Understanding Chi-Fi and the Tanchjim Company
Hi-Fi Setup (Picture credit: https://www.hifi-im-hinterhof.de)
The term ‘Hi-Fi’ essentially means high fidelity. It refers to a high accuracy and quality reproduction of sound by audio hardware and equipment. Ideally, we are looking for a neutral and uncoloured frequency response with inaudible noise and distortion.
From the term Hi-Fi, people have coined terms referring entirely to the price-tag attached to a product. Terms such as Budget-Fi, Low-Fi, Mid-Fi and Summit-Fi can be found all over various audio sites, blogs, forums and Facebook groups, but none of these terms actually refer to audio fidelity. The moment we categorise audio products entirely with reference to affordability, our brains will more likely jump to the idea that a lower-priced item will offer less performance.
In this article, we attempt to eliminate this assumption simply because it doesn’t accurately provide us with any useful information. At the same time we would also tend to totally overlook various items which might not cost much but can actually perform really well.
As most already know, many large tech companies produce their products from a factory in China. Apple, for example, does exactly that. Hence it’s no surprise that many Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) have decided to make some profit by manufacturing high-quality audio equipment under their own branding and undercutting their western counterparts. We have seen this happen in the mobile market by the likes of Xiaomi and Huawei and we see it happening here again.
(Picture credit: https://www.audioreviews.org)
In the recent years, a phenomenon known as ‘Chi-Fi’- a mashup of “Chinese” (or China) and “Hi-Fi” has surfaced. It’s usually used to refer to portable audio gear like earbuds and in-ear monitors (IEMs). Relevant components like cables, casing, drivers and wiring are all relatively cheap even at the highest quality. The diaphragm of the tiny speaker inside an earbud may cost as little as five cents, and for earbuds and IEMs, the quality of the components translates directly to the quality of the product. If you have top-tier drivers and circuitry, your product will sound very good, even if the build quality is a little off. It’s for this reason that we really shouldn’t just turn our noses up at anything described as Chi-Fi.
One of the rather undervalued audio manufacturers include the Tanchjim Company. The Tanchjim Company was established in 2015 (according to its logo) in Nanning, a city in southern China near the Vietnam border. Tanchjim’s Chinese name is ‘天使吉米’, which literally translates to ‘Angel Jimmy’ (hence explaining the angel logo). Few Chinese brands have managed to attain commercial success within a short period of time and capture both the hearts of masses as well as the audio enthusiasts, thus making this audio brand a really successful case study.
Tanchjim's Logo (Picture credit: https://oardio.sg)
Till date Tanchjim has produced four IEM models, namely (according to price tag) the Tanchjim Cora, Tanchjim Blues, Tanchjim Darkside and Tanchjim Oxygen. Not a long product line, yet every model seems to have immense market potential.This company challenges peripherals costing twice or thrice as much from western well-known brands, and may potentially be an amazing upgrade to your cheap earbuds.
Tanchjim Cora - Red (Picture credit: https://oardio.sg)
The Cora is the lowest-priced IEM under the brand. It comes in five colours and is light, small and comfortable to wear. The value in terms of audio and physical quality easily rivals or even surpasses other western brands in a higher price range – this can be easily verified by checking out all the raving reviews it has garnered online!
Tanchjim Oxygen (Picture credit: http://www.tanchjim.com)
The flagship model of Tanchjim is the Oxygen. Featuring one dynamic driver, the Tanchjim Oxygen gives a punchy and balanced low end. It also manages to sound quite balanced across the entire frequency range, even the high end, which is rare for IEMs with only one dynamic driver. The outer shells are manually hand-polished, making each pair unique. Using nano-grade silver ion vacuum plating technology (rarely seen in hi-fi headsets) also gives it enhanced antibacterial properties. Definitely a win in terms of the build and aesthetic design, the manufacturing of Oxygen also involves a special metal-attachment process to give it a luxurious texture and make it more scratch-resistant than ordinary mirror metal.
As we can see, price may very well be a totally incorrect assumption of a product’s performance and value. But perhaps something more interesting to note would be that super-affordable Chi-Fi products might actually make up the largest slice of the entire pie of enthusiast audio products…