Westone 3, disassembled. - Page 3

Thanks for posting this interesting set of tear down photos. I thought I had read somewhere of an earphone using a PIC crossover--a passive integrated circuit crossover, but I can't find the reference to it now. A PIC, using similar technologies to integrated circuits to build their passives into and onto silicon wafers would be smaller than a crossover using discrete components.

thanks for sharing the pics, i always wondered what they looked like inside.

Any Westone 4 disassembly pics?

I would imagine they would be quite similar to the westone 3s.

 

Would it be safe to say the Westone 4 uses dual TWFK's?

no, the westone 4 uses two bass drivers, one mid and one single treble ba

 

These are TWFK's:

 

 

They are two speakers per housing. Those two TWFK's are the smallest quad speaker configuration for an IEM that I know of. So I'm thinking this is what Westone used for the 4's.

 

yep id go with this, notice how big the bass armature is within the westone 3, this would explain why the 4 is flatter and not as booming according to various reviews. its common knowledge that the bigger the driver the bigger the bass in general. so having 2 smaller drivers for bass does usually tighten things up (small and tight VS big and banging). interestingly IMO it does not make the sound better its all about what you want your bass to sound like so what westone has done is just give you the option but at the same time use marketing to make customers believe yet again more is better, when in reality some people would take bigger bass over tighter bass. in which case the westone 3's bigger bass driver is more appropriate.

:( I want W4's :( scared to order some from some places in the UK incase i get fakes :(
 

 

W4 uses 2 low, 1 mid and 1 high driver so it's very unlikely that it's a pair of TWFKs and 2 TWFKs wont go lower than one. They probably used 2 dedicated woofers for lower distortion and better linearity while maintaining the small package. A double driver woofer will look like a big TWFK and be arranged such that the 2 units cancel each others mechanical vibrations. Sharing the same nozzle here has no downside as the signal is uniform from both units.

 

Regarding the TFWK in the w3. TFWKs have a simple crossover in front of the tweeter as packaged from Knowles. Other than electrical, the only other way to divide is with filters in front of the nozzle but would be extremely rare in single ear nozzle universals and would only limit highs.

Edited by goodvibes - 5/30/11 at 4:29am

Really interesting. I wonder how much, if any, of the construction is done by hand yet its so intricate. 

You are correct. According to the picture below, the Westone 4 uses a TWFK and possibly a DTEC?

 

 

Two questions: how did thy get these apart and how did they put them back together? I have a pair of um3x that need to be repaired and advice would be helpful.  

Ive taken my um3x apart with a craft knife, and a lot of stress.