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W30 - It Gets The Fuck Out of the Way

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Gilly87:
So yesterday I finally got my pair of W30s that I've been lusting after since the new W line launched.

I wish I could find the post on Head-Fi, but after hearing about the substantial changes made to the W40, I started getting my hopes up for the 30s - I really liked the W3 on the whole, it had some of the crunchiest electric guitars I've heard from an IEM to date, vocals had great air and a neutral tone (not the Sennheiser slightly warm "neutral" - I mean neutral-neutral, erring on the side of being a bit cold if anything), the treble was super-extended, albeit a bit splashy, the soundstage was deep and wide and separation was top-noch...but dat bass. God. It was just intolerable. Listening to the W3 was like having a really awesome, stimulating conversation with a group of really smart people about something really interesting, except there's one drunk, abrasive asshole who just keeps butting in and drowning everyone else out. You try, you really do; you want to enjoy yourself, and you bear it and keep trying to make the best of it for as long as you can, but eventually you just scream at him and storm the fuck way.

That's what I did with the W3s, anyway. I mean, I sold them. I only yelled a little.

Fast forward...ummm...4 years I think, and the W30 finally drops, and I've heard so much good stuff about the W40s that I want to give it a try. Spyro's review on Head-Fi got my hopes up that my wishes had been granted, and I decided to buy them. I had a few expenses at the end of the year, including a very full Christmas (my nephew is 3 and playmobils are fucking expensive), so they had to wait, but I finally ordered mine from a local dealer and just got em yesterday.

I'm going to do a real writeup once I've spent some more time with them, but I have to say, they sound very close to what I originally envisioned for an improved W3. The mids are not cold like the W3, but guitars still have really great crunch, and the tonality is probably the closest to being truly neutral that I've ever heard in a universal. Extension on both ends is impressve, and end-to-end balance is some of the best - there are no really obvious peaks or valleys, perhaps a small peak in the mid-treble range, but the sound is incredibly cohesive for a BA and apart from being a bit fatiguing, I'm having a hard time finding fault with it. I put it to the test with a friend of mine, a film scorer who is used to top-of-the-line near-field monitors, and she was really impressed; said they were the most neutral-sounding in-ears she has ever heard.  Now she's not super into personal audio, and hasn't heard high-tier customs, but I've showed her plenty of other in-ears before - SM3, GR07, ER4S, UM3X, etc. - and she wasn't thrilled with any of them, but somehow the W30 passed the test.

Anaxilus:
Karl at westone definitely knows how to get a neutral sound when it's called for. I've also been pleased with his crossover tuning with my ES5 being extremely coherent even though I'm usually sensitive to most 3-ways on IEMs.

Gilly87:
Aren't their customs a bit warmer/darker as a rule? I've read oodles of reviews, and I tend to think of the ES line as falling in the arena of an HD6x0-type sound, perhaps with better bass extension. But maybe I'm wrong?

Anaxilus:

--- Quote from: Gilly87 on March 19, 2015, 03:13:48 PM ---Aren't their customs a bit warmer/darker as a rule? I've read oodles of reviews, and I tend to think of their customs as falling in the arena of an HD6x0-type sound, perhaps with better bass extension. But maybe I'm wrong?

--- End quote ---

No, no such 'rule' I know of. I know Karl is averse to ear piercing treble and likes to play bass guitar. The ES5 is neutral warmer with a bit of bass added and treble rolled just so to prevent fatigue cuz it's a stage monitor. I think that suits his particular tastes as a performer. The older ES3X and newer ES60 is supposed to be more neutral as studio monitors.

burnspbesq:
Interesting.  Would be a little concerned about bad impedance match with some devices (Pono Player in particular).  Website says 30 ohms @ 1kHz, which would be borderline-but-probably-OK with a device with an output impedance of 3-4 (Atkinson's measurements in the April issue of Stereohphile say 3, although mine measured closer to 4), but I would be curious to see an impedance-vs.-frequency plot.  I have bad memories of W4 being downright unlistenable with first-gen AK100, which had an output impedance of 22 ohms.

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