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Will Westone 3 work in-flight without noise?

post #1 of 14
3/21/10 at 10:49am
Thread Starter 
my first experience with in-ears while on a 5 hour flight.

since they are very sensitive...will i get lot of noise from the headphone jack of the flight?

if yes then how to manage it?..should i get impedance adapters?
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post #2 of 14
3/21/10 at 5:39pm
I can only speak from my own experience, I flew to tenerife about a month ago and used my ER6i's with a airplane adapter I bought off ebay for about 1£ and yes I did experience some noise from the jack and although it was slightly annoying it didn't really bother the movie experience that much.

So I would say it's pretty likely you will experience some noise but if it's bad enough to bother you I can't say.
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post #3 of 14
3/21/10 at 6:39pm
For reference, the ER6i's have a 16 ohm impedance while the Westone 3 has 30. I suppose something with even higher impedance (like RE0 with 64 or ER4s) would be even better for taking on a flight.
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post #4 of 14
3/21/10 at 6:50pm
In addition to the airplane adaptor, I've used a Shure volume control/attenuator.

I've stopped watching inflight movies - the picture quality and sound quality are just so horrendous compared to what my portable gear provides. I supposed it is fine for background music to fall asleep to.

With the volume level attenuator, there will still be some hiss with your W3. I'd load up your iPod with video podcasts if I were you...
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post #5 of 14
3/21/10 at 7:02pm
ditto on what trickywombat said... skip the in-flight movies & music and bring your own... 5hrs should be fine between your laptop & ipod
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post #6 of 14
3/21/10 at 7:06pm
Be sure to plug the attenuator into the airplane's jack and turn the volume all the way down before plugging in the W3s. You risk hearing damage on some planes that are trying to drive cheap one dollar earphones if you don't adjust for minimum volume first.

A lot of planes have messed up audio jacks. People plug their head phones in, then get up without remembering they have the head phones on and rip the plug out, or they bump it with their legs and bend the contacts in the jack.

Airplane audio "quality" is usually a mess.
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post #7 of 14
3/21/10 at 7:33pm
I don't know if you should use an impedance adaptor with multiple driver phones. The crossover circuits assume negligible source resistance, fiddling with that may offset the crossover frequencies. An amp with a volume control may be a better idea.
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post #8 of 14
3/21/10 at 8:06pm
I'd have to question that since UE does provide such an adapter with their triple-driver TF10s
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post #9 of 14
3/21/10 at 9:43pm
I would simply use the volume adapter that came with it. Works like a charm.
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post #10 of 14
3/21/10 at 9:45pm
Without a volume attenuator you will hurt your hears. It is a must if you want to listen to music or watch movies.
The sound isolation is great. Better than Bose.
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post #11 of 14
3/22/10 at 9:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by gilency View Post
Without a volume attenuator you will hurt your hears. It is a must if you want to listen to music or watch movies.
The sound isolation is great. Better than Bose.
Yep. At about -26 decibels you'll block out most, if not all, noise on the plane. But yea like everyone said I'd get an attenuator AND a cable with volume control to make sure nothing bad happens. I get nervous plugging my IEMs into my speaker's headphone port (Never do it because I have a portable rig) just because of the size; but I'm scary like that

But yea, also just to piggy back on everyone else's comments, I'd suggest to bring your iPod or whatever and load it with movies, podcasts, and music to keep you occupied during the trip.

Ever since I got my iPod Touch that first Christmas they came out I have almost never been bored out of my house
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post #12 of 14
3/23/10 at 3:08pm
Thread Starter 
well..W3 do come with volume attenuator which can help in adjusting volume...but will it be as effective as impedance adaptor?





ya..i ll load up my ipod and charge up laptop also just in case..and put some movies on it..

but in the end ...i hope there is some beautiful girl sitting next to me instead of empty seats or some family...better than watching movie or listening music :P
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post #13 of 14
3/23/10 at 6:35pm
Thread Starter 
bump...flying in 3 days.
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post #14 of 14
3/23/10 at 6:41pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nocturnal310 View Post
well..W3 do come with volume attenuator which can help in adjusting volume...but will it be as effective as impedance adaptor?

ya..i ll load up my ipod and charge up laptop also just in case..and put some movies on it..

but in the end ...i hope there is some beautiful girl sitting next to me instead of empty seats or some family...better than watching movie or listening music :P
About the volume attenuator... yea it will be really helpful but IMO you should get both. The impedance will make everything harder to drive so the loud sounds won't be too much but you should be alright with the volume adapter. Just keep everything as low as you can.
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