Packaging:
It's really nice, I think its a great improvement over the SA'6, thumb up for the Design team. I love the small black pouch
Floor Noise, a kill joy ?:
On the unit
s I tested it has nothing to do with white or pink noise, from my raw testing its a 250Hertz-ich frequency (with some sub hamonics). In other words it does not sound like ssseehhh but if anything like a "mmmmmm" more or less in the style of a laptop vent spinning at idle speed. The noise does not increase with volume increase.
(edit: Changing channel, alowed me so divide the noise amount by 2: mming is faint event on calm music like Chet baker's) . While listening at a loud level with winamp at 100%, noise become perceptible if I drop the volume to 1%. More over after a while you no longer notice it all that much unless you compare on/off. Reason being imho that the W1 humming is less distinctive that regular pink noise. Most of the time you will pick noise from the recording way before the one from the W1's and at high gain you are very likely to pickup noise from the source amp before the W1 if you are not using dedicated amp.
Sound wise
I feel that the audio fingerprint of the SA6 is greatly affected by the W1, basically it makes the SA6 sound like my Boses XL4000. Saying that they slightly boost the Bass is an under statement.
I went back to Bass - &Sleek silicone from bass+ +olive and still feel there is more bass ^^. Low medium 150-300Hz sounds also affected to me, making the SA6 lean toward a UE or westone ish render in that area. Using the quick and dirty winamp eq -4db@170Hz and -6db@310Hz get closer to the wired SA6 sound. From a pure sound signature point of view, I must admit that I prefer the more subtle SA6 wired. The W1 makes it too big for my taste but I have no doubt that some will love that big can feeling.
Wireless:
Now that I spend 80% of this topic off topic, may be I can start to talk about what the WS1 is made for ! LOL ! So allow me to cut to the chest: Wireless in-ear is the best thing since sliced Bread ! No, really, 6 months ago I really wasn't convinced of the point of wireless earphone, but now even if I only had them for 4,5 hours I'm having hard time thinking doing without. Wireless SA6 it really
Sleek Audio is a bit optimistic with the range of the unit: It trump a house floor, edit: 4 to 8 m with a thin wall and a couple or doors is more like it.
PS: I forgot: bybye microphonic noise (a lot less at least)
I don't listen to music on an ipod but since I had one at hand and people love ipods here are some black on white , black on blue pictures.
My first impressions on the WS1
