lucozade
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jan 16, 2010
- Posts
- 2,073
- Likes
- 16
The westone 3 was the next iem i pulled the trigger on,as they say on here
and I think this was the iem i had the highest expectations for.The weststone 3 being a 3 armiture driver unit like the triple fi 10 but with a much better designed driver housing i was hopeing this would be the best universal iem out there. So did i get my wish?
This is thoughts on the westone 3, and i think this is prehapes the hardest iem to review.
This iem comes with a nice little carry case, extention cable ,in cable volume control extention, and a vast array of tips, silicon,compy,shure black olive,clear plastic pudding bason type (all in various sizes).
The earphones themselfs look very neat and have a thin cable that is braded to gives it a feeling of strengh, and it does seem very sturdy.
This iem is very easy to drive and is the loudest out of all the iems i have i think.
FIT AND ISOLATION
The westone 3 is a very comfortable iem to wear ,i could happily wear it all day if i wished, and with the large array of tips its very easy to find one that fits, and the isolation on these is superb.
BASS
The bass on these is BIG powerfull and very boomy, it has a certain amount of detail, but those details often get lost in the big thumping booming malstrome the bass driver delivers, unlike the big warm sounding bass of the ie8 that seems to my ears to have a mid bass hump the westone 3 seems to have a hump at the lower end of the bass making this a colder sounding bass.
Never the less the bass does not smother the other frequencies which is quite amazing really.
MIDS
The instrements are all cyrstal clear and its very easy to pick them out and place them in the soundstage. vocals are again cyrstal clear and dont sound as though there too far back or too far forward, i think they are exactly were they should be and the large boomy bass does not colour the vocals in eny way or over power the mids at all.
TREBBLE
The trebble to my ear seems like its exstended diffrently to that of the triple fi 10,it does not quite have the sparkle at the top end but sounds more sharp
which does result in a highly accurate trebble response with a clarity not matched by eny of my other iems, Most of my other iems have highly accurate trebble and you will hear all the details that you need to hear in your music and some you dont want to,but these take things to another level and they will pick out things that you didnt even know were in your music,even after using the other top universal iems (for good or bad).
But all that clarity and detail comes at some expence.
These are by far the most sibilent iems ive ever heard
listening to these for enymore than two hours can be absolate torture to my ears, ive tryed everything i can think off to get rid of it,ive been through all the supplyed tips, and every other tip i have that fits , i tryed decoring a sure olive and putting a single silicon tip over it , ive tryed all the eq settings on my ipod,ive tryed them on my home amp, nothing seems to make eny difference, PLEASE HELP.!
SOUNDSTAGE
The soundstage is quit large but not as big as the sennhiesers ie7/8 and that big boomy bass does seem to make it sound smaller than it really is at times,if that makes eny sence, the instrements are all well placed .
SOUND SIGNITURE
The westone 3 has the weirdest sound signiture that i have ever heard in a pair of phones or speakers for that matter.The way its presented just seams to be all a bit of a mess really to my ears.All the freqencies seem to precent themselfs seperate from each other,we have that big blowted 3 dimentonal bass then the rather cold, hard thinner sounding middle section highly detailed with that exstended more 3 dimentonal top end.
And the soundstage is weird as well , when i first started to listen to these it was like they had two seperate soundstages ,one centered around each ear piece and a smaller one in the middle of my head slightly out in front with the lead singer in it,
Ather a few days of listening either my ears got used to this and compensated melding the 3 soundstage bubbles together into one, or some kind of burn in effect has taken place as after a while i was hearing the more conventenal single soundstage. !
All in all these are an intresting sounding iem and one i will go back to rediscover as soon as i can summon up the energy to go into battle with that sibilance again. If enyone out there has had this problem with the sibilance on these and has found a way to over come it ? please let me know how you managed it as i really do want to injoy these ,they can be quite hypnotic to listen to with all the extra details these pick out.
As the first true 3 driver iem on the market westone have had a decent crack at it but I kind off get the feeling these were rushed into production before all the flaws were ironed out.They show a lot of promise and could be the best universal iem on the market if they had a bit more work done on them,but thats just my take on them,im sure there are many on here who will swear these are the best thing since sliced bread.
This is thoughts on the westone 3, and i think this is prehapes the hardest iem to review.
This iem comes with a nice little carry case, extention cable ,in cable volume control extention, and a vast array of tips, silicon,compy,shure black olive,clear plastic pudding bason type (all in various sizes).
The earphones themselfs look very neat and have a thin cable that is braded to gives it a feeling of strengh, and it does seem very sturdy.
This iem is very easy to drive and is the loudest out of all the iems i have i think.
FIT AND ISOLATION
The westone 3 is a very comfortable iem to wear ,i could happily wear it all day if i wished, and with the large array of tips its very easy to find one that fits, and the isolation on these is superb.
BASS
The bass on these is BIG powerfull and very boomy, it has a certain amount of detail, but those details often get lost in the big thumping booming malstrome the bass driver delivers, unlike the big warm sounding bass of the ie8 that seems to my ears to have a mid bass hump the westone 3 seems to have a hump at the lower end of the bass making this a colder sounding bass.
Never the less the bass does not smother the other frequencies which is quite amazing really.
MIDS
The instrements are all cyrstal clear and its very easy to pick them out and place them in the soundstage. vocals are again cyrstal clear and dont sound as though there too far back or too far forward, i think they are exactly were they should be and the large boomy bass does not colour the vocals in eny way or over power the mids at all.
TREBBLE
The trebble to my ear seems like its exstended diffrently to that of the triple fi 10,it does not quite have the sparkle at the top end but sounds more sharp
which does result in a highly accurate trebble response with a clarity not matched by eny of my other iems, Most of my other iems have highly accurate trebble and you will hear all the details that you need to hear in your music and some you dont want to,but these take things to another level and they will pick out things that you didnt even know were in your music,even after using the other top universal iems (for good or bad).
But all that clarity and detail comes at some expence.
These are by far the most sibilent iems ive ever heard
SOUNDSTAGE
The soundstage is quit large but not as big as the sennhiesers ie7/8 and that big boomy bass does seem to make it sound smaller than it really is at times,if that makes eny sence, the instrements are all well placed .
SOUND SIGNITURE
The westone 3 has the weirdest sound signiture that i have ever heard in a pair of phones or speakers for that matter.The way its presented just seams to be all a bit of a mess really to my ears.All the freqencies seem to precent themselfs seperate from each other,we have that big blowted 3 dimentonal bass then the rather cold, hard thinner sounding middle section highly detailed with that exstended more 3 dimentonal top end.
And the soundstage is weird as well , when i first started to listen to these it was like they had two seperate soundstages ,one centered around each ear piece and a smaller one in the middle of my head slightly out in front with the lead singer in it,
All in all these are an intresting sounding iem and one i will go back to rediscover as soon as i can summon up the energy to go into battle with that sibilance again. If enyone out there has had this problem with the sibilance on these and has found a way to over come it ? please let me know how you managed it as i really do want to injoy these ,they can be quite hypnotic to listen to with all the extra details these pick out.
As the first true 3 driver iem on the market westone have had a decent crack at it but I kind off get the feeling these were rushed into production before all the flaws were ironed out.They show a lot of promise and could be the best universal iem on the market if they had a bit more work done on them,but thats just my take on them,im sure there are many on here who will swear these are the best thing since sliced bread.