Thieaudio Legacy 2

disclaimer: I was loaned the Thieaudio Legacy 2 by Ngoshawk sounds and returned them to him after completion of this review.   Be sure to checkout his blog as well for expanded coverage and to purchase your own Legacy 2 see HiFiGo.

 

Unboxing / Packaging:

Thieaudio doesn’t do a lot flashy in the way of packaging.  Boxes are flat black with the Thieaudio name in silver on both the box front and slip-cover.   The rear of the slip-cover has only the web address and “Made in China” in matching silver.  This creates one small issue and that is the model number is nowhere on the outer packaging and if you have more than one Thieaudio model it can be difficult to tell them apart from the packaging.   There is a label on the reverse of the box that does list the model beneath the bar-code but not other specs or data is provided.   In short, if you didn’t know what you were getting going in, the box isn’t going to do a lot to sell the product.    Lifting the cover of the box reveals…

 

Build/Fit:

The Legacy 2 is an all resin shell with a blue and silver wave pattern on the face plate and a transparent blue inner shell.   Nozzles are part of the inner shell with dual sound bores rather than a separate construction as is so often seen in the budget space  Size is roughly mid sized in the standard semi-custom shape and fit and polish are above average with the seem between face plate and inner shell being visible but not distinguishable by touch (fingernail test).    There is a single vent immediately in front of the bi-pin connector that is a brass fitting cast into the inner shell and again well fitted and polished with no raised edges.  The bi-pin connector is fitted flush with the shell and while it doesn’t match the color of the shell, the blue shows through the transparent resin enough to effectively hide the difference unless one looks closely and its hidden when a cable is attached anyway.    The aesthetic follows the rest of the legacy line with the Thieaudio name in gold on one face plate and the Legacy 2 on the under side of the shell along with the serial #.     I found the Legacy comfortable for long wear and while none of the provided tips were a perfect fit for my ear, nozzles are standard sized so finding a pair that did work in my collection was quick and easy.  I ended up with spin-fit medium large tips installed for most of my listening time.

 

Internals:

The legacy 2 is a dual driver hybrid using a 10mm dynamic driver with a beryllium coated diaphragm handling the lows and lower-mids while the upper registers are handled by a Knowles 29689 balanced armature.   The Knowles 29689 is considered a full range driver but trails off sharply below about 350Hz so it is best paired with another driver to handle the deepest of the lows.    The Legacy 2 has a nominal impedance of 32Ω and a sensitivity of 108 dB/mW (@1kHz) which puts it in the class of iems best suited for low powered sources like phones, tablets, and dongles.  While it does scale some qualitatively but doesn’t need the extra potency of higher end sources.   I found the Legacy 2 paired well with dongles like Questyle’s m12 and Cayin’s Ru6 and Daps like the Hiby R2 and Hidizs Ap80Pro.   Most of these are at their best on low gain as it leaves a blacker noise floor and plenty of volume to get as loud as the user demands.  Additional gain only serves to increase the noise and does little to help the sound.

 

Cable:

As one might expect with a budget offering the cable provided is a pretty vanilla affair.   It is visually a good looking cable in pearl silver and chrome that mates well with the Legacy 2 colors.  At the south end the cable is a standard 3.5mm jack in a polished chrome housing.    The cable exits as a 4 strand braid up to the chrome splitter.  The only thing not really fitting the aesthetic is the chin slider which is a matte translucent plastic and is fully functional if not overly good looking.   Above the splitter the wires exit as loose 2 wire twists up to earhooks and 0.78mm bi-pin connectors (non-hooded) in matching chrome housings.   The right does have a red plate for quick indexing which is appreciated.

 

Sound:

I would advise not reading the Thieaudio ad copy on this earphone before listening as I found the definition provided does not match the performance.  Having said that, I think I like what I found better than what they describe so I think it wise to judge the Legacy 2 on its sound rather than on how closely Thieaudio did or did not hit the targets listed in their ads.

 

Bass:

Sub-bass is mildly elevated but drops back quickly as it moves into the mid-bass and doesn’t show up unless the track calls for it.  You’d be excused for thinking the Legacy 2 was near neutral or even a touch light on the bass as it simply  does not jump out unless tracks have an emphasis as well.   Sub-bass has average to slightly above average attack and definition in its default state.  Likewise, mid-bass has good texture and detail but again is not emphasized and kick drum lacks a little impact as a result.  This is an earphone where bass is  heard but not felt and those looking for a big bass impact won’t find it here.   I found that EQing to add bass impact was not an option as any attempt to boost the lows (whether by parametric EQ or things like iFi’s X-bass) met with a rather rapid decomposition of the bass and it became very loose and a bit muddy in response to trying to add to the quantity.   This iem is at its best as a near neutral where control can be maintained and detail not lost in the trade-off for more impact.    Mid-bass adds a bit of warmth and thickness to the lower-mids but stops short of obstruction which gives the Legacy a lower half that is best characterized as near neutral in quantity with a slightly warm signature.

Mids:

Mids continue the trend as they don’t sound recessed or thin and lower voices have good weight and tone.   There is a slight dip that keeps strings from sounding too energetic but at times it causes strings to sound less than entirely realistic as when a track opts for a safe tuning, the recess here compounds that and strings come off a bit flat as a result.  Still with well mastered tracks, the Legacy 2 manages good guitar growl with plenty of crispness and enough detail to maintain interest.   There is an upper-mid rise but it is much more graceful and restrained and never quite reaches the level of the sub-bass which keeps higher voices from stepping out in the mix.  Vocals retain good energy but do not sound overly forward or shouty and again this leaves the Legacy 2 as a nearer neutral offering than many hybrids in the budget space.

 

Treble:

The lower treble shares the plateau with the upper-mids and again is tasteful and gives the Legacy 2 a bit of energy needed without dominating the signature.   Likewise the true treble is well controlled with good detail.   There is a mild dip in the 6-7kHz range that does give the treble a little bit of an uneven feel but it recovers in the 8-9kHz range that is so critical and has enough energy to sound open and give snare rattle a nice crisp edge and cymbals enough energy to keep them from sounding dull.   Hi-hat is slightly less so and could use a touch more energy to be entirely correct.   There is a a fairly good drop above about 11kHz before final roll-off somewhere above 14kHz.     This mildly bright top end stands in contrast to the warm tone of the lower end and the treble sensitive will likely label the Legacy2 as bright while others may see it as a more neutral proposition.

 

Soundstage / Imaging:

Soundstage is deeper than wide by a good margin and while the Legacy 2 has some height it is well short of 3D.  This is one place where the budget nature of the Legacy 2 is on full display as the stage dimensions are not particularly realistic.    While I do think the Legacy 2 is at least as good as most of its budget competition, it definitely isn’t on par with the upper echelon’s of the Thieaudio line.   Instrument separation is good and seating the orchestra is reasonably good but with the stage width or lack thereof, things seem to be one in front of the other rather than side by side as they should be.   Imaging likewise suffers to some degree from the stage dimension as while movements are easy to track they are not necessarily in the positions we expect.   There is some mild compression in the lows when tracks get overly busy which is made worse by trying to EQ up the low end so this won’t be an in-ear for the bass head.

 

Thoughts / Conclusion:

I have now reviewed several Thieaudio models and they continue to impress me.   Sure there are some obvious flaws in the Legacy 2 but when we consider what it does well for $99 it is nitpicking to call those out too strongly.   What the Legacy 2 does best is provide a model for others to follow when building a hybrid Dynamic/Armature budget in-ear and maintaining some semblance of a balanced sound signature in the process.   Too often when we see a new dual driver hybrid announced, the signature is a deep V with markedly recessed mids and too much emphasis at both ends.  It is clear that this was not the goal of the Thieaudio engineers as the Legacy 2 is a much more balanced tuning.   I think with some tweaks the Legacy 2 could easily become the go-to budget in-ear for many and things like the Shure 215 are well within striking distance for the Thieaudio Team.    They have proved that they can translate a lot of the lesson learned on the top-end models into the budget space and it makes me excited that with a few more trickle down updates they could become a major force in the budget space as the Legacy 2 is already getting very close to the top models in this price range.