Westone ES5 - Page 343

Okay so I decided to go totally minimalist opaque white.  No art.  Nothing.

 

Anyone else have any advice on the cable?

 

You'll probably want one?

 

Sorry, no real useful response, I just couldn't resist.

Going to need a description of what you're expecting out of the cable. You should worry about this after listening to the ES5s for at least a week to see if you want some missing gaps filled, or things slightly changed for the better.

 

Others will flat out tell you this or that brand/wire without actually trying to help you out. Take heed.

 

As I repeatedly recommend here, I think the Twag v2 really brought out the strength of the ES5 to its fullest. I tried ALO SXC as well but IMO the Twag v2 has better synergy.

+1 for TWag v2, am using it atm.

 

Of course it all depends on what you need from the wire, perhaps you can have a look at the cable review thread

Maybe I had faulty ones, but the ones I heard with made the sound somewhat thin and quite not to my taste. It took away from the ES5 some of its essential characteristics...

I pretty much use the ES5 with the stock cable, where I find the TWag V2 helps the JH13Pro more.  The only time I use TWag V2 with ES5 is when using my SR-71b balanced amp, but the rest of the time find they don't need it to sound magical.

I found the stock cable muffling the sound to the point where I could not stand it. I went through so many brands and wire types to find the right one, and ended up with good ol' trusty OCC copper.

 

Well, I think I've mentioned before that my ES5 seem like they might be a little brighter than other people's ES5, and so the darker stock cable suits them much of the time.  Especially if I'm using my DACmini or HDP to drive them.  If I use the darker sounding SR-71b amp in balanced mode then the TWag V2 cables come into their element with the ES5.  But in my experience the stock cable is not muffled to the point of no return and it's just as good as the stock cable with my JH13Pro or UE11Pro.

Well, I just got done doing an AB session w/ some IEMs I got in and the UERM killed them as a reference.  Got a bit disinterested in the UERM tonight so plugged in my ES5's.  I'm now flirting w/ selling my UERMs again.  The precise imaging, coherence and 3D rendering w/ amazing timbre on acoustic instruments that just appears so vivid and real along with the magical mids and vocals.  One of the few phones where I actually see the music appear in front of me.  I think it might be time to move the UERM on....    

That's very surprising seeing that all the UERM owners praise it like a deity. Thank you Anax for being impartial. :) Rare to see impartial people on Head-Fi.

 

Thx.  Don't get me wrong, it is great and does some technical things better but it's a different argument compared to the ES5.  Overall, what the ES5 gets right is just more important to me.  As a tool, UERM is superb but I think I'm needing to find a UERM type sig that gets even more right  to meet my needs now.  I used to get more overall balanced performance out of it than my HD800 but it has stopped scaling while the HD800 is through the roof.  It's probably less the fault of the UERM than my goal posts having moved.  Somehow the ES5 justifies itself to me w/o having to measure.

I can't seem to get a very good understanding of the ES5's soundstage. It varies a great deal with the character of the recording. Do you prefer your UERM's or ES5's staging? Imaging? I should get around to A/Bing them, although I think I look upon the UERM's as less a tool than yourself, finding them musical and greatly satisfying with well recorded material (e.g, Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot where I prefer the UERM's to the ES5's, although for rock this is rarely the case). Both, incidentally, pair very well with the MK3 (first amp that wrought substantial influence over the UERM's usually stable character, though the Pico was good with it also). 

Well I guess that means it adapts with the recording and presents the soundstage as originally recorded. Much like the HD800 being permanently wide, while LCD2 being an adapter.

I actually concluded the same thing last week.ES5 can vary sonically and soundstage wise depending on the recordings,as most CIEM do. What goes in comes out. Maybe not as honestly as the UERM but it does vary,no fault of the ES5. Different than my W2, which smooth out everything to one very nice and balanced sound,no matter what you throw at it. Therefore,the Westone design philosophy of that unit.