Westone W80 – 8 Driver Earphones – The Musical Reference Enigma
Westone W80
$1499
Pros
- Very refined harmonic musical signature
- Detailed and immersive
- Great fit and excellent ALO Cable included
Cons
- May be out of some peoples price range - but then again this is a flagship product.
Build Quality and Fit
Westone earphones are always pretty small and it is amazing how they managed to cram so many drivers in such a small space.
Their fit is snug and secure. One of the best shell designs for my ear shape.
The shells are plastic again much like the others in the W series, I personally would have welcomed a more premium looking shell, metal or acrylic. However that said these seem pretty solid with an excellent smooth finish.
4 pairs of interchangeable plates are present for customisation. These are smaller than the W60 ones. I would have liked to see some new styles/materials for these also but this is probably me wanting the world again.
I have been advised that the fractures or breaks on the replacement covers that previously occurred with some of the batches of the other W Series models has been addressed. Which is excellent news as they look a little naked without their covers.
If you want a different build, I suspect Westone will release the CIEM ES80 equivalent, but thats just me speculating. I would certainly be interested.
The MMCX connector ports are very good quality, they are tight and have a strong secure fit.
Burn in
We use 250 hours as standard burn-in for all our cables and earphones. Fortunately we recently has the pleasure to obtain an interesting device from YY Pro Audio – the C2x Advanced Cable Run-in Machine. (impressions soon to be published)
We used this to break in the ALO 8 braid cable and the W80 earphones.
Digital Audio Player Pairings
We at earphonia.com have an extensive selection of digital audio players but for this review we will use the following 3 industry flagship players from Cowon, Astell & Kern and Sony.
Pairing with the Astell and Kern AK380 Copper player
No hiss at all, excellent synergy and very detailed articulate airy signature. Detailed and reference. Good Synergy.
Pairing with the newly released Sony NW-WM1Z digital audio high end player
No hiss, excellent dark background. Warm musical pairing, organic and natural with great energy. This pairing worked the best for us especially for high resolution recordings and was used for the rest of this review. The synergy is fantastic with these Westone earphones.
Pairing with the Cowon Plenue S player
Minor hiss, warm and detailed but slightly thick sounding on some tracks. Sounds somewhere in-between the Sony and the Astell player. Synergy not the best.
