If you’re hunting for bargain headphones but aren’t willing to compromise on sound quality, there’s no better category to look at than the in-ear monitor (IEM). A slew of dirt-cheap wired options have been available on the market since the headphone jack disappeared from phones, but these oft-overlooked products are still worthy of attention. Do the Tangzu Wan’er S.G. merit your money? Let’s listen.

Editor’s note: this is the first version of the article. Updates will follow as the market changes.

What’s it like to use Tangzu Wan’er S.G.?

The Tangzu Wan’er S.G. is a set of wired in-ear monitors with a braided, detachable cable, and an in-line mic. The cables loop up and over your ear, thereby distributing the excess weight away from your ear canal — typically the main source of issues with fit. Using light plastic for the body was a good choice, and the combination of a low weight and intelligent management of what little weight there is means that you’re unlikely to have to worry about comfort issues or getting a bad seal.

At the top of each earbud is a female 2-pin connector that will allow you to remove — or replace — the cable should something go awry. For example, your cat chewing through it or if the insulation breaks for some other reason.

The packaging includes seven sizes of silicone ear tips, which should accommodate most listeners’ ear canals. If you have trouble getting a good fit with these, you may want to try third-party ear tips online, like memory foam tips from Comply or different sizes of Spinfit sleeves.

The earbuds are as basic as basic gets, so there’s no ingress protection rating. It’s probably best not to take these to the gym, or into particularly wet weather.

How do the Tangzu Wan’er S.G. connect?

As the Tangzu Wan’er S.G. are wired only, it should come as no surprise that they connect to your source (phone, computer, etc) via a 3.5mm TRRS wired connection. IEMs are generally pretty efficient with power, and the Tangzu Wan’er S.G. is no different, offering a high sensitivity and low impedance. Translation: you don’t need an external amp to make these earbuds loud enough to listen to. However, it’s possible you will need a DAC/amp combo in order to use these with your smartphone. That said, both the Apple and Google dongles are around $10, so you don’t need to overthink — or overspend to solve this problem.

Given that it’s fairly easy to get a good fit with the Tangzu Wan’er S.G., it’s no surprise that the included silicone tips do a decent job at creating a good seal with your ear canal. The Tangzu Wan’er S.G. is able to isolate you by at least 10dB no matter what frequency of outside noise is present, ramping up to 40dB at 2kHz and above. This is very impressive, and affords you the kind of noise attenuation you’d expect out of dedicated hearing protection.

How does the Tangzu Wan’er S.G. sound?

Enthusiast IEMs can provide excellent sound quality at a low price, and the Tangzu Wan’er S.G. delivers exactly that.

Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Scores (MDAQS)

The chart below shows how the sound of the Tangzu Wan’er S.G. was assessed by the Multi-Dimensional Audio Quality Score (MDAQS) algorithm from HEAD acoustics.

With a high timbre score, and solidly good distortion and immersiveness scores, the Tangzu Wan’er S.G. doesn’t have any glaring deficiencies in terms of sound quality. Consequently, you should not hear distortion nor have difficulty placing sounds in music or games. Unsurprisingly, these good scores return a high overall of 4.8, only two-tenths of a point under the maximum possible rating. The virtual panel of listeners agree: most people will likely enjoy the Tangzu Wan’er S.G.’s sound.

Reviewer’s notes

I quite enjoyed my time with the Tangzu Wan’er S.G., as they offer a really solid experience. Though the sound is a bit boring, that’s a good thing if you listen to music all the time.

There are tracks that use a lot of of echo or temporal effects, and singles like Joji’s “Die for you” is one of them. Listening to it with the Tangzu Wan’er S.G., this was deadened somewhat and a bit more enjoyable for me than usual. However, the underemphasis in the highs cuts both ways; tracks may sound off if you’re used to more high-end presence. However, I didn’t notice anything’s amiss, especially given the excellent performance elsewhere.

“Boring” sound might sound like a negative, but it merely means that there’s no objectionable faults to the sound of the product. And that’s pretty high praise for any set of in-ears. Unusual tunings can have some strange consequences, and these earbuds don’t suffer much from any of the tuning choices made in the design phase.

Objective Measurements

With the dip in the mids and the relative rise in the bass, relative to our preference target you should perceive the sound of the Tangzu Wan’er S.G. as a bit bass-heavy with some damping of the highs. This kind of sound will likely appeal to younger listeners, as this group is often the most sensitive to the highs that are underemphasized here. Older listeners may want to equalize with a broad Q boost at 8.5kHz recover some of this range.

If your phone or computer supports a microphone over a TRRS connection, then you can use the Tangzu Wan’er S.G. for calls. However, not all devices support this — especially if you’re using a dongle for your listening.

Tangzu Wan’er S.G. microphone demo (Ideal conditions):

Should you buy the Tangzu Wan’er S.G.?

Just like it is with the rest of the budget IEM pack, it’s hard to say that a model isn’t worth at least trying out when they’re under $30. The Tangzu Wan’er S.G. offers decent sound quality, a removable cable, and gets all the fundamentals right — so there’s no reason not to get it if what you see appeals to you.

However, as with all wired audio products, you’re going to need to figure out how to use it with your phone. We suggest getting the Apple or Google dongle, as for $10, either will be able to satisfy the power requirements of efficient IEMs like the Tangzu Wan’er S.G.

What should you get instead of the Tangzu Wan’er S.G.?

There are plenty of options in the sub-$30 price point if the Tangzu Wan’er S.G. appeals to you. The question you have to ask yourself is if you’re willing to put up with using a dongle on your phone — and a lot of people have no issue with that.

The Moondrop Chu II ($18.99 at Amazon) and the 7Hz Salnotes Zero ($22.99 at Amazon) both offer competitive sound quality and price to the Tangzu Wan’er S.G., but the Chu II in particular does a better job maintaining high-frequency output. It’s hard to go wrong with any of these options, but it’s worth checking out the reviews.

If you want to go wireless instead, the two options I steer people towards are the Moondrop Space Travel ($24.99 at Amazon) and the JLab JBuds Mini ($39.99 at Amazon). The Moondrop offers excellent sound quality at the expense of build quality, and the JLab JBuds Mini will give you a lot of creature comforts at the expense of being extremely easy to lose (if you don’t clip them to your keys).