Well, it wasn't so long ago that I purchased the Ultimate Ears 700 but sadly, the cable build quality just wasn't good enough and they eventually broke. Now, don't get me wrong, those earphones were incredible, and it's taken me a good few weeks to finally find the right replacements.
A few pics of the Westone 2s
I'll get a few pics up of mine in the next week or so.
Specs:
Westone 2 Specifications
Sensitivity: 117 dB SPL @1kHz
Frequency Response: 20 Hz -18 kHz
Impedance: 33 ohms @1kHz
Driver: Dual balanced armatures; 1 low & 1 high frequency
Features: Deluxe travel pouch, ten different eartips, 1/4 to 1/8-inch jack/plug adapter and inline volume control.
I paid £180 for them but in the US I'm pretty sure you can get them for slightly cheaper.
Now, onto the review:
Packaging
Nothing too fancy here - clean packaging, small box, all accessories in the carrying pouch. Earphones are fitted with the grey soft rubber eartips by default.
Accesories
Fantastic array of different eartips
- 3 Sturdy rubber clear white eartips - SML
- 3 Soft grey rubber eartips - SML
- 1 Triple flange white eartips
- 2 Long Comply Foam grey eartips - Thin and Wide
- 1 Normal Comply Foam grey eartip - M
Small and sturdy carrying pouch, nothing too fancy, hold your earphones and that's about it.
The rest of the accesories are stated above.
9/10
First Impressions
By the photos, the earphones actually look relatively large, and look like they could be a bit of a problem for small ears ... This is far from the truth. The earphones are small and sturdily built.
Cable looks strong and is double wound as to stop cable noise. 3.5 Jack is a 90 degree one (the best, any expensive IEM without one is not a good IEM) and everything feels great.
Note that these earphones must be looped around your ear, you can't wear them straight, but it really makes no real difference and I'll go on to explain why.
Fit
This is the most important aspect for me. I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of sound quality for perfect fit, so I had to choose carefully.
Fit is truly INCREDIBLE with these babies. I tried several different tips, and eventually went for the Wide Comply Eartips. The soft grey rubber ones are also great but I just prefer foam.
They aren't hard to get in, and once they're in, you don't feel them at all. Music to the brain, I say.
I always make sure I have a true seal, because that way, no bass (or very little of it) is lost when listening to music - This is essential when purchasing IEMs that don't concentrate on bass heavy earphones. Especially dual armatures.
The whole "around the ear" aspect scared me a bit to start with, but now I love it. You can run, jump, sprint, walk, do crazy shit with your head and they just will not fall out. No matter what, the W2s stay in your ear. There is absolutely no cable noise and no entanglement problems because it's all behind the ears.
10/10
Build quality
The W2s are surprisingly light, which makes the build quality actually feel a bit "cheap" to start with, but once play around with them, you see that they've been built to perfection.
Cable : This is one very important aspect of an expensive IEM, one that can be the making or breaking point of any decent IEM, and the W2s do a grand job of making the cable feel sturdy and great. The main reason for this is the slighlty thicker than average rubber encasing on the cables, making them a lot more durable to any sort of cable stress. The most important point is where the cable meets the jack, and as the jack is a 90 degree one, the cable feels very safe and pretty impossible to wear down through daily use.
Sound quality
Now for the "piece de resistance". Before I begin, let me point out what I used to test these:
MP3 Test -
Zune HD
Unamplified
Song mixture of 320KBPS CBR and V0 quality
Computer test -
Cambridge Audio DACMagic through USB Connection
Cambridge Audio Azur 650A AMP with 1/8 inch jack connection to earphones
Selection of FLAC songs
Songs that will be primarily discussed and examined, due to musical variation of them:
Teardrop - Massive Attack : Primarily to test the bass capilibities of the W2s
Dayvan Cowboy - Boards of Canada : Intricate and beautiful, can put to shame even the most expensive of earphones
Fake Empire - The National : This is because it's one of my favourite songs, and Aaron Dessners voice can show how sweet sounding the W2s are.
Eastern Glow - The Album Leaf : The beginning of this song is a very soft bass beat that can really show off the bass weakness and poor seal in some great earphones
Impossible Germany - Wilco : The beautiful guitar solo must be heard
Indoor Swimming At The Space Station - Eluvium : The softness and many sounds in this song will show how worthy these babies are.
Please, if there is anything else you want me to test, ask me, and I'll see what I can do.
One very important detail to note: With any normal earphones, even my UE700s which had a great seal, I would have to put my Zune HD volume at about 20 or above (max is 30, default is 14)... With the W2s, in any quiet environment I don't need to go above 15 to hear everything, and in a busy place (I take the train into work at peak times every day) I don't go above 18. These IEMs DO NOT need an AMP - Although you can notice differences if you use it through the computer.
For unbiased listening, I kept the volume at 16 throughout the testing on the ZuneHD
Teardrop - Massive Attack
As you know from this tune, the bass kicks in pretty much immediately... And WOW FUCK YES SHIT. This is incredible. It literally reverberates throughout your eardrum (or should I say brain?)... My head actually vibrates from the beggining of this song. The bass is snappy, yet not too intrusive. It's fast and it feels just perfect for the song.
As the other parts of the song start to come through, the W2s really shine, adding a warmth to the entire soundstage of the track. If I could, I could split every single part of the track in my head whilst listening to it. That is how detailed it sounds.
The vocals sound fantastic, clear and sharp, they tear through the bass - but you are still quietly thumping to it in the background. If I didn't know better, I would think that the woman is right here, singing. The highs are hit without any real difficulty here, as this isn't a song for that area, and the meds are hit with a warmth and clarity that I haven't heard anywhere else.
There is no muffling throughout the song, or humming (something which you can expect with some of the high end IEMs if you plug them in to an MP3). This song just sounds fantastic on the Zune.
Dayvan Cowboy
I'm gonna be very critical with this track, as I've never fully appreciated it with earphones in comparison with my Mordaunt Short Avianos....
The beginning of this track is subtle, but these earphones seem to grab your attention straight away with this... The little bells in the background just sound truly fantastic in the first 30 seconds -your brain buzzing with a lovely sound.
So far so good, I'm liking the sound of it, but the song hasn't yet reached it's peak, where the earphones must shine...
And yes, it kick in. 2 minutes in, we get the full glory and beauty of this track. The W2s seem to do a masterful job of meds on this, feeling very very warm and enjoyable. The bass could be a bit brighter, but I'm being incredibly picky here. The soundstage for these W2s is quite incredible - Not as good as the Sennheiser IE8s, granted, but they need at least 150 hours of burning in - and once the track is in its full glory, you aren't drowned by noise, but by pure music.
The W2s do a great job of handling this track, and the bass actually (I changed my mind, the bass at the start feels weak) is quite impressive once it kicks in. After a second listen, my favourite track ever can now be fully appreciated with earphones.
Fake Empire
Woweeeee...... The piano at the start just sounds brilliant - Much brighter than my UE700s.
This is where I'm astounded by the W2s.... Aaron Dessners voice just sounds truly beautiful on it. His deep voice just resonates through my brain with the clarity it deserves. These W2s don't hold back on anything, and once the track truly does kick in, you're engulfed by perfection. The lows, the meds and the highs are all hit with superb accuracy and warmth (note, that when I say warmth, this can be a good or a bad thing depending on what you like. These can be clinical earphones, but they tend to go on the warm side more than anything else) and it just feels... right.
More to come from the songs
Overall sound quality
The W2s have blown all of my expectations right out of the water. These things beat even the most of expensive of IEMs (comparing here to the bulky SE530s) and they just sound fantastic. The soundstage is great, the bass is superb (if a bit muffled at times, but that is to be expected by a dual armature driver) and the highs are truly beautiful. Vocals are clear and sharp and feel just right.
Can you listen to bassy music on these earphones and enjoy it? I say most definitely YES. Now, that there are better options? Well, yes, but far and few at this price range with a dual armature driver or a moving single armature. (Westone 3 for an extra £100)
These W2s put my UE700s to shame. Everything is just better. Bigger. Sweeter. It really is music to your brains. One thing that I absolutely love about the W2s is clarity in which drums are represented. They sound absolutely INCREDIBLE. I've never heard anything like these when it comes to drums.
Questions
Was the price worth it?
Fuck yes. Most definitely. You pay for pure brilliance. You pay for music that you've never truly heard before. These babies are worth every penny. I would have bought the W3s (£300) but the earphone casing is 30% larger, and could have been a problem for my ears.
Do I need a good headphone amp to enjoy these?
Surprisingly, no. The W2s pretty much hold their own on any media device and do a truly fantastic job of it. Do note that you will notice differences if you get a good headphone amp, but that is not to say that they don't sound truly fantastic as is. Many IEMs at this price range can sound a bit soft in MP3s without a dedicated amp, but these don't.
£180?! You crazy?
No. I like music, and I want to listen to it properly. £180 is a perfectly justified price for such earphones. Dual armature drivers are unbelievably complex to get right, especially the crossovers (because it's not a single driver to drive the lows,meds and highs, you require a perfect crossover for two drivers to replicate the highs (one driver) and meds and lows (other driver) properly) and the effort to create such an incredible piece of equipment... I say the price is justified. I'd happily pay £300 for the W3s if they were slightly smaller.
I realise that people don't have the money to spend it on such things, but if you really want to respect the music you listen to, you shouldn't be listening to it with any earphone under $100. Shure CEO and Ultimate Ears both agreed (can't find the comments at work) that earphones started getting good at $100 and anything below that fails. You can say all you want, but until you've taken a little listen to Klipsch X5s, Westone 1s, Ultimate Ears 700, Sennheiser IE7s... you cannot comment. I've been through enough earphones to say that I'll never pay anything less than £100 for a new pair (note I used $ above, that is because that is price where they get good, but only when they get fairly decent) and I'll never go back because I can't afford it. I'd rather not listen to music than listen to it with shit earphones.
Overall thoughts? Have £180? Buy them. Enough said. The competitors in this price range are Ortofon EQ-7 (too big and bulky it seems), Sennheiser IE8s (isolation problems), Klipsch Image X10s (haven't read anything bad about them), Etymotic ER4Ps... And going a bit higher you can get the UE Triple Fi Pros, Audio Technika CK10s, Monster Turbine Pro Gold, Grado GR8, Shure SE530 (do not recommend) and Westone 3s (or UM3Xs). The Westone UM2, UM1s are actually a downgrade from the True Fit 1 and 2s (the one I just reviewed) and I don't understand why they're still pricier... They are the old Westones, still fantastic, but get the new ones. Also, anybody who thinks that Skull Candy and Bose are acceptable is a tool.
Tried to make this as helpful as possible.
A few pics of the Westone 2s
I'll get a few pics up of mine in the next week or so.
Specs:
Westone 2 Specifications
Sensitivity: 117 dB SPL @1kHz
Frequency Response: 20 Hz -18 kHz
Impedance: 33 ohms @1kHz
Driver: Dual balanced armatures; 1 low & 1 high frequency
Features: Deluxe travel pouch, ten different eartips, 1/4 to 1/8-inch jack/plug adapter and inline volume control.
I paid £180 for them but in the US I'm pretty sure you can get them for slightly cheaper.
Now, onto the review:
Packaging
Nothing too fancy here - clean packaging, small box, all accessories in the carrying pouch. Earphones are fitted with the grey soft rubber eartips by default.
Accesories
Fantastic array of different eartips
- 3 Sturdy rubber clear white eartips - SML
- 3 Soft grey rubber eartips - SML
- 1 Triple flange white eartips
- 2 Long Comply Foam grey eartips - Thin and Wide
- 1 Normal Comply Foam grey eartip - M
Small and sturdy carrying pouch, nothing too fancy, hold your earphones and that's about it.
The rest of the accesories are stated above.
9/10
First Impressions
By the photos, the earphones actually look relatively large, and look like they could be a bit of a problem for small ears ... This is far from the truth. The earphones are small and sturdily built.
Cable looks strong and is double wound as to stop cable noise. 3.5 Jack is a 90 degree one (the best, any expensive IEM without one is not a good IEM) and everything feels great.
Note that these earphones must be looped around your ear, you can't wear them straight, but it really makes no real difference and I'll go on to explain why.
Fit
This is the most important aspect for me. I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of sound quality for perfect fit, so I had to choose carefully.
Fit is truly INCREDIBLE with these babies. I tried several different tips, and eventually went for the Wide Comply Eartips. The soft grey rubber ones are also great but I just prefer foam.
They aren't hard to get in, and once they're in, you don't feel them at all. Music to the brain, I say.
I always make sure I have a true seal, because that way, no bass (or very little of it) is lost when listening to music - This is essential when purchasing IEMs that don't concentrate on bass heavy earphones. Especially dual armatures.
The whole "around the ear" aspect scared me a bit to start with, but now I love it. You can run, jump, sprint, walk, do crazy shit with your head and they just will not fall out. No matter what, the W2s stay in your ear. There is absolutely no cable noise and no entanglement problems because it's all behind the ears.
10/10
Build quality
The W2s are surprisingly light, which makes the build quality actually feel a bit "cheap" to start with, but once play around with them, you see that they've been built to perfection.
Cable : This is one very important aspect of an expensive IEM, one that can be the making or breaking point of any decent IEM, and the W2s do a grand job of making the cable feel sturdy and great. The main reason for this is the slighlty thicker than average rubber encasing on the cables, making them a lot more durable to any sort of cable stress. The most important point is where the cable meets the jack, and as the jack is a 90 degree one, the cable feels very safe and pretty impossible to wear down through daily use.
Sound quality
Now for the "piece de resistance". Before I begin, let me point out what I used to test these:
MP3 Test -
Zune HD
Unamplified
Song mixture of 320KBPS CBR and V0 quality
Computer test -
Cambridge Audio DACMagic through USB Connection
Cambridge Audio Azur 650A AMP with 1/8 inch jack connection to earphones
Selection of FLAC songs
Songs that will be primarily discussed and examined, due to musical variation of them:
Teardrop - Massive Attack : Primarily to test the bass capilibities of the W2s
Dayvan Cowboy - Boards of Canada : Intricate and beautiful, can put to shame even the most expensive of earphones
Fake Empire - The National : This is because it's one of my favourite songs, and Aaron Dessners voice can show how sweet sounding the W2s are.
Eastern Glow - The Album Leaf : The beginning of this song is a very soft bass beat that can really show off the bass weakness and poor seal in some great earphones
Impossible Germany - Wilco : The beautiful guitar solo must be heard
Indoor Swimming At The Space Station - Eluvium : The softness and many sounds in this song will show how worthy these babies are.
Please, if there is anything else you want me to test, ask me, and I'll see what I can do.
One very important detail to note: With any normal earphones, even my UE700s which had a great seal, I would have to put my Zune HD volume at about 20 or above (max is 30, default is 14)... With the W2s, in any quiet environment I don't need to go above 15 to hear everything, and in a busy place (I take the train into work at peak times every day) I don't go above 18. These IEMs DO NOT need an AMP - Although you can notice differences if you use it through the computer.
For unbiased listening, I kept the volume at 16 throughout the testing on the ZuneHD
Teardrop - Massive Attack
As you know from this tune, the bass kicks in pretty much immediately... And WOW FUCK YES SHIT. This is incredible. It literally reverberates throughout your eardrum (or should I say brain?)... My head actually vibrates from the beggining of this song. The bass is snappy, yet not too intrusive. It's fast and it feels just perfect for the song.
As the other parts of the song start to come through, the W2s really shine, adding a warmth to the entire soundstage of the track. If I could, I could split every single part of the track in my head whilst listening to it. That is how detailed it sounds.
The vocals sound fantastic, clear and sharp, they tear through the bass - but you are still quietly thumping to it in the background. If I didn't know better, I would think that the woman is right here, singing. The highs are hit without any real difficulty here, as this isn't a song for that area, and the meds are hit with a warmth and clarity that I haven't heard anywhere else.
There is no muffling throughout the song, or humming (something which you can expect with some of the high end IEMs if you plug them in to an MP3). This song just sounds fantastic on the Zune.
Dayvan Cowboy
I'm gonna be very critical with this track, as I've never fully appreciated it with earphones in comparison with my Mordaunt Short Avianos....
The beginning of this track is subtle, but these earphones seem to grab your attention straight away with this... The little bells in the background just sound truly fantastic in the first 30 seconds -your brain buzzing with a lovely sound.
So far so good, I'm liking the sound of it, but the song hasn't yet reached it's peak, where the earphones must shine...
And yes, it kick in. 2 minutes in, we get the full glory and beauty of this track. The W2s seem to do a masterful job of meds on this, feeling very very warm and enjoyable. The bass could be a bit brighter, but I'm being incredibly picky here. The soundstage for these W2s is quite incredible - Not as good as the Sennheiser IE8s, granted, but they need at least 150 hours of burning in - and once the track is in its full glory, you aren't drowned by noise, but by pure music.
The W2s do a great job of handling this track, and the bass actually (I changed my mind, the bass at the start feels weak) is quite impressive once it kicks in. After a second listen, my favourite track ever can now be fully appreciated with earphones.
Fake Empire
Woweeeee...... The piano at the start just sounds brilliant - Much brighter than my UE700s.
This is where I'm astounded by the W2s.... Aaron Dessners voice just sounds truly beautiful on it. His deep voice just resonates through my brain with the clarity it deserves. These W2s don't hold back on anything, and once the track truly does kick in, you're engulfed by perfection. The lows, the meds and the highs are all hit with superb accuracy and warmth (note, that when I say warmth, this can be a good or a bad thing depending on what you like. These can be clinical earphones, but they tend to go on the warm side more than anything else) and it just feels... right.
More to come from the songs
Overall sound quality
The W2s have blown all of my expectations right out of the water. These things beat even the most of expensive of IEMs (comparing here to the bulky SE530s) and they just sound fantastic. The soundstage is great, the bass is superb (if a bit muffled at times, but that is to be expected by a dual armature driver) and the highs are truly beautiful. Vocals are clear and sharp and feel just right.
Can you listen to bassy music on these earphones and enjoy it? I say most definitely YES. Now, that there are better options? Well, yes, but far and few at this price range with a dual armature driver or a moving single armature. (Westone 3 for an extra £100)
These W2s put my UE700s to shame. Everything is just better. Bigger. Sweeter. It really is music to your brains. One thing that I absolutely love about the W2s is clarity in which drums are represented. They sound absolutely INCREDIBLE. I've never heard anything like these when it comes to drums.
Questions
Was the price worth it?
Fuck yes. Most definitely. You pay for pure brilliance. You pay for music that you've never truly heard before. These babies are worth every penny. I would have bought the W3s (£300) but the earphone casing is 30% larger, and could have been a problem for my ears.
Do I need a good headphone amp to enjoy these?
Surprisingly, no. The W2s pretty much hold their own on any media device and do a truly fantastic job of it. Do note that you will notice differences if you get a good headphone amp, but that is not to say that they don't sound truly fantastic as is. Many IEMs at this price range can sound a bit soft in MP3s without a dedicated amp, but these don't.
£180?! You crazy?
No. I like music, and I want to listen to it properly. £180 is a perfectly justified price for such earphones. Dual armature drivers are unbelievably complex to get right, especially the crossovers (because it's not a single driver to drive the lows,meds and highs, you require a perfect crossover for two drivers to replicate the highs (one driver) and meds and lows (other driver) properly) and the effort to create such an incredible piece of equipment... I say the price is justified. I'd happily pay £300 for the W3s if they were slightly smaller.
I realise that people don't have the money to spend it on such things, but if you really want to respect the music you listen to, you shouldn't be listening to it with any earphone under $100. Shure CEO and Ultimate Ears both agreed (can't find the comments at work) that earphones started getting good at $100 and anything below that fails. You can say all you want, but until you've taken a little listen to Klipsch X5s, Westone 1s, Ultimate Ears 700, Sennheiser IE7s... you cannot comment. I've been through enough earphones to say that I'll never pay anything less than £100 for a new pair (note I used $ above, that is because that is price where they get good, but only when they get fairly decent) and I'll never go back because I can't afford it. I'd rather not listen to music than listen to it with shit earphones.
Overall thoughts? Have £180? Buy them. Enough said. The competitors in this price range are Ortofon EQ-7 (too big and bulky it seems), Sennheiser IE8s (isolation problems), Klipsch Image X10s (haven't read anything bad about them), Etymotic ER4Ps... And going a bit higher you can get the UE Triple Fi Pros, Audio Technika CK10s, Monster Turbine Pro Gold, Grado GR8, Shure SE530 (do not recommend) and Westone 3s (or UM3Xs). The Westone UM2, UM1s are actually a downgrade from the True Fit 1 and 2s (the one I just reviewed) and I don't understand why they're still pricier... They are the old Westones, still fantastic, but get the new ones. Also, anybody who thinks that Skull Candy and Bose are acceptable is a tool.
Tried to make this as helpful as possible.
