Before I served up the main course, here is a mildly interesting new IEM 'series' made by an online radio company -
The Radiopaq Tuned Earphone. It really makes me wondering, has IEM became such a lucrative business that any company will jump into it in first sight? Nevertheless, the idea behinds tuning IEM is
not new, but creating four differently tuned IEM might not be that bright of an idea. Despite the fact that Radiopaq making claim that each tuned IEM can be used on different genre of music, the first thing that comes to my mind is, why bother with four choices when you can buy one from a competitor that claims to handle all type of music just well? Hmm.... could be a tough sale there.
Here is the real 'bomb' of last week - the announcement of Westone UM3X, a three-ways universal IEM. If you keep track on
IEM news, you'll know that Westone already released a similar IEM few months ago - the Westone 3. While Westone already has the
ES3X as their flagship custom fit IEM, we all assumed Westone 3
is their flagship universal IEM, I guess we are all wrong. The question is of course why Westone want to have two similar models of three-ways universal IEM that essentially compete with each other? I truly don't know. Westone has made it clear that UM3X is "using the same technology as our custom ES3X
*, the UM3X is the earpiece of choice for performers desiring high-end Westone sound quality in a universal-fit package" - I guess that means UM3X is tuned more for monitoring purpose instead of Westone 3 more musical approach. In any case, as Westone UM2 owner, I am much more interested in UM3X than Westone 3.
(*In case you didn't notice, UM3X and ES3X share identical spec)