Westone 3 - You asked for it, we listened ! - Page 4

Cool. I'll have to give these a listen today or tomorrow against my ue10. I did this last year at MacWorld against the shure e500, and while I enjoyed it's bass, it wasn't enough to make me buy them. The ue10 had crisper highs that I like. My biggest complaint against all iems except ety ER-4S, is the mids are lacking compared to Grados. I heard Westone are the closest to the Grados sound, so I'm really looking forward to testing these out.

I'll be using an unamped ipod 5th gen with Apple lossless files. Even with iem's, these are not the best condition to test stuff out with the excessive noise and the short amount of time you actually get to listen to them.

iamoneagain, can we get your impressions after you've heard them?

Just got back from the expo. I spoke with the original poster for a while and also listened to the headphones for about 10-15 minutes. I also gave the ue triple-fi 10 a listen about 15 minutes earlier.

As far as the triple-fi, I wasn't impressed. It sounded thin compared to the ue10 and not as much soundstage. It was also very hard to insert, uncomfortable, and stuck out too far. It has a very good sound overall but not up the ue10 standard.

Now on to the westone universal 3 driver. Lookwise, they look a little bit like grey shure e500 but not as nice looking. In fact, kind of plain. It had a flat profile that doesn't stick out like ue. They also fit much better than the triple-fi. About the same as the shures and not nearly as comfortable as custom fit.

Soundwise, they were much closer to the ue10 than ue's own triple-fi. The soundstage was about the same, bass was more impactful but maybe just a hint bloated compared to the ue10. I liked westone's mids better and the highs were about the same. I really like the sound. I'd get these if I didn't have the ue10 already. Because of the slightly twangier mids, I might like the westone's better.

The guy said they use the Grado RS-1 as a starting point but still go for a more neutral sound. I'm a huge Grado fan so this is an advantage for me. I'd say that they still made them a tad too neutral for my taste but better than anyone else as far as iem's go. He also mentioned they might come out with a custom version of this one. Their current triple-driver custom is not meant for recorded playback and is bumped in the mids. Oh, he also said they come out in March.

Ruh oh!

copy/pasted from the post I made:

I'm no headphone expert, i'm still fairly new, but here are my impressions from my ZVM, 192 and 320kbps mp3s, no amp. I used m-flo's "miss you(R&Bish, borderline pop)," Yoshika's "Straight Ahead(R&B)," and Yui's "Merry Go Round(think Japanese Michelle Branch)." Sorry for the lack of english artists, my ZVM only has Japanese music at the moment.

Bass is amazing. Not boomy or uncontrolled, ALMOST but still not as bloated as the shures I tried(i think e4?). Vocals fell short IMO, especially compared to the ER-6i I was using at the time. There were still some good highs though, Yui's guitars were still pretty crisp, but it felt like her voice was too far from me. Same with Yoshika, and the song doesn't use as much production or processing, and heavily relies on her vocals. I bet the sound would have improved if they had an amp, or if I had brought my own. The design that they had for me to do demo, was different than the final product sketch he had shown me. The one I tried was kind of hard to fit in my ear. I think the price point he said was 380, with a possible 15-30 price drop for the um2 and um1. He also talked about the company possibly producing different IEMs similar to those two that are marketed at a consumer level for audiophiles instead of musicians(probably for DAPs), and said to keep any eye out for those since I showed interest in the other um2/1s.

Wow very interesting stuff! The ES2's and these new 3's are said to sound very similar. If the highs of the 3's are even better...close if not equal to the UE10's, but with the bass of the UM2's (if not tighter) and Grado-like mids...these will be a real winner for me. If they offer customs...I would finally take the plunge.

I wouldn't quite say Grado-like mids. When I had them on, they reminded me more of the ue10 than any Grado I've heard. I could tell the electric guitar was slightly better on the Westone's than the ue10 but when I got back to work and slipped on the SR-60, I was back to the sound I love. I really wish Westone would have gone for it and tried to replicate the RS-1 in an iem. I don't know why they needed to be them more neutral.

^What did you think of vocals on them? I thought voices were farther from me than with my ER-6i. I tried some Shure e4cs at their booth, and thought that those hid more higher details than the UM3, and were worse than the UM3 in all the higher frequencies. At the end of the day, I was very happy with what I got out of the ER4Ps, but then again, I didn't bring an amp to really test them out.

Well, Grado mids are hard to replicate...but the UM2's are quite good in the mids and if these new 3's (not UM3's apparently but simply Westone 3's) at least equal the UM2's but are better in the highs then that is worth it to me anyway. If they offer customs I'm tempted to the nth degree since they may sound better than the ES2's and are nearly half the price.

^hey, I was the asian kid with the white zen earlier.

now that i've had rest, i've replied to my post with this:

I had no problem with the vocals or the highs at all. Very similar to the ue10. I think if you're coming from Etys, especially the er-6, everything is going to sound distant. I never liked the er-6. It had no bass and shrill highs. The ER-4 is a huge improvement but even they can be too thin with very little bass impact and the vocals can be too prominent. They do have the best mids of any iems including the new Westone 3.

The biggest difference in the Westone 3 over the ue10 is it had better bass impact and slightly clearer mids. The ue10 tends to be too technical and boring on most of my rock music. I think the Westone's handled this genre better but even the Grado SR-60 win here. But the SR-60 has no isolation and is a bad choice for the bus, plane, or walking the city streets. The new Westone's are probably your best choice if you like Grados. Both the new Westone's and ue10 are too neutral for my taste but the Westone's come closer. If my ue10 ever die, I'll be looking at Westone for a new iem. I currently don't use my ue10 enough to justify spending more on another set of iems.

ahhh, now these are some very interesting comparisons.
welcome back to the boards, Michael.

plain is good, imo. attracts less attention and makes you less of a target for thieves.

your description here makes them sound like they might be more analagous to the alessandro ms-pro. if that's true that's a very good thing! thanks for sharing your impressions.

So you mean Westone 3 had better bass and clearer mids? Or it is the other way around?
I currently own Shure E500, and I find Shure E500 does rock way more fun than UE10 Pro. How is Westone 3 mids compared to Shure E500?

thanks for writing out the preliminary impression.