Westone UM Pro 50 Review – Full, Honest, Natural Sound

Ultimately these earphones have a very neutral, balanced soundscape. We were thinking for the step up in the series we would get personal music listening utopia. Then we realised what we expected is more the domain of the W50 and W60 when it comes to listening to our iPhone. So let us explain what did make us fall in love with the UM Pro 50, because we did fall in love with them. 

1: UM Pro 50 Comfort

Like all IEM over the ear style in-ear monitors, it can take a little time to get used to how they sit best in your ear. Maybe this is just our issue as we review so many earphones from other companies like Shure etc.  Once we found our best angle we forgot they were there.

Using the default, short, medium foam tips we found the seal to be perfect and there was never slant pressure on the ear. They also have a comfortable semi-firm mould on the over the ear part of the cable.  

Westone UM Pro 50 Gallery

2: Sound Neutrality

We never got tired listening to the UM Pro 50s. They just served a full balanced sound song after song, album after album. We never felt fatigued or irritated by the presentation of the sound. No frequency became jarring or made us wince.

They were pleasant even after hours of listening.  

Now to the normal review criteria. …. 

Bass Notes

The UM Pro 50 has a much bigger bass profile than the UM Pro 30. We wouldn’t say that necessarily means they go a lot deeper but there is more of it, it’s wider and more filled out.

For live use as a musician these will make you feel a little more a part of emotional band experience as opposed to feeling stuck in a tin can be mixed by a fold-back engineer while you’re performing – that is if you use 2 IEM’s in your ears at the same time on stage.

For personal music listening, these represented well. We played everything we could and some recordings felt well suited, although they didn’t let us down on anything. The bass is not inflated, this is typical of the whole UM Pro range but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Skrillex, Six 60, Kimbra, Avicii – Addicted to You (which has an opening kick drop that hits hard), it all sounds tight but doesn’t have the nightclub fatness you might want and would be better getting from the W50 or W60 from Westone.

This balanced firm bass makes the earphones enjoyable and natural. All the bass you need and nothing you don’t. You never get tired or feel abused wearing these. If you’re on your own working you can get all the richness with mid volumes, if you are commuting you might find you give one more touch on the volume button to help overcome the background noise. 

Mid notes

Fabulous – neutral and clear, and a nice soundscape. Here again, Ed Sheeran’s X album felt so live we were almost there. Acoustic loveliness and vocal wonder. We loved them and you will too.  

As regular readers will know we love mids that bring true Snare sounds through – these do that. We found most Snare and High Hat sounds to be true to life which we like a lot. They also don’t push the sharpness of the mids, e.g. a hard snare hit, too hard.

This means long term listening is comfortable. 

High Notes (Treble)

We have a real love of high, crisp treble and often can be seen tweaking the EQ, or Parametric EQ to get more sssss ‘sibilance’ in the sounds.

The UM Pro 50 has a lovely high end but it’s not super over the top. The frequencies are balanced with the overall sound. This is another reason these things are so easy to wear all day long. 

PRAT (Pace, Rhythm and Timing)

The Pro 30’s are well balanced in-ear monitors. Sometimes that means you can lose some ‘life’ in the music, something Shure do well with. Overall though we would recommend these to anyone as they are anyone’s earphones.

They have PRAT, it’s good and some music will make you feel it more than other music. 

Emotional Quotient (EQ)

These will have you feeling the music. We haven’t cried yet or punched our fist to the sky but you will feel it where it gets you and that little grin will creep across your face.

Noise Isolation

Get a good seal with right foam tips and you’ll have no complaints about noise-isolation here. On a flight from Toronto to Vancouver these were so comfortable we didn’t bother swathing to our regular Bose QC15’s.

Didn’t feel the need and these were so easy to leave in after take-off. 

Build Quality

Nice – solid housing, the cable is great and it comes with the Westone mini-monitor vault which is a very good place to store your expensive in-ear monitors 

Accessories

• These come with a full range of foam tips.
• An EPIC cable with moulded over the ear bits (make them more comfortable).
• Mini-monitor Vault.
• Cleaning Tool. 

The cable is an MMCX Audio Cable so you can always swap this out for another cable if you prefer. See update below for Bluetooth cable options for these Westone Pro 50 and any other Westone or Shure units using MMCX connectors.

Westone UM Pro 50 Review Conclusion

 Overall, everything we pushed through these things was great. If anything the quality of these was as dependant as the music we put through them as much as it was on whether the UM Pro 50 could handle it.  

Jay Z sounded superb. Hard rock was good and heavier music equally fun. Simon and Garfunkel sounded fresh, yet classic. Ed Sheeran’s X was a great listen as there was a lot of upfront vocal and acoustic guitar. Skrillex sounded tight and deep – not like you were travelling in a VW GTi with the back seat dedicated to a subwoofer, it’s was balanced. Radiohead – Feral makes the snare sound real and the bass blues along the bottom nicely.  

We could go on and on.

Value for money? Yes – really well priced.

Also read: Best in-ear monitors Guide

Update – July 2019 – Bluetooth cable with MMCX connector

We’ve started to use these when running and have attached an affordable MMCX Bluetooth audio cable. There are a few options for this below that all have MMCX connectors so will fit the UM Pro 50 perfectly.

The benefit is great for connecting to our smartwatch when running so we don’t need to take our phone. They all have microphones and controls also.

• MEE Audio BTX2
• Shure RMCE-BT2 – this is the second generate cable for Shure. They have improved this from the first model which was fine, this is just better.
• Westone Bluetooth V2 Earphone & in-Ear Monitor Cable – like Shure, Westone launched a version one of this and improved it in version two. These are more expensive than the MEE BTX2 so sometimes the budget might dictate what you choose.
• BLON H2 – We tried the Blon H2 as an experiment and it’s still doing fine so we haven’t replaced it.

Westone UM Pro 50 FAQ

This post was last updated on 2024-12-05 / Some images from Amazon Product API & some links may be affiliate links which may earn us a commission from purchases.