I wrote a somewhat controversial article read by 4 people called “a sojourn through middle class iems”. There I discussed a series of Noble and Westone iems being:
1. Noble 5/Dulce Bass;
2. Westone UmPro50;
3. Noble 6;
4. Westone W60;
5. Noble Savant.

It was a freewheeling article discussing shilling as a minor theme, but generally just a series of iems that I owned and enjoyed, and why that was so. I also vented pretty heavily on what I considered and still consider to be bad design. No example of this was more starkly attacked then when I reached the topic of the W60, which I’ve largely cut and pasted below.

Looking below I did a disservice by perhaps failing to describe what I really love about this iem. And I DO REALLY LOVE THIS IEM. I gave it a 4 star even while hating the plastic plates so much, this is nearly a 1000 word essay on terrible plate design and contemptuous business practice... clearly I still think that they must sound awfully good.

On that note I will commence...

Let’s begin this gloriously sounding W60… by getting stuck into their biggest failure.

Specifically those Stupid. Plastic. Plates.

I am a Westone fan but will a greater one, when their iems adopt metal shelled monitors & their stems are being made of thicker, sterner stuff. And when their "decorative plates” are banished to the dustbin of shameful iem ideas to ever sprout from this proud company.

As most appreciate, the iem segment has evolved like crazy like it’s been on fire. Innovations are spinning out all over the place. Noble is leading the cosmetic race, JH Audio surprising us with Lola innovative driver and BA combinations, Shure with electrostatic and Audeze using planar magnetic technology, Adel technology shaking up a couple of manufacturer’s Balanced Armature offerings and Campfire Audio and others throwing new brilliant organic single drivers into the mix… there’s lots happening and for an iem fan, every 3 months is Christmas… (Okay, if we could afford them or if Santa Claus is an audiophile… which he might be. He’s probably not hearing my cries on account of a pair of Empire Zeus XR ADEL jammed in his big pink ears.)

Unfortunately Westone is one of the very few companies (with Shure being the other) that are saying “Quick, let’s make more fragile plastic iem pieces and charge people $1000s of dollars!” (Hi, W80 & Shure KSE1500.)

Businesses needs to keep abreast of their competition. Anyone can choose a niche and go about owning it, as a strategy. It’s normally not a bad idea. Business 101. But I don’t see the “$1000 dollar plastic fragile iem” as a niche. Rather, it's an evolutionary obsolete sub-niche of the expensive iem general category.

This means Shure and Westone need to adapt or die. At the moment the focus is Westone. Shure at least as far back as 2011 realised that their iems needed to be stronger as demonstrated in their still beautiful se846.

It’s possible that the iem category has grown as a whole by so much that Westone and Shure’s iem divisions aren’t sufficiently troubled to adequately respond. They’re generally out of date items keep selling year on year, so they think “what’s the problem?”.

I think if iems were all they sold, then their attitude would be very different.

Neither brands has grabbed much of our Headfi communities’ interest in the past few years. This is frankly due to their unexciting efforts and lack of engagement with the Headfi community. Our community drives global trends in iems and cans… that’s a sociological fact. Read Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point fellas? Too bad.

So ignore us at your peril, but we are legion.

1. The point of this rant is to say specifically to Westone that persisting with a crack-prone design on the W series is economic suicide.
2. Adding a lean competitor who has illustrated the ability to parlay a cable business (ALO to Campfire Audio) into illustrating the ingenuity and frankly enthusiasm to produce a range of highly applauded, differently designed iems... and then adopting that same competitor's expensive cable to make your new flagship (the W80) a more palatable offering, is waving the flag of surrender.
3. And then do all the above, and not even both to fix the most obvious and highly complained of flaw… FLIMSY PLASTIC... do I need to say it again?

1. Plastic. Body.
2. Thin reeds.
3. Crack prone decorative plates… The likes of will entertain children during their Lego phases. Your average audiophile - not so much.

When you drop $100s and yes, $1000s on a single iem, and the face plate feels like a cheap gimmick… It causes one to ponder the quality of their expensive engineering in the first place… (If they can’t fix this, what other problems have been pasted over and ignored for years????)

Westone should've stopped making the W faceplates years ago… In other words, straight after the first crack appeared. (So, one (1) week after the 1st batch… five (5) years ago.)

But… having expressed a perhaps uncomfortable quantity of enough rage, the uncomfortable fact that I’m still a Westone fan. Because, I find that they're consistently tuned for angels. Sound still matters.

Treble - almost shockingly smoooooooth baby. These are the anti-fatigue headphones. The benefit (and there’s only one) of having light plastic shells is they sit in your ears like your skin, and then they’re tuned such that they never fatigue. In it’s own way, it’s perfect.

Mids - nice mids. Warm, smooth again. Think about all the good things about the Shure se535s, and the famed Shure mids signature generally… and then sculpt them a bit, so that there’s better detail, depth, finesse… Beautiful mids.

Bass - plenty of bass. It could be argued that the bass is a bit “boomy”, a teensy bit of echo that would suggest a lot of 80s rock would sound excessively 80s (if that makes sense) on these… But your ears adjust. You don’t feel short changed on the bass, but it lacks the control and force of the Westone UmPro50. I think the W60 holds itself very well against the Noble N5/Dulce… which says a lot about how well this bass is presented, given Noble markets that model as “sweet bass”… English for the Latin Dulce Bass.

Closing comments. The W60 gave an underwhelming first impression when it appeared, even to it’s Westone fans who were waiting patiently for something special. I think there are a couple reasons for this disappointment for this fantastic sounding iem. Fans were like me, were plain annoyed that Westone weren’t doing something about making their (then) new flagship with stronger specs.

Then the W60 wasn’t initially seen as a significant leap over the superb W40… Technically it’s not. Third, it’s price was high given that plastic form bugging everyone and haunting the brand to this day with it’s W80… No new technology other than slapping another BA into the admittedly impressive tight form.

However I’ve come to think the subtle beauty of these grow on you in a way after a couple of weeks that’s often the reverse of that initial newbie enthusiasm where your brain goes “wow, these are the best things I’ve ever heard… followed a day later by a bit of a “whatever” response. The hidden irritations reveal themselves. The treble turns out sibilant on a few tracks. Issues arise that you first ignored. None of that happens here. The build quality is irritating to begin with, and a week later when you’ve cracked your first plastic plate, it’s unbelievably irritating. But by then the sound is fantastic and you’re looking for alternatives. Thankfully a bright company called OSKSR has produced a beautiful metal plates that solves the problem. $35 bucks and the plates are a non-event… hell, they even look cool.

What’s impressive about the Westone UmPro50, is…. a hell of a lot. It's the legendary ES50, removing the custom bit, and replacing it with a universal shell so light and comfortable that it almost makes custom fitting irrelevant. Oh, and you can pick up a pair for $350, second-hand. Most sellers will throw in a $100 cable.

Were the shell (new and old) not so FRAGILE, then this would be a 5-star review.

These share a similar signature to the N5/Dulce… which I love. In one way in particular. Gorgeous bass. The bass is tight. It punches with bite and is the highlight of an iem that has very lowlights. The mids are straight and true. The treble is clear but cohesive. Not rolling off quite like the W60, instead, it has sizzle. If I was to level a complaint it might be that the top end can sound a bit lean. But this feels picky... and a bit petty.

The UmPro50 does so much right... it again raises the question if the driver wars are marketing, over experience. The UmPro50 doesn't need more than 5 drivers to sound utterly fantastic.

It moves ahead of the N5/Dulce is the way it textures the bass. I mean, it’s a “hair” better. The control it exhibits is worth experiencing. The treble is detailed, fast and cohesive. It isn’t a reference sound by any means - too bassy for one, but more analytical than the Westone’s W series…. but that's Westone analytical to you!. So, hardly analytical.

Confusing, I know. The UmPro50’s signature is beautiful, smart, powerful, musical and cohesive. The UmPro50 makes music running into your brain vivid, dynamic and dammit, exciting… listening to a Radiohead concert… and "I felt I was really THERE" as Steve Guttenberg likes to write.

Personally, I want a pair to convert into CIEMs. As disclosed mine ended up in a German car door… but despite my pain, I love love, love the UmPro50. In fact I replaced it a year later.

Size and fit

These disappear in your ears. They're incredibly comfortable. Westone's famous for the comfort and fit of their iems. No-one jams BAs more efficiently than Westone. Thankfully Westone are also famous for their tuning, or it would surely be a case of... who cares, right?

The Pro series don’t have the sad plastic plates the W series is burdened with, which as I’ll scream and rant about in my W60 review.. is a very good thing. These aren’t fancy looking... but the latest version that sounds the same has a bit of a cooler look to it, and chooses a green and clear design to showcase it's model. I'm not sure why they designated their 5 driver to be green... small carbon footprint? Anyway, it's what it is.

The UmPro50 is terrific value, provided you can live with the strength / weakness / weakness. Because, of course, physical lightness comes at a cost.

Criticism

Buy these by all means, but if so, you are going to spend several hundred dollars on an iem that are somewhat flimsy. Essentially, you won't regret the expenditure, because they sound so awesome... until they break.

There are truly technical arguments for narrow stems.

But I feel that Westone and Shure take this design notion too far.

Iem’s need significant support to not require unrepairable surgery at every ill-fated corner - through normal human handling errors. (Okay, not slammed in a BMW car door like mine… Then they’re toast - it matters not a jot what the iems were made from.)

The Westone (and Shure) stems are thin like reeds. Sticks of tiny plastic. Easy to bump, drop a bag on, or yes slam a car door on. And while nothing would survive the latter, the Nobles, for example, will handle significantly more punishment. Their broad stems and tough material ensure it.

Where it gets interesting in ergonomics and ruggedness, is the inside. One can see the way BAs are wrapped tight, with small wires connecting them. With a bigger shell, a la Noble, there may actually be more risk of the BAs getting dislodged inside. My suspicion is based on a reaction akin to whiplash when compared with the smaller bean of the Westone shell.

Just a thought. Of course, there’s no analysis. No drop testing 100 units and comparing whether how they rattle afterwards, perhaps recording them using a sophisticated microphone, followed by full spectrum sound tests.

Sorry, I just don’t have the resources…Think what other manufacturers are doing! Noble's Kaisers and Katanas use frigging military aluminium!!!!!

The Wizard has spoken about 450 pounds of pressure being applied to place in the procedure of placing the 2 sides of the shell together. We can assume it’s the same aluminium on the Django’s, Dulce Bass, etc.

To digress and compare, the N5/all "old versions" have an acrylic hard plastic that feels bulletproof. Like a Sherman tank, the N5/Dulce will survive a good treading… But as mentioned may just struggle more with the (Julian Patented) "whiplash effect” likely to be associated with a drop on the ground for reasons outlined.

This is obviously conjecture… As stated no-one will fund comprehensive strength & stress tests comparing manufacturers. (But gee. that would be cool, wouldn’t it? Maybe it will happen if everyone buys high end iems instead of iPods. Then there would be the scope of business to support second-order businesses that test equipment - parallel to the idiots that throw brand new iPhone’s into blenders on You-tube.

No universal Westone can survive being walked on, and Westone should look at this issue… Even purely from a business angle.

You know, the occasional question that some businesses pose, as though making your customer's happy were “a thing”?

Not that Westone can be j'accuse of rapidly responding to customer concerns regarding design engineering...

Review: 4 stars. Pros: The UmPro50 sounds wonderful and is a joy to wear… Cons… but their physical engineering is a step up from deplorable, due to an absence of the plastic decorative cracked prone W series plastic plates. Find a decent non-plastic physical body for

New versus old below...



this iem and you have a firm 5 star.