish between the different layers, even though the soundstaging was not as wide; in fact, slightly narrow. I think this was mostly due to the size restrictions of the earphones, as they do not have the size advantage of larger over-ear headphones.
I quite enjoyed the listening experience the Tesoro A3 Tuned In-Ear Pro earphones provided. The entire range was mostly balanced, except for the aforementioned recessed bits in the midrange and treble, yet the sound was still mostly warm. The layering was reasonably good, while the imaging was defined. For the price of the A3 Tuned In-Ear Pro, the performance was acceptable, but do not expect it to blow your socks off or anything like that.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Hardware
3. Subjective Audio Analysis
4. Conclusion
