Westone “W” flagship W80 (8BA) a bit overpriced MRSP $1,500 arrived. I purchase at my own cost on for my entertainment purpose.
IEM+cable+Bluetooth adapter.
Will update on sound impressions on this post later today.
Thanks to Crin, did he graphed!
It’s rare to see he values such a warm tuned IEM to his “good” tier, B-
With comment “Nicely balanced, intimate and slightly dry. Perhaps the least Westone-sounding Westone.”, Tonality C+, Tech B+. Underrated?
Yes most likely. We will see.
How does it compared to the modern IEMs?
In medias res
—Conclusion after tip roll:
Drawing from 60 years of history of Westone —the last of “W” series—Flagship W80 is an overlooked solid warm-neutral beast, not Anole VX /Monarch level tech beast, but it has great mid-range technicalities that seconds to none, I feel it almost surpasses the Tea that uses quad-sonion driver for mid. For someone with treble sensitivity and looking a solid technical and neutral chop, as far as you have done a proper ear tip replacement, W80 is my great recommendation. Is Mid better than Blessing2, Variations, HEXA, Dusk, and Tea? Yes except Tea, absolutely, Maybe Tea could perform better for some genre, but W80’s mid is par or above with best Mid range Tea’s.
Again, technicalities in detail articulation or geolocational spatial expression are some easy ones to tell, it’s not too hard to tell “this IEM has wide frequency range from top to bottom.
However, when it comes to
mid-range, this will need years and years of listening unless the reviewer is musically gifted which I’m not. Here is a good example to tell mid-range harmonics; modern electronically mixed tracks are less mid-focused, but for acoustic tracks or sophisticated contemporary tracks —that ain’t fast foods—mid is a key matter.
If you feel W80 lacks wet voice even after Xelastec Cryatal (w/ small stem adapter fitted) ear tip replacement, try to set “Slow Roll off “ or “Short Delay Slow Roll-off” or alike on your DAP’s lowpass filter. It shall add a small notch of moisture. Or if you DAP has super slow roll off, you will get very very rich bodied voice. The faster the roll off, less moisture.
—Why underrated?
Because of the stock ear tips, a bare minimum pressure filled winter tire it is. W80 will sprint like F1 car when properly equipped with modern high-performance ear tips.
—Worth $1,500?
Questions remained. W80 is one of my best purchases besides Wu Zetian, Salnotes Zero, Truthear HEXA for 2022. If you are considering any 8BA, W80 is a solid choice. It out performs qdc Anole VX in mid-range.
So why we don’t see W80 fans that often? Well just google number of replays on classical vs modern music. Mid-range technicalities are most desired for the “art” / “minority “ sector of music. If you are a person devoted for art, and / or musicians yourself, this will click your sense.
Back to the story telling, W80 also comes with Mmcx Bluetooth adapter to make it wireless. It’s best sounding wireless IEM, if you plug it to FiiO’s UTW5. With Westone BT adapter it’s good enough as well.
I feel this 8BA is worth $5-600 easily competing with Moondrop’s S8 as a counter offer of Non-Harman warm neutral contender as far as you replaced the ear tips.
If you fall in love with Wu Zetain, W80 with proper ear tip is your Wu, with higher technicalities, with slightly less salt & peppers. Emotional and Technical.
—Softears UC is a good match to W80 as well. SpinFit W1 will open up upper mid-all the way to 16khz if you want to feel a sense of airiness and finesse
—Prologue
▶︎sound impression out of box with stock ear tips:
Warm neutral sound. A wet touch one far from analytical and technical, very comfortable but it ain’t blurry! I do see textures and nuance. Nice.
▶︎cable is mmcx, and comes with mmcx bluetooth 4.2(old) adapter, at least you can hook with your dap/smartphones with AptX
▶︎Obviously it’s westone tuning, non-harsh, if not rather dark with main weight center anchored around upper-bass and I can comfortably say this is mid centric. Thus, tech-lover will find it bloated, “bass bleeding”. Not for me because I like both analytical ones and warm /dark ones. I was once-milk-fed by Westone, this tonality reminds me of warmth of maternity, nostalgia of Sennheiser HD414.
▶︎mangird tea and W80 is now my mid-king/queen. Rich in overtones, accurate harmony, makes cheap violin sound like Stradivarius
—why W80 is overlooked except its price
▶︎I’m 100% sure that this rather bass heavy final product is mainly from Westone’s long and narrow bore ear tips, so if you can find narrow bore ear tip substitutes, you will get less mid-bass. Or in simple English W80 comes with a Winter-Tire that you can only pumps up to 20psi, low-pressure winter type could only go slow. Once you changed the tire to of of Pirelli’s high-performance summer type ready for race tracks, W80 is like a McLaren’s F1 machine, it’s not a Rolls-Royce... If properly fit, it sprints like F1 machine.
—About nozzle stem
W80 uses Ety type narrow stem. And Bass with it’s long wave-length, by nature resonates more if you have a shallower insertion, the deeper you insert, the less bass resonance.
Here is triple flange ear tips from Ety ER4S, this will reduce bass if westone users wants to tune your IEM. Hard part is that W80 is a shallow fit type, you probably will need some mods to fit or find aftermarket ear tips.
You may also use AZLA Xelastec Crystal, it comes with small stem adapters that you can apply the adapter to other ear tips as well.
▶︎with form ear tips: treble gets further attenuation, bass transient response will have dumped, I’m not a particular fan of this dumped bass response, because to my impression it’s unnatural and muffled. However you can also take is as softened sound, as if you are listening to the gun shots with suppressor, gentle to ears for sure.
▶︎Westone’s BA sound is more of Sonion type, so does Softears’s BA, probably it’s Sonion’s proprietary custom that they are using.
▶︎W80 not for critical listening, it a cup of nicely brewed Fortnam & Mason’s Afternoon Blend. Take it, and let music be it. Not recommendable to everyone, but I can recommend to whom desperately looking for a nicely tuned Warm IEM.
—Tips roll with small stem adapters appied:
-AZLA Xelastec Crystal: removes mid-bass, and will tune W80 to mid-rich neutral with a slight sub-bass boost. Very modern tuning. Technicalities surfaces. W80 has a solid technicalities, that you can expect from a 8BA. Wow. Now it supprises me W80 is not a mellow singer anymore. If you would like to see the real potential of this IEM, get AZLA Xelastec Crystal that will have 3 sets of “small stem to normal stem” adapter, then tip roll with your daily use ear tips. Or you could stay with soft touch mellow tuned one with stock ear tips.
—TL;DR
W80 is a musician. Not Stock Traders, or Scientists.
What sounds good on W80?
My all time favorite
Pascal Roge’s Erik Satie.
20 years ago, I got this album from Virgin Record once located on Boston’s Newbury Street, the store near Berklee School of Music, where Hiromi graduated from.
It was one last piece of album left on the bookshelf for Pascal Roge, A senior gentleman and I coincidentally had hands onto the same album of one last item of Roge’s at the same timing.
“You know Pascal Roge ‘s Satie is the best among all”, says gentleman, he smiled, then passed the album onto my hands.
W80 reminds me of that kindness and empathetic warm feeling when you find a very very rare goodwills that share the same taste.
Wait, so W80 is only for non-vocals? No, it’d good for other genre too.
A well known Japanese song covered by my favorite singer suis from Yorushika & A Korean singer Dazbee. It sounds full of emotional expressions with W80:
W80 with Xelastec Crystal
Compared to others
Technical expressions:
Variations > Dusk ≧ HEXA ≧ W80 = Tea = Timeless > Wu Zetian > Aria (mod) > Starfield
Emotional Expressions:
Wu Zetian > Tea ≧W80 >Variations ≧ Aria (mod > HEXA = Timeless > Dusk > Starfield
Timbre consistency : harmonic distortion
Timeless > HEXA > Variations > W80 > Aria (mod) > Starfield ≧ Tea ≧ Dusk
My preference: tuning x technicality
Wu Zetian > Tea = W80 > Aria (mod ) > Variations = HEXA = Timeless > Dusk > Starfield
W80 with Westone BT adapter, ear tips is from one of SONY’s. Size comparison with Wu. W80 is small as a 8BA. Incredibly small.
Carrying pouch: huge enough to carry all stuff.
@Etytotic
@Westone
This is a business consulting advice. Please include small stem to regular stem adapters to your IEM. Let users to fit with “modern” wide bore ear tips made with better silicone. Your IEM is underperforming because of the old-fashioned 90’s ear-tips. That adapter isn’t gonna cost anything. Make your customers aware of what ear tips will do to the final product of the sound, and let them choose preferred ones.
.22LR is not effective for market of 2022..people even have .50 BMG nowaday.
IF POSSIBLE:
Have your lab computer installed with ABAQUS / CAE & FEA software to analyze acoustic of ear tips.
