For the sake of transparency this unit was provided to me by Linsoul for review.
First things first what's in the box and how is it?
Inside you get the Lea's themselves, 3 sets of silicone eartips, a 2-pin to TRS cable (more on this beast later) and a pair of ear hooks for the cable.
For $26 the box does everything it needs to and has nice presentation.
The Lea's are clearly made of a two-part plastic construction with a visible and feelable seam line where they've fused the housing together, while you can tell the seam is there in the hands it is not noticeable in the ears, which I initially had concerns about.
They feel Very sturdy almost as if solid plastic all the way through, I have no fears of these getting dropped or damaged in active use.
The Cable. Hoo boy this cable.
Aside from its appearance (I find it ugly but that's not what matters) The construction is very cheap with thin spindley wires going to a cheap chunky splitter,the wires maintain a lot of memory from being wrapped up in the box and twist and knot up very easily despite attempts to straighten them over the course of a week.
Keeping them around your ears is an impossibility thanks to the aforementioned memory and love of twisting, this would be somewhat remedied by the included ear clips IF the cables liked to stay in the clips themselves while on your ears.
The connectors on either end are alright for the price.
I normally use all the stock accessories, eartips etc when trying out a new product but as the wire will not stay around my ears to save their life and will gradually tug the iems out even while sitting still, so I have switched to using one of my own.
If you wish to buy a pair i suggest factoring in the price of a replacement cable or planning on using an existing one.
The Sound
I have a confession to make, I am not familiar at all with the expectations or competition at this price range.
4 to 5 years ago sure I could give you a decent opinion on what to hope for for $26 USD.
But things have changed, and all the IEMs I had from back then pale in comparison to the overall sound quality of the Lea and i am left with little to compare it too
With that said here are what thoughts i have on it
As advertised they feel neutral overall with some slight extra emphasis on treble
Bass "roll-off", Goes from good solid mid-bass to a biiit of sub bass then to no bass real quick. Perhaps a byproduct of what I listened to but despite my listening attempts it feels like there's a harsh cutoff rather than your more typical roll-off.
Treble feels a bit sharp and uncomfortable at times especially when listening to electronic tracks Overall it's solid
Imaging is okay, better than I've heard in this price bracket before but similar sounding instruments easily get lost in each other.
Surprisingly noise resistant. When plugged into the usual cavalcade of amps and devices I noticed it picked up a fair bit less hiss on my noisier sources than other IEMs.
Soundstage is so barely existent that It doesn't feel like a problem, it's just not what these are going for.
Resolution is just bleh. I'd say this and imaging are the biggest trade-offs for all the other good characteristics.
Overall I feel quite positive about the Tripowin Lea.
They don't wow me, they don't do anything crazy new or notably different it's just good solid sound quality for the price.
If you only got 25 bucks to spend I have no problem recommending the Tripowin Lea
Except for the cable, the cable needs to burn
