Isolation & Comfort
RHA’s stem design fits into the concha of my ear and sits comfortably there. The smooth-to-the-touch finish of the earphones feels good in my ears. I have absolutely no fit issues thanks to the wide selection of tips.
Surprisingly, TrueConnect 2 provides great passive isolation. It almost completely cancels out my loud (40db) computer fans. Do note that TrueConnect 2’s design is not the smallest in the industry. If you have abnormally small ears, you may want to reconsider.
Tip rolling is a must with this design though, you must really find what works for you and what does not. Don’t forget that sound quality will suffer from bad tip selection and a loose seal.
Warranty
“TrueConnect earbuds are made to go the distance. We’re so confident in their quality that our international warranty covers every pair for defects for 3 years, wherever in the world you’ve gone.”
In my opinion, this is what it looks like when a company trusts their engineering. I can’t stress this enough. If you live outside of the EU or USA, and you are an insatiable Audiophile like me, I am sure at some point in your life, you had to deal with a warranty service that has bad international terms.
RHA’s attitude towards this is quite unique in the industry. Many of the big brands still do not offer international warranties directly or you have to go the extra mile to mail them about it though getting a good response is unlikely. On top of all of this, forget the petty 1 year warranty standard. RHA’s warranty is good for 3 whopping years. Kudos.
Functionality & Stability
If you went online and searched for TrueConnect 1 reviews, few people had connectivity problems with it. I reviewed the 1 and now I am reviewing the 2 and I have not experienced a single dropout during my time of testing with both of them. No issues. None. The connection was stable. I have tested both Android and iOS. Latency-wise it was excellent as well during my YouTube testing.
RHA upgraded the Bluetooth 5.0 internals of TrueConnect 2. The range is increased from 10m to 15m. You can leave your phone in the locker and go cardio without worrying about the range. Unfortunately, TrueConnect 2 only supports SBC and there is no support for AptX HD or any other high-quality codecs. I would want to see at least AptX HD, let alone LDAC. Anyhow, as I mentioned in the design section, the stem design promotes a better call quality and improved mic acoustics. TrueConnect 2 features 2 microphones per bud, one is for capturing and reducing the ambient noise, other one to record your voice. I have tried it in different environments. The call quality was good, there is clear improvement over the original TrueConnect. Chatter-noise handling and voice clarity is much better.
Just like the original TrueConnect, TrueConnect 2 has LEDs on the inner side of each earphone and they let you know about battery and pairing status. Capacitive touch buttons let the user control quite a bit. You can play, pause, change tracks & talk to assistants. (Siri/Google) You can also accept and refuse calls. For me, the best improvements that RHA made to the TrueConnect is of course the battery. RHA managed to almost double the battery life with the new Lithium Ion battery. The new charging case holds around 35 hours of juice, which is above the industry standard these days, and now each earphone can play for 9 hours, in total you have around 40-45 hours of juice. It’s enough to forget about the charger for a week.
The charging case has a USB-C port and it supports fast charging. It takes 70 minutes for the earphones to fill-up completely. Magnets inside the case hold earphones nicely, no wobble or anything so you don’t have to worry about dropping your earphones. Trust me it’s much more common than you think.
Sound Signature
RHA changed the sound signature drastically with the TrueConnect 2.
Instead of an elevated bass response and a warm sound signature, the TrueConnect 2 now features a more neutral, – still somewhat warm – but leaner signature.
You can still listen to these for extended periods of time without any fatigue thanks to the polite treble and upper mid tuning. It is still a very good all-rounder for the price and suitable with many popular genres. I think RHA wanted to create an earphone that is lovable by everyone only now they wanted it to have better technical capabilities. We’ll see if they succeed in their quest. Let’s divide sound into sections to get a better grip of how TrueConnect 2 sounds like.
Low
Compared to the TrueConnect 1, yes, the quantity and authority of the bass got tuned down a bit but in my opinion, and this is a good change. In some tracks, for example Gotan Project’s Diferente, mid-bass became too dominant on the TrueConnect 1. The new generation feels much more breezy especially in this area. Although it may fail to sate some of the bassheads, it enabled the signature to be much more balanced.
TrueConnect 2 manages to sound exciting and engaging despite the changes in the low region. That’s very good. The bass does not suppress the headroom like it used to and this results in a airier presentation with more space between the instruments. This also means a leaner signature with more control over 3 major frequency regions.
Mid
Sweet. The note thickness and tonal balance are on the warmer side of the spectrum, vocals, especially male vocals sound powerful. For example, if you go ahead and treat yourself with “Tom Waits – Green Grass”, you will see that it is a brilliant cipher to TrueConnect 2’s mid presentation. Vocals are sweet, full-bodied and authoritative.
The clarity and imaging is good for the asking price. After the latest changes to the signature, mids become more forward than both the low and the high region. Presentation of stringed instruments and the combination of them with male vocals are especially impressive.
High
All of the treble region is tuned with politeness in mind. However, this does not mean that they limited the extension of the highs. No, they did a good job there. The latest changes to the TrueConnect’s signature enabled highs to be just a tad energetic compared to the old generation.
Bass does not fill and suppress the headroom as it used to so treble has more space to pace around. Majorly treble-dependent instruments such as violins, cymbals, piccolos are quite clear and breezy. Treble intensive passages are easy to follow.
Technical Capability
In TrueConnect 1’s review, I criticized the elevation in the bass region, saying that it affects the articulacy and agility of lows. Now that it is gone, it is safe for me to say that TrueConnect 2 handles congestion better than its predecessor.
TrueConnect 2 has a much airier presentation with good amount of air between the instruments. Also with the recent changes to the bass region, it’s headroom got a little wider. Just like its predecessor, TrueConnect 2 did not let me down, it has good clarity and resolution.
Last Words
RHA took an already good earphone & design and improved the internals for the better. That’s a great approach in my book. They kept the brilliant swivel-open mechanism and cold-to-touch metal case design and doubled the battery in the same enclosure.
They upgraded the Bluetooth 5.0 chip-set for better connectivity. They also changed the sound signature for the better and equipped TrueConnect 2 with 2 noise-cancelling microphones for cleaner calls. Additionally, resistance rating of the housing got updated to IP55. You will have no problems walking under heavy rain or doing intensive workouts, listening to your favourite tunes.
All of this is backed by 3-years of RHA Warranty. If you’re in the market for a $150 USd fancy TWS, these might be the ultimate solution for you.
