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.
Sound Signature:
As always the most important part of any earphone review is the sound signature.
Going through a number of tip options for isolation and ergonomic preference, I finally settled on the wide medium foam tips. These felt soft and comfortable, making the earphones presence feel almost weightless.
These are an excellent choice for long listening sessions.
After the suspense of the arduous burn in wait, I use 250 hours as standard burn-in duration, I got to experience ‘the joy of first listen’. This is a particularly special moment when trying new items, always filled with hopes and fears, The W80 earphones did not disappoint .
Westone spent extra attention ensuring that both left and right shells were matched to extremely tight tolerance levels of +/- 2db. This is a much more precise tuning calibration than many other top tier earphones.
I think this plays a significant role in the level of sound immersion experienced when listening to these high end earphones, these sound so well balanced and engaging. This resulted in my listening sessions being some of the longest in recent times, as it is easy to get lost in the music due to the well balanced cohesion of the frequency ranges. In fact my initial listening session only ended when I looked up to see my wife standing in the doorway, arms folded, look a little annoyed due to me losing track of time.
So how does it perform across the full spectrum of audio frequencies.
The soundstage is something quite impressive, you don’t get the classic ‘out of head experience’ but what you do get is a very musical wideness and enveloping of musical depth, adding to the magic of these earphones. I’m not sure how they achieved this effect but it is a very welcoming characteristic, fully adding to the signature cohesion. Live high resolution recordings take full advantage of this, giving a feeling of excellent instrument positioning around your head and ears.
Bass is always a difficult aspect to get correct with any earphone, too much and the signature is bloated and lacks clarity. Too little and everything will lose its energy and sound lacking. I am pleased to say that Westone have got this aspect spot on, with no blurring, tight resolution, full texturing and excellent extension from the low regions up to the edge of the mids. The W80s work very well with all the tracks I listened too. When putting these to the test with fast paced dynamic tracks, these excel. The music is not overshadowed and the dual bass drivers effortlessly navigate even very complex energetic tracks. As always tip selection is extremely important but I’m sure the comprehensive range of tips supplied will be more than suitable for most of us to get an excellent seal.
Vocals are natural sounding, portraying the emotion of the singers accurately, with a close intimate personal feeling. The airy spaciousness helps with the live feel on well mastered recordings, excellent for the Jazz fans out there.
The quality of the mid range is rounded and strong especially in the upper regions. The signature does have a slight airy characteristic but still holds its depth and texturing. Mids are not overly dominant or coloured, they provide the correct amount of warmth and roundness to the overall signature. The upper mids push just enough being careful not to bleed beyond their allocated spectrum range. I am finding it hard to find signature fault with these so far, the Westone w80 earphones are so very well tuned.
Instrument separation/layering is clear and again maintaining harmony and cohesion across the ranges.
Treble is detailed and precise but never sounding clinical. I experienced no coarseness or sharpness. Rendition is accurate and tight with quick acurrate decay, handling fast percussive tracks expertly. The clarity is precise and in no way analytical, musicality is abundantly present.
Comparing the Westone W80 earphones to the W60 previous flagship – A/B testing between them shows the W80s have an overall larger more refined level of coherence. The W80s have a snappier tighter more polished up feel especially in terms of upper range and soundstage regions. I am surprised that Westone were able to surpass the quality of the W60s but they have somehow managed too.
Conclusion:
Karl Cartwright stated:
‘The quality of the sound is the most important consideration. Without that first priority met, no other consideration is relevant’
We at earphonia.com certainly feel the first priority has been met and the Westone W80 earphones have such a wide repertoire. They have a very refined harmonic musical signature which is non-fatiguing and well detailed. The Westone engineers really have produced a well tuned earphone, I suspect this flagship will remain for a long time on the summit on their excellent in-ear product range.
I have no reservations recommending this Musical Reference Enigma by Westone – the W80 flagship earphone.
