Westone Audio Mach Series Review
Mach Series
$299-1599
Pros
- 8 Models to suit all price brackets and sound styles
- Beautiful high quality design and build
- Solid range of tuning and high grade audiophile level signatures
Cons
- T2 Cable people may take time to get used to
- No wireless connections supplied in the series
Westone Audio Mach 40
Balanced and smooth is the best way to describe MACH 40’s soundstage, perfect for anyone seeking an extremely even listening experience.
The MACH 40 features a proprietary four-driver system with dual lows, single mid, and single high and a 3-way passive crossover.
Retail price: $599.99
The Tech specs are:
3-way Passive Crossover
DRIVERS: Four Balanced-Armature Drivers
FREQ RESPONSE: 10Hz – 20kHz
SENSITIVITY: 100dB @1kHz
IMPEDANCE: 30 Ohms @1kHz
Asking the engineers about their thoughts on the Mach 40 model:
The Mach 40 is has a neutral bass response with a smoother high end. It’s likely to appeal to a listener that finds many earphones fatiguing.
The Mach 40 with its quad driver configuration gives a smooth, expansive well ranged experience suited to all musical styles with a focus on staging. The W40 has always been a goto IEM of past times and the Mach 40 is certainly of the same vein.
Anything you throw at it doesn’t seem out of place, the Mach 40 can keep up and do justice to the myriad of musical styles. Even the number 4 resonates a symmetry of balance and the Mach 40 stays true and keeps everything in balance.
None of the drivers are fighting for front stage, each with an equal weighted range of coverage, giving a uniform coherence to the frequency range, like a co-ordinated warrior alliance.
The drivers moving as one, like a well trained army, occasionally 1 or 2 stepping back to let the others take charge with their unique fortitudes, but consistency and balance is the attack strategy that works well for these mini fighters.
Smooth, but not in a coloured or heavy style, more like a drizzle of honey expertly cast to give a touch of warmth. Just the right amount of uniform tuning to get accurate tonality and musical experience.
Upper region smoothing results in much longer listening sessions, you find yourself losing all sense of time and being fully immersed in the listening experience with no strain or fatiguing, what a pleasure these are.
The 4 Balanced Armature configuration drifts into a warm territory which results in a more casual non fatiguing style, this to me is a positive aspect meaning you can get out of bed and not even think about whether of not you need to be careful with you pairing selection.
You can just grab the Mach 40’s and grab your goto DAP and just go, knowing you will be greeted with a satisfying musical experience.
However a little bit of extra power to drive these will add that extra level of pleasure to get the most from the recordings.
Giving more source power will help to raise all the separation definition and staging expansion, pushing just enough to make the listening session that tad more effortless.
The Mach 40 has a lot to offer and being the Mid tier entry level IEM in the Mach series, you cant go wrong with this capable earphone.
