After spending some time earlier this year with L&P’s P6 Pro, I was very intrigued when I heard about their latest dongle, the W4.
I’ve had the pleasure recently to spend a couple of week getting to know the Luxury & Precision W4, courtesy of
@bluestorm1992 and as ever
@Damz87 for organising the Tour!
One thing I thought I’d share up front is a bit about the music I listen to, as that does have an impact on what each of us may prioritise when assessing gear. I listen to quite a lot of classic/indie/alternative rock, EDM, electronic, hip-hop, folk/acoustic and singer/songwriter. For the purpose of this tour and a few others going around the same time I put together a playlist of a lot of recent faves from 2023, as well as a couple of re-discoveries:
https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/a64379ac-1831-43a8-b23e-2877c9309f51
Packaging of the W4 is simple and elegant, a sturdy box contains the dongle itself and several adapters for USBC, USBA, and Lightning. There is a case available as well, and I suppose if you use the dongle with another device stashed in a pocket you’d want this to protect the lovely finish.
Using W4 is a simple matter of plugging in your IEM’s 3.5mm or 4.4mm jack on one end, whichever USB adapter suits your source in the other end, and pressing play. Or that’s the theory anyway. I couldn’t get any sound with my iPhone 13 Pro, nor my wife’s iPhone 13. I believe this was a known issue with this particular tour unit, and another member had kindly sent along an Apple Camera Connection Kit to use as well with the intent on ensuring iPhone is getting enough power at the same time as connecting to the W4. Unfortunately this didn’t work for me either. I did try it later with 2 of my kids’ iPhone 12’s and it worked fine, so iPhone usage with W4 seems to be a bit of a lottery. Moving on to USB-C on my iPad Pro, it too did not make any sound when I plugged in the W4 and pressed play in Tidal. BUT, I then tried playing music first and THEN plugging in the W4, which for whatever reason was then recognised by the iPad and I got sound. (Tried this same trick with iPhone 13’s but it was still no go) All of this is very odd to me, and I’m still not 100% convinced of Luxury & Precision’s iOS integration, as I experienced similar weirdness with the older W2. For that matter, I’ve seen a few reports here on Head-Fi of Android users having similar issues with specific chipsets as well. The good news is that I had no issues using W4 with my MacBook Pro, which I then used for the remainder of my impressions.
And the rest really is all a good news story, because after all of my listening tests back and forth, I can say that for IEM usage at least the W4 holds its own very well against my (not TOTL) DAPs & desktop DAC & amps. In most cases the differences come down to the synergy between the source and transducer, and which is “better” is mostly a matter of preference. And while my own first preference would generally be for the warmer, smoother R2R sound of the HiBy RS6 or Schiit Bifrost2, the W4 as a second preference definitely bears consideration, and is not far behind at all. I hear W4 to be fairly close to neutral, with a nice organic tone and little of its own warmth. I really liked the technical performance of such a small device, I thought stage size and 3D shape was excellent, and detail retrieval was also great.
As I said, I focussed a lot on synergy between the W4 and various of my gear, here's what I found:
FiR Xe6 (silver module). This is an excellent listen, the lean/clean “correctness” of the W4 pairs very well with the warm richness of the Xe6. The RS6 stock tuning is just a little bit “looser” than the W4, which I find perfectly acceptable most of the time, but I’m sure others would find way over the top. This was the pairing that really got me thinking about adding the W4 or something similar to my source collection.
64Audio A12t. A lean, clean relatively neutral source like the W4 with a neutral IEM like the 12t could very much be what some purists are after. And while it sounds great with the 12t’s legendary large 3D stage presentation and dynamics largely intact, I think in this case a warmer bassy-er source like the HiBy RS6 or the desktop Bifrost2/Jotunheim2 is better suited to the 12t to add a bit of ‘fun’ factor.
Campfire Andromeda 2020. The higher output impedance of the W4 vs the HiBy RS6 and my desktop amps is very obvious with the highly source-sensitive Andromeda. If you are looking for more of a ‘purist’ approach, and want to really appreciate the lightness and delicacy of Andromeda, W4 does this very well. But it lacks heft and weight in the lower frequencies, which is already a weakness of the Andromeda, so for genres like EDM, hip-hop and anything else requiring bass presence, the W4 doesn’t really cut it, whereas the RS6 is a significant upgrade.
Meze Empyrean. While not hard to drive, the planar-magnetic Empyrean really does scale well with more juice, so I thought I’d check out just how much performance can be had from the W4. Turns out it’s decent, but really only “ok” when compared to the RS6 and especially a full desktop amp like the Schiit Jotunheim2. The W4 just doesn’t have the juice to provide low-end heft and dynamics, which pushes higher-frequencies a little too forward. A track like Wednesday’s “Chosen To Deserve” really highlights this; on the W4 the stage feels flat, all of the guitars come across in a wall of sound with a touch of edginess bordering on sibilance in those aggressive power chords. Plug the Empyrean into the Jot and all of a sudden you can very clearly hear each guitar part with zero glare or harshness, a much more pleasing listen.
I’ve been a bit on the fence when it comes to dongles up to now, and the following are questions I asked myself during the time I had the W4:
Do I need a fancy $450 dongle like the W4 if I’ve already got a $9 Apple Dongle?
While it could be argued whether anyone “needs” any of the fancy toys we play with in this hobby, I can say unequivocally that the W4 offers a significantly better listening experience than the humble Apple Dongle. Once you hear the Apple Dongle's glary-ness, and small soundstage, it's impossible to un-hear it vs the W4. The only advantage the Apple Dongle has is that it works 100% of the time with my phone.
Do I need a W4 to use with my laptop? Or is a desktop rig better?
For IEM use, the W4 is an outstanding companion with a laptop, and I could see myself getting one just for this purpose going in to work, or if I’m out and around. But if I’m at my desk at home, I’d choose the desktop rig each and every time, especially with headphones.
Can W4 replace my DAP?
This is a tricky one, as I didn’t really get to spend any time out and around with just my phone and the W4. But I suspect the ergonomics of having the W4 ‘stacked’ with my phone in my pocket would be a bit less than ideal compared to the standalone nature of a DAP. On the SQ front however, the W4 compares very favourably vs a mid-range DAP like my HiBy RS6, and is a nice upgrade over an entry-level one like the SR25.
My takeaway from spending a couple of weeks with the W4 is that dongles have come a long way, and I can see how they are a great solution for a lot of people. I’m not quite sure I have enough of a use case to get one myself just now, but I’ll be intrigued to see how this segment of the market continues to progress.
Well done L&P on the W4!
, is on special and so closer to the W4 in price, but obviously less portable. I hooked both into my Schiit Sys so I could closely compare. The Mojo 2 shades the W4 slightly. Tonally, they are quite similar, the W4 treble is a hair smoother than the Mojo. The Mojo is just a touch more resolving. It’s very close though. If you wanted a more portable option than the Mojo, this would be an excellent choice.weary
