TangZu products have been creeping up in price lately! We had the Nezha which was 400 USD and now the Gate is 650 USD. But still, considering its their flagship, the price is not absurd. The Nezha was amazing, fantastic actually. Let's see what the Gate is up to!

Build and Fit

The unboxing experience is what you'd expect from a 650 USD product: it is a show! The box is huge, heavy and beautiful. The entire theme of the product is the rice paddy lines. Now coming to the actual product- the build is really solid, no surprises there. But what is surprising is the size of the shell. Its big! Out of all the earphones I have had the pleasure of wearing- only the Blessing 2 was too big. And now the Gate! I had to insert it by stretching my ear. The nozzle size is not too wide but the shell itself is larger than average. I do get some discomfort after wearing them for an hour or so before I need to re-adjust it. Granted, my ears aren't too big, but it's needed to be mentioned.

The included Tang Sancai tips are really soft and non-irritating on the skin, and with these tips the fit is quite good. With harder stem tips/stiff tips the insertion may be painful for some. The paddy line is engraved on the back side of the shell as well and this is a design overlook, I feel because the lines collect dust, grime pretty easily and it may even capture earwax. It does need to be cleaned frequently. You get the same luxurious and over-engineered carry case as you get with the Nezha, along with a similar modular cable- which is great.

At 10.5 ohms and 103dB @1kHz sensitivity this is quite sensitive and easy to drive, no dedicated amplifier needed. But as is the case as always; a good usb dac will go a long way.

Sound Quality

At first, I was hoping it would be Nezha but on steroids- but it's not. Not at all. It's totally different to Nezha. Where Nezha was open and agile and very resolving, the Gate is softer, laid back, easy going, and slightly warm. I had to re-adjust my expectations on first listen as it was such a different sound. And then it grew; the more I heard it, the more addicted I became. The smoothness to the sound is very forgiving of even the worst possible kind of recording- making everything pleasurable. And yet it maintains a very natural tone. You can say that the Gate is very refined sounding. The star attraction is the midrange, which is very resolving, and the vocals are extremely "legible". I know, pointing out the legibility of vocals seems like a stupid observation but hear me out: the Gate is very good at isolating the midrange from the mix and its great resolving characteristics help enable this. It really does draw your attention.

Compared to Nezha, the Gate has a more refined midrange while Nezha is more raw and uncolored - it's rougher sounding as well. The edges aren't as smoothed. This can be a double-edged sword depending on the music you are listening to. In my previous review I did point out that the bass of Nezha did show slight characteristics of the "BA Timbre" where the impact and depth felt lacking. Thankfully the bass of Gate is a very significant upgrade; it's much deeper and slams harder and bigger as well. Now coming to the treble: this is where the opinions are going to be divisive. Nezha's treble was very open sounding with great extension and resolution and yet it was smooth. It was one of the standout features that is rare to find in the earphone industry. The Gate's treble is noticeably warmer, and it is not as high extending as the Nezha's. BUT! The midrange-treble transition region is remarkable and indeed more coherent than that of Nezha. It's quite detailed; just that the details aren't shoved at you. Everything is there, just chilling.
I am never left wanting for more. The forgiving nature of the tuning makes it very versatile and pleasurable for all kinds of genres.