It's that delightful emphasis at the frequency extremes that makes T3-01 particularly exciting news and listening for audiophiles. But that U-shaped approach also morphs to a flat line at quieter listening, granting the impression of exciting accuracy and neutrality.
Indeed, Tago Studio exploits the Fletcher-Munson effect to good effect here, compensating where bass and treble extremes fall off at low volumes with T3-01's loudness contour. Quiet listening won't hinder professionals from experiencing a flat frequency response.
Nor will it stunt the natural dynamic movements inherent to your precious music – T3-01 is just apt at reproducing smaller detail. And when you turn the music up, Tago Studio built in a driver and acoustics that keeps every note and imaging cue tidily arranged, befitting the recording when sonics are brought to SPL life.
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Ignore T3-01's entry price. A silk protein-coated 40mm driver – jointly developed with Gunma Prefectural Textile Industrial Lab – is key to reproducing the inherent warmth in music.
T3-01's driver excursion is responsible for moving the copious amount of air required to reproduce a deep, rumbling and impactful sub-bass. It continues to move as a piston, without cone or modal break-up, even as frequencies rise owing to its humble proportions.
Tago Studio's resulting lack of distortion is audible, and as key to content creators accurately judging what's on their tracks as you enjoying the tunes they make for your enjoyment – as the artist intended.
That's further helped by T3-01's voice coil kept thin and light by a 70ohm impedance. Inertia is low and Tago's driver reacts instantly to the smallest voltage impulses.
This is a 70ohm load that's simultaneously easy to drive for any partnering amplifier, such that a studio console, mixer or tube amplifier with varying output impedance mates comfortably with suitable damping factor.
Apart from frequency response being less prone to variation from impedance mismatch, T3-01's easy load means many modern bridge-tied load outputs on music players won't grind their gears pushing into inordinately low impedances – small power supplies and output stages producing less in the way of distortion and noise as a result.
T3-01 will make for a happy result running from iBasso Audio 's DC07 Pro and DX180 , but high output impedance, imperfect voltage sources from FiiO and Shanling will not be tested untowardly either – music players from the latter both having enough mettle to push Tago very satisfactorily.
Clearly, there are infinite ways to enjoy Tago Studio's exciting accuracy, with infinite satisfaction following in the studio, at home or on the go. Check out the rest of Japan's best studio releases here , or view our other headphones here .
Driver 40mm silk protein-coated dynamic
Impedance 70ohms
Frequency response 5Hz-40kHz
Sensitivity 100dB SPL/1mW