GPH

Damnit, you put the words in my mouth. I wish I'd have that kind of skills in English to talk about sound. I think you're right, it's not so much that the mids are recessed (well, they're a bit recessed), but more the fact that they severely lack clarity and the transition between upper bass and lower mids is poorly done.

Thanks for sharing your impressions catscratch, they concur with what I'm hearing. What do you think of the vocals presentation? That's the main reason why I finally decided to sell the W3, I think the reproduction of human voice is not natural at all and there's not enough emphasis put on the mids in general for my tastes. I'd even say the mids are pretty recessed compared to what I'm used to and it really hurts my enjoyment of these phones.

I think some of my previous comments in this thread were a little bit harsh because I was expecting way more than what they can do. I've been out of the IEM "game" for some time and most of my recent headphone encounters were with high-end full-size cans so perhaps my expectations were placed too high. My previous observations are still true, but I have to admit I'm starting to like these phones and decided not to sell them too fast. I've been using them a little bit more tonight in a crowded environment and I have to say they do a good job of making me enjoy my music on the road. For home listening, I maintain that the bass is overkill, but it works well for noisy places. Also, I kind of like the fact that everything sounds good with the W3 compared to my Etys which make half of my collection sound like garbage. I'd say these two IEMs are polar opposites in the way they present music, one is all about detail and relative accuracy and the other is all about musicality and fun.

BTW, is it just me or HeadphoneAddict is the biggest FOTM starter I've ever seen on Head-fi? He makes dedicated threads for his reviews, most of time with big capital letters in the title and he always seem super positive about everything. A lot of burn-in talk also in his reviews and it seems like a lot of people take his word for granted, though that's not his fault. He seems like a friendly guy, but I hate the fact that a lot of people follow blindly his advice because I've been hearing very different things about some of the headphones that he reviewed (Markl Denon D5000 and Westone 3 come to my mind).

After a day of having them and with the new toy factor wearing out, I have to say I'm not very impressed with these IEMs. I've tried all the tips provided, plus the Shure olives, and I notice differences between all of them, but the characteristics of the W3 that I don't like stay there. Here's what I dislike: - Way too much bass. Also, the bass is not so tight and it overpowers the lower mids. - There's a very noticeable veil on the vocals that gives an artifical tone to the voices. Overall, I'd say the mids are more on the recessed side of things, inserting unnatural smoothness in the sound signature. - The highs are rolled off and remind me of why I didn't like the Shure E500. It's better with some tips than others (Shure black olives and clear silicon tips), but the Etys simply slaughters the W3 in this region. - While the W3 provides a smooth and musical presentation, it's pretty bad for resolving low-level details. On fast musical passages, it blurries the notes and I don't get as much definition as I want. The good things with the W3 is that they sound very musical and the bass is good for listening to classical music and jazz or any record that sounds thin. The sound is a lot less fatiguing than most of the IEMs I've tried. It's also very comfortable and low profile compared to the Etys. With a price tag 5x higher than what I paid for my Etys, I'm going to sell them before the FOTM stops. I'm very disappointed, I was expecting a sound signature in the vein of the ER4S, but with a good bottom, and what we got is very far from that. The W3 smooths out things too much in order to provide a big and non-fatiguing sound and offer a sound that is far from what I consider "natural". I'm going to post this message on H-F once the W3 will be sold.

Just posted this on H-F: After an hour and a half or so of listening, I have to say the W3 are very interesting IEMs and they have a lot of potential. Physically, the W3 are very small and light and they are incredibly comfortable. I've been playing a bit with the tips and so far the medium Comply tips are those that fit me best. I was accoustumed to the Shure Olive tips with the Etymotic ER4S, but they don't fit the W3 very well because they are not long enough and don't provide a good fit like on the Etys. I tried the triflanges, but for some reason they sucked out some of the mids so I went back to the Complys and I'm very happy with the comfort that I get. I'm a little bit worried about the long term durability of these tips, they seem pretty fragile and I don't feel like buying new tips every month, but we'll see how it goes. The W3 pick up some hiss from the iPod when no music is playing, but it's not a big deal for me. I don't have a portable amp at the moment (well, if you don't consider a bag full of pieces for a Mini3 that I'm too lazy to build ) so perhaps this can cure the problem. My first impressions after plugging them straight into my Ipod Touch 2G was that they don't have the "wow factor" that many headphones have. That's not a bad thing, because my favorite headphones ended up being those that didn't impress me at first: Stax Omega 2 and Sennheiser HD600. Like these two fine headphones, the W3 has a balanced sound across the spectrum and no frequency really stands out which is the key for good non-fatiguing listening. To be fair, the highs are slightly rolled off compared to most full-size cans and speakers, but that's been the case with every balanced armature IEM I've tried (Shure E4 and E500, AL iM716, UE Super.fi 5 Pro) except for the Etymotic ER4P/S which on the other hand is slightly too bright and a little bit harsh on top. I have not listened enough yet to review the sound in detail, but I have to say that I'm very impressed so far with how they handle classical music. I've been disappointed with many headphones and IEMs in the past for listening to symphonies and the W3 seems to do the job very well, giving a "round" sound and not sounding too harsh while providing good dynamics. I'll post more impressions later...

My gift CD is ready to ship. I want to give my Christmas exchange partner a taste of good Quebec music... NOT!

I ordered a pair last week and should receive them probably on Monday or Tuesday. I'll post some impressions once I'll have given them a good listen, but there should be many fanboys posting minute-by-minute impressions on H-F so you might want to check that.

Hehehe, I was just kidding, it certainly won't take 3 years, but I also have a hard time believing it will only take 4 weeks considering his reputation. Anyway, I think you still have the other very nice SP amp that you brought at the Mtl meet to keep you warm while waiting.

Happy birthday!

FTFY

Happy birthday!

Well, you can filter your searches by word. This works for all sites where RSS is enabled. For other sites like Audiogon, I don't know of any system that monitors activity and filters by word, but I'd be really interested if it exists.

There are many apps that do this, but personally I use Google Reader which is web-based. If you're using Firefox, on some pages where RSS feed is available, you should have a small icon like the one on the left here: Click on that and it will give you the address of the RSS feed. Put that address in Google Reader and you're done.

RSS is what you're looking for.

I hope so, the long delay was certainly not the smartest move they could have made commercially. Did they ever tell the reason of the delay? I'll try to write some impressions here when I get them to contrast all the "OMFG, I just got Westonez 1111!!!!11!" that will no doubt happen on Head-fi.

Just placed an order for the Westone 3, I have a hunch they'll be good. If not, I'll sell them with a small loss before the FOTM wears out.

Happy birthday! Canadians rock.

Someone should change the OP's custom title to "Generous Fucktard" instead of "Sanctimonius Fucktard". No need to send money btw.

I'm in. I don't think you should match people by country though, shipping a CD from USA to Canada is about 1$ more than shipping into the US, so it won't break the bank. I say that because most people with good music taste here come from the USA.

I'm sorry for the confusion, it's a typographical error, I meant SRM-007tII all along. I've never heard the 727, only the 717 and for a very short time. The Cambridge puts out 120W per channel.

I think they were the original version, they looked very vintage, but I'm not 100% sure. Laurent (larryminator) used them to power his Quad ESL57 which were totally awesome speakers.

I can't talk about the O2Mk2 because I've never heard a pair, but I had the chance at a meet to compare briefly my O2Mk1 out of a SRM-007tII and out of a SRD-7 Pro using Quad II monoblocks. The music on both setups was fed by a shiny Shanling CD player that seemed to be a very decent source. The SRM-727 sounded way more polite than the SRD-7, making the sound less exciting. The level of details was excellent from what I remember, but I was put off by the unengaging sound. It reminded a bit of the SRM-T1S, in the sense that it sounds good, but doesn't get my foot tapping. Also, the volume of bass it provides isn't satifying enough considering what the O2 are capable of and the treble is too gentle. On the other end, the SRD-7 Pro setup sounded more in-your-face, very lush with slightly uncontrolled bass and rolled-off top end. It doesn't resolve the microdetails in the music which can be good for some genres, but it's well admitted that the transformer boxes are not the last word in term of resolution. The SRD-7 Pro/Mk2 really rocks with a good amp to say the least and I'm very happy with the SRD-7 Mk2/Cambridge 840A that I use right now. Also, from what I remember, the KGSS DX that I had sounded somewhere in between the SRM-727 and the SRD-7 Pro, taking the best of both worlds and adding a truckload of tight controlled bass and resolving the very little details in the music. It could be argued that its overall presentation is a bit sterile, but I liked it a lot, except for the cost.

Looks good, is that the UE11?

Happy birthday, have a good one!