Westone Audio MACH Series In-Ear Monitors Overview

[VSG]

Westone Audio introduces a brand new line of in-ear monitors targeting music professionals and end users alike. Today we examine the entire MACH Series starting from the $300 1-BA driver MACH 10 all the way up to the reference class $1600 MACH 80 8-BA flagship to see how they differ from each other and what they can offer to you.

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[SOAREVERSOR]

Pro IEMs aren't for everyone and the price, build, tuning, all reflects that. They are sort of hard to recommend.

Westone actually shares DNA with Ultimate Ears and JH Audio. Harvey created UE and JH but they contracted Westone to make them. FWIW these brands are used by Van Halen, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rolling Stones, Faith HIll, Enrique Englasias. It's sort of hard to argue with that. The other brand Westone shares DNA with is Etymotic as you mentioned who started off as a hearing aid company and is used by bands like U2 for mastering. Again, hard to argue with it.

While I don't normally advise pro grade gear (it's silly expensive, it's harsh, and for most people it's just stupid) it's very hard to argue that you aren't getting what you pay for with Etymotic, Westone, Shure, JH, or UE. You're just going to pay a lot for it. They don't push consumer prices because they are very much not consumer brands. People use these to make money, and in that case it pays for itself rapidly.

 

[VSG]

Pro IEMs aren't for everyone and the price, build, tuning, all reflects that. They are sort of hard to recommend.

Westone actually shares DNA with Ultimate Ears and JH Audio. Harvey created UE and JH but they contracted Westone to make them. FWIW these brands are used by Van Halen, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rolling Stones, Faith HIll, Enrique Englasias. It's sort of hard to argue with that. The other brand Westone shares DNA with is Etymotic as you mentioned who started off as a hearing aid company and is used by bands like U2 for mastering. Again, hard to argue with it.

While I don't normally advise pro grade gear (it's silly expensive, it's harsh, and for most people it's just stupid) it's very hard to argue that you aren't getting what you pay for with Etymotic, Westone, Shure, JH, or UE. You're just going to pay a lot for it. They don't push consumer prices because they are very much not consumer brands. People use these to make money, and in that case it pays for itself rapidly.

Thank you for providing this additional context!

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

Thank you for providing this additional context!

Welcome! I got into the IEM game well before ChiFi when it was just pro shit so I'm not unfamiliar with them. Back then it was pro or bust. The "cheap" option was always the Etymotic ER-4 that spiked in at 300 and remains the reference item despite hitting in the late 80s, they started with hearing aids and they don't faff about. Shure, and then the entire UE, JH, Westone crap came later. All of these are going to sound harsh as fuck to most people and bring out all the flaws in their silly apple music stuff and sound like ass. Though they all remain a solid "you'll get your dollars worth from it" sort of buy.

I don't mean this as offense but in a way once you cross into pro products you need to grasp what they are built to do. Westone is selling UIEMS and CIEMS to stage musicians and mastering artists. That's an odd market. They want to hear the flaws so they can clean it up and 1600+ for something you earn money off isn't crazy. So the ask, isn't crazy. Nor are people like that going to use some tuned ChiFi product.

What I'd look at is mastering stuff. I create sound effects for mods on my spare time and having a good set of mastering IEMs is a must. The raw detail retrevial and other stuff is worth the ask. But you don't need to break the bank, Etymotic still pumps out the ER-4 at 300 and much like the Blessing it manages to curb stomp units costing over 1k. Though you aren't going to like it. It hurts, it's harsh, it's not fun, but god damn if you can't hear and fix every microdetail.