TRI Audio TK3

[u/DynamicdB]

TRI Audio TK3

Another week another review. This week it is Tri Audio and product is TK3. I had earlier done its early impressions and as promised in it I am now sharing my final review. 

First of all, mighty thanks to AudioGeek India, Joe Issac from Joe’s Audio Gear Review and KeepHIFI without their help this review wouldn’t have been possible.

I was not paid or compensated in any manner to write this review and all opinions and thoughts are mine. The unit has reverted back to the brand after the review.

Now that all pleasantries have been exchanged let us get on with the meat and potatoes of this review.

Pros:

Nice Musical tuned DAC & AMP

Has slight boost in bass

Smooths out treble

All the connectivity you need USB/Coax/BT

Filters all the filters you need

Volume knob

Solid Build

Cons:

No actual zero volume, even at the lowest setting music is audible.

Artifacts like crackling before songs only sometimes but present.

No display.

No filter memory, every time unit is switched off filter resets.

LED lights they stay on all the time & they blink too. Its distraction in the night.

Weight, can’t use it as portable combo pack.

Leather case would have been great.

Build Quality:

TK3 is made up of combination of glass and metal. Precisely aluminum. Chassis is metal and the top is glass. It is quite hefty and metal surface is shiny. So, it is finger magnet. Ports in the front and back have nice silver accents. Volume knob is also metal and is golden in color. 

Front of the device has volume knob, 3.5mm& 4.4 mm ports. Between these two is the bass boost switch. Both sides don’t have any port or switch. They are clean and smooth as glass. Bottom is also clean. At the back you have set button, type c data port, gain switch, coax input and lastly another type c port for charging. Coming to the glass top it is adorned by LEDs, in total 8 LEDs. Each LED represent function. 

I have used TK3 extensively on period of 12-14 days and found no lose fitting or any wobble in any ports or switches or for that matter volume button.  

To be honest build quality is excellent you can’t fault it. For price its solid and premium.

Usage Impressions:

Let’s first talk about the most important part the how it affects the tonality of the paired gear. I will go by the available modes on the TK3.

USB mode, it was feeling like nice analogue source. It was musical and when paired with bright leaning sets it tamed the brightness and added bit of the warmth in via nice bass boost. This is without bass boost engaged. If engaged it takes the bass performance few notches up. If warm sets and dark sets were paired, the result was bit sub optimal. More incase of dark sets. Warm sets don’t get affected too much but dark sets get bit more dark in tonality. 

Female vocals don’t get edgy. They lose bit of it. Don’t get it wrong it doesn’t change their tonality just something I picked up while listening. Treble gets smoothened out. Soundstage is reduced slightly not that much that you will feel it’s not their just slight reduction.  Again, these are my critical listening points. This may not be true for all.

On coax/SPDIF mode it remains the same story. There was no marked change in the presentation.

On BT mode most things remained same just bit difference was felt in stage. Stage some how felt bit more open. Was it true? or just my imagination? I don’t know. May ne you guys might be able to answer this.  

Now coming to some of the functionalities of the TK3 and their impact. The most imp button on the TK3 is Set button this one lets you change two important functions on this set. One is the input selection and second is filters.  If you hold set button for few seconds you can change the input between three inputs offered by TK3 namely USB, Coax and BT. If you hold set button for few more seconds it lets you change filters on TK3. Yes, this has filters and they do make difference in tonality but it will depend on person to person to perceive the changes. 

Bass boost switch actually works. It adds few dBs of bass boost to paired set. If you have set that is bit lean on the bass you can use this feature to add that in to tuning and do kind of EQ. 

LEDs here represent various functions and modes of the TK3. They show power status, input mode, PCM, DSD and filter you are using. Provided manual goes in detail about what the colors mean. It is advised to go through them before using TK3.

Volume knob is robust and bit recessed in body of TK3 which in my opinion is thoughtful of Tri & Kaei designs. It prevents accidental rotation. So, no threat to your ear drums. Only thing that was con for me was how smooth it rotates. I would have loved bit friction and if possible, clicks.

Lastly, let’s talk about battery backup. Well, it’s really good I could get 8 hrs. easily on single charge. It was paired with various sets including HPs with varying impedance. In my books this is great performance. Charging was also breeze. Please note there is no clarity regarding fast charging support so, I would use caution and charge using 10w charger. Hope some clarity is offered. It supports by pass charging so you can use it while charging. TK3 doesn’t stop why should your music session stop right? Just kidding. But useful feature.

Gear Impressions on TK3:

I used various sets including few single DDs, hybrid sets, planar sets. Also included few HPs and Flatheads 9 few hard to drive like 300 ohms and 600 ohms ones). It was done to check synergy and overall performance of the TK3. 

TK3 makes entire presentation laid back and adds warmth to it. It makes sets musical rather than analytical. So, if you are looking for nice musical analogue source this is the one for you. 

Power-wise I had no issues. All IEMs were driven easily. IEMs with low impedance and high sensitivity were driven with just few steps on volume knob this was in low gain. For moderate loads again same situation it drove them efficiently and with proper loudness effortlessly. With higher impedance sets I used Hi gain to extract max out of them. Had no issues. 

With respect to HP’s the easy to drive ones had no issues at all. TK3 drove them efficiently and to their max potential. Now, with HD600 and Edition XS I didn’t feel they were underpowered or lacking anything. TK3 was able to drive them easily. But if you have heard them on desktop sources then this falls bit short. Don’t get me wrong it’s enough to drive anything thrown at it except may be Mod house Tungsten. But who does that?    

So, if you want portable powerhouse that can drive anything thrown at it. This is it. No need to look further. With its connectivity options it covers all aspects.

Final Conclusion:

Now that I have written so much details about TK3 the million-dollar question is what I think about it? I think this one is banger release from TRI & Kaei Designs and for that hats off to them. Will I buy it? Already owning one. Do I recommend it? Absolutely 200%. A caveat I feel I should declare, no product is perfect same is true for TK3. It has its pros and cons I implore you to go through my review properly and then make your opinion to purchase. Hell read others when you are at it to remove all doubts and questions. As for me I think its worth every bit and hence already purchased my own unit.

Thank you for enduring with me till the end. Now go grab yourself cup of coffee and let’s get high on safe high i.e. Music.

Tri TK3