EDIT: For anyone who is reading this thread afterwards, I posted my review here: http://www.head-fi.org/t/669528/review-westone-adv-alpha-a-thing-that-goes-thump-in-the-night
Okay, some observations:
I've been fiddling around trying to find a fit where the ADV does not rub against part of my left ear, and I've discovered that, much like a lot of very bassy IEMs (IE8, Radius DDM etc)
the ADV benefits from shallow insertion. It sounds much better without a perfect seal because the treble kicks up and gets more extended. You can actually vary the amount of treble you want by changing insertion depth and luckily the IEM is designed in such a way that the fit is still comfortable and secure like this.
It is actually possible to experience sibilance on the ADV by doing this for instance.
Now obviously this is not good from an isolation standpoint and probably not good for your ears if you are in a noisy place, considering that you will naturally turn up the volume when isolation decreases and the ADV already encourages you to turn up the volume to what I would consider excessive levels.
Considering my experience with the cable and the left ear soreness, I will probably be exchanging these, but I wanted to make the following notes on the sound:
The ADV is very dark sounding (depending on insertion depth) with an incredibly visceral and authoritative bass response. It is not flabby bass - it reaches down deep and has a stone against stone rumble and heft to it. It's pretty astounding.
The rest of the signature is still very articulate and detailed, but perceived detail and a sense of air / spaciousness suffers because of the very dark tilt of the ADV. There is a "shhhh" shimmer tone in the treble as mentioned, which actually begins to take on some prominence / sibilance at shallower insertion depths.
Because the ADV seemingly has a good driver and does not distort at high volumes, the natural response seems to be to turn up the volume higher so that you can hear more details in the mids and treble. The bass still stays quite controlled and does not bleed into the mids at high volume, so what you end up is a very rich and bombastic sound. Again I don't really think this is a good thing for long term listening.
It's obvious that the ADV has a great driver that has been tuned in a specific way, or engineering decisions have led to this tuning.
I can think of a couple of reasons why:
1.
The filter chosen for the ADV, which appears to be a white membrane, was chosen to for water resistance and is not particularly porous. I have heard similar complaints about the Sony XBA-S65 with the water resistant membrane filter on that pair. The resulting sound is thick because of the dense filter.
2. Westone decided that as Nhare90 suggests, people desire a stronger bass response when working out because the bass motivates them to
feel the burnnnnnn. The ADV is voiced well for electronic and modern studio recordings which also seems to work for workouts, as does the nice secure fit. I was going to go running with the ADVs yesterday just to give them a spin but because of the soreness in my ear I didn't try it out.
Personally I have fallen in love with the XBA-C10 as a workout earphone recently because a) it has a nice stable fit and isn't fiddly to take in and out and b) it's very cheap so I won't cry if it breaks.
If this was a keeper pair for me I would naturally be very inclined to experiment with the filter in the nozzle to get more bass, though that will probably ruin the water resistance.
What does this tell us?
I think the ADV is probably a warm up from Westone to test out micro-driver manufacturing and magnesium moulding, while targeting a consumer demographic where there are other priorities besides sound quality. It's quite clever because once they get feedback and sort out the issues they can release something better with the same or an improved driver. I would not be surprised to see Westone make a 'music lovers' version of the ADV soon with the same driver and a different filter / tuning. It will most assuredly be fantastic.
Specifically as an workout IEM I don't know if I can endorse the ADV because of my own experiences with the comfort and the potential of the braided cable fraying over time and getting irritating, but it is very lightweight and fits comfortably in one of my eara. It is also seemingly built very well with good materials.
I'll see if I have time to post up a video for peeps to get a closer look at the actual earphone but I think I am going to have to take advantage of earphone solutions very generous return / exchange policy...
