Tag Archives: Initial Impressions

Focal Spirit One (mini review)

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Focal Spirit One headphones
Focal Spirit One headphones

Ini­tial Impres­sions:

Sound Iso­la­tion:
For portable head­phones, iso­la­tion is key and the Spirit One does a pretty good job as it has enough clamp­ing force.

Although the Spirit One is listed as a circum-aural (over ear) design, the cups are more supra-aural in that they’re small, cov­er­ing most of your ears (medium size), but not all.

Design and Con­struct:
The size of the Spirit One feels nice an com­pact and looks good when you put them on.  The head­phone cups don’t stick out when worn and the head­band is thin enough so that when you wear the head­phones, it won’t mess up your hair (this is impor­tant as you’ll be wear­ing them out).

Although in pic­ture and even in per­son, it looks like the head­phones are made of all alu­minum (chrome), they’re an amal­ga­ma­tion of alu­minum (outer part of head­band arms, mid­dle of the cups), rub­ber (head band and outer cups) and plas­tic. The head­phones feel very sturdy on and off. The ear pads are of syn­thetic leather. The fab­ric cord with remote con­trol is very nice — the cord is per­fect length for portable use.

Sound:
Most impor­tantly the Spirit One sounds just about right for a $279 head­phone.  I would char­ac­ter­ize the sound sig­na­ture as being neu­tral and balanced.

I think the highs are where the Spirit One shines.  The highs are clear, not as detailed as some full sized head­phones, but very good for portable head­phones.    Vocals sound alive and have clarity.

The upper mids to mids are smooth and well defined.

The lows are a bit on the thin side, but you get enough bass when the music calls for it.  How­ever, if you’re a bass head then the Spirit One won’t appease you.

Sound Stage is about where it should be for portable closed back head­phones.   I’d say above average.

The Ver­dict:
If you’re look­ing for a great mid-fi portable head­phone suit­able for most genre of music, then the Spirit is the “One” to look for.

Shure SRH1840 Initial Impressions

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Impres­sions so far:

After about 25 hours of burn in period — Com­pared to Sennheiser HD800, they’re not as dynamic sound­ing or as detailed and slightly less bass, but we’re talk­ing about half the price of an HD800 here.  Com­pared to AKG Q701s, the SRH 1840 has a more pro­nounced bass.

Very com­fort­able and feels light on your head (267g w/out cables).  Due to its size (smaller than HD800 or AKG Q701) and light weight, the SRH1840 doesn’t feel over­whelm­ing when worn.

more to fol­low soon…

Shure SRH1840
Shure SRH1840

Westone 1 Review

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Westone 1 with boxWest­one 1 w/ box

Ini­tial Impres­sions:
Try­ing on West­one 1 IEMs for the first time, I noticed an absence of bass but was drawn in by the  clar­ity of vocals and the extreme com­fort of wear­ing them.

The Sound: 8 / 10 
Like I men­tioned above, the West­one 1’s strong point is it’s upper mids to highs. The first thing you’ll notice when lis­ten­ing to the West­one 1 is how clear the vocals sound and the detailed sep­a­ra­tion of highs.  If you lis­ten to music and with a lot of vocals (e.g. clas­sic rock) or like acoustic songs, then you’ll enjoy these IEMs.  The West­one 1 does an ade­quate job of rep­re­sent­ing the lower mids to bass.  The bass was never muddy or dis­torted, songs sounded crisp and tight.  But what was lack­ing was that kick or oomph to the music.   I couldn’t “feel” the drum­ming beats or the thump­ing sound of the bass.  My yearn­ing for more bass might be a bias towards Shure SE 215’s sound sig­na­ture (pro­nounced bass) though.   How­ever, stacked up against SE 215 in tre­ble, West­one 1 is the “clear” win­ner.  I’d say the West­one 1 has bet­ter highs than even Klip­sch Image S4. Finally, I sel­dom talk about sound stage for IEMs, but while I was run­ning a com­par­i­son of the afore­men­tioned SE 215 and Image S4 to West­one 1, I noticed that the West­one 1 had pretty good sound stage (for IEMs).  There was a bit of airi­ness and open­ness to the songs not appar­ent in SE 215 and Image S4.

Westone 1 and nanoWest­one 1 and nano

The Looks: 9 / 10
The West­one 1’s design is a pleas­ant and mod­ern rep­re­sen­ta­tion of IEMs on the cur­rent mar­ket.  And the imprinted graphic logo of “1” using green as an out­line, gives the lac­quer black IEMs an edgy feel.  Plus, the inter­twined cables also give it a seri­ous and sophis­ti­cated look to the over­all look of the design.  Finally, the low pro­file right angled jack sits nicely to an mp3 player when plugged in (the jack doesn’t pro­trude out).

Westone 1 worn on left earWest­one 1 worn on left ear

Func­tion: 9 / 10
The West­one 1 feels a bit cheap when you han­dle it for the first time as it’s light, but the defi­ciency of it’s mass is a plus when you have them on. The IEMs are very com­fort­able to wear and the com­ply foam tips give proper seal, pro­vid­ing no dis­com­fort inside your ears. This is an impor­tant point for some peo­ple with sen­si­tive ears or for those who feel that stick­ing some­thing in their ears feels for­eign.  For those using an iPhone or mp3 player with a case that has a small open­ing, the smaller, low pro­file jack fits per­fectly. (unlike the cur­rent Shure SE line).  Speak­ing of cables, they pro­vide great pro­tec­tion against micro phon­ics and doesn’t tan­gle up eas­ily.   The West­one 1 is great for work­ing out, com­mut­ing, and for any activ­i­ties you want sound isolation.

Westone 1 low profile right angled jackWest­one 1 low pro­file right angled jack

Boom for your Buck Rating: 7.5 / 10
As the West­one 1 is around $20 more than SE 215 or Image S4. They’re not the best in Boom for your Buck Rating.

Total: 33.5 / 40
If you have sen­si­tive ears, demand com­fort, and inclined towards music with good vocals and upper mids to highs, then the West­one 1 will be a good choice for you.

Pros: low pro­file right angled jack, com­fort­able com­ply foam tips, clar­ity of highs

Cons: costs more than it’s com­peti­tors, grey foam tips change colour (yel­low­ish), requires extra effort to dis­tin­guish between right and left drivers