UM1 - ArniesAirsoft - Review Archive

Author

The End

Blue!Blue! Blue!

Registered: November 2004
Location: In the hearts and minds of the people.
Posts: 603

Review Date: 30/3/07

Would you recommend the product? Yes | Price you paid?: None indicated | Rating: 5

Positive aspects of the product (pros):	Comfortable, ear pieces mold easily
Cons:	cables feel cheap.

This review is by the same person who reviewed th Shure E2cs.

Intro-

While having my shure E2cs for about a year, they finally broke (the cord fell apart, manufacture defect), I decideded to find a new pair of headphones to replace them. My Shures were IEMs (In Ear Monitors) which are earphones that fit into your ear canal. The purpose is to effectivly block sound out, while providing crisp clean sound. For those of you who are wondering, why would anyone spend over $100 for earphones, the answer is simple: sound quality. These earphones aren't your simple "Ipod headphones". They feature a whole lot of stuff cramed into the earphones ("dynamic drives" "armature balancers") which translates into a excellent sound experiance. When I first used my Shure E2cs, the sound quality was so great that I had re-listen to some of my songs. But enough of my rambling, on to the review.

The product-
I purchased these IEMS from earphonesolutions.com, which offers a high selection of quality IEMs. I want to try something new, so I ventured into the Westone UM1s. The UM1s are the cheapest of the Westone IEMs, the other is around $299. Anyhow after some researching from places like Cnet.com, i figured I'd give these IEMs a try. Upon receiving the package, its a small package. The IEMs comes with a traveling case, 2 types of ear molds (long/small), a ear wax pick (for the eventual build up in the IEMs), and a pamphlet. I noticed that earphone solutions stated that with most new headphones, that there was a "12hr burn in time", which essentially meant i would have to break them in.

Fit/Sound

One thing I noticed when inserting the foams into my ears was how easy it was. The UM1s are alot more comfortable and easier to insert compared to my E2cs. The UM1's cord however, felt cheap to me. It was braded which was good, however it was very thin and felt kind of fragile to me. But onto the sound. My MP3 player used for the test is a Creative Zen Vision M, set on rock equalizer, smart volume enabled, as well as the bass boost turned on. The sound from these IEMs are very neutral, which is good nad bad. Certain songs sounded very clear, while others were somewhat muted or not sharp as compared to my E2cs, a disappointment to me.

Conclusion-

I don't know whethor or not I was expecting too much from these IEMs based on the glowing reviews i had read about. But in the end I was not happy with them. I decided to return them and get a pair of Shure E4cs (which I will review when I get them). The sound quality was ok, though not as crisp as my old E2cs. So are these the right IEMs for you? Well compared to the Shure E2cs it may be. If you are into neutral, very pedistrian IEMs, then yes they are good. However, these IEMS are in no way horrible when it came to sound quality. They are still better than the stock ipod headphones. I just really didn't get a chance to warm up to these I guess.

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"If you want to know the truth, you must have the courage to accept it."

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[quote name='transist' post='1714566' date='Mar 15 2008, 12:51 AM']Did you even read the article?
He buried himself alive in sand trying to recreate something he saw on TV. Try to tell me that it is not hilariously stupid.[/quote]