Hi Everyone,
A while back I read a few posts from some folks who claimed to have modified the Shure PA910 tips (aka black olives) so that they could be used on Ultimate Ears' universal fit IEMs. Well, curiousity finally got the better of me and I ordered a pack of olives from IdealSound on eBay so I could give them a try. About a week later, they arrived and I started trying to figure out exactly how I was going to go about getting these Shure tips to work with my Triple.Fi's.

I had read from the other posts that all you had to do was "stretch" the Shure tips out (with an awl or something similar) and you could get them to fit onto the UE snout....I had absolutely no luck with this method.

So, my alternative was to try to remove the inner plastic tube from the PA910's so that I could put the olives directly onto the end of my triple.fi's. This also proved easier said than done. In the end, I wound up using a straight pin (a needle would also work) to separate the plastic tube from the foam. Its hard to describe the exact technique, but just imagine pushing the needle into the tip repeatedly, trying to keep the needle in constant contact with the plastic tube. If you keep pushing the pin into the PA910 over and over and make it all the way around the plastic tube, you will eventually separate the foam from the plastic enough so that you can remove the plastic tube without destroying the foam part of the tip. Here is a picture of the result.



Success at last! So I put the tips onto my triple.fi's and gave them a try. They sounded really bad...completely muffled. I took them out and instantly saw what was going on; the foam on the end of the tip stuck out way farther than the end of the UE snout (see picture above). So, I pushed the tips literally as far onto the snouts as I could and this solved the problem...they sounded very nice. Here are pics with the olives properly installed.


The black olives sounded really good, but I honestly expected them to isolate more; they really gave no more isolation than the single flange silicone tips that I had been using before. So that got me to thinking...I have always been facinated with custom fitted IEM's (although I have never had a pair). I've always wanted to try custom tips for my triple.fi's, but I have never wanted to cough up the $125 and chance that they might not turn out as expected. I believe that I have found the next best thing..."Mack's® Pillow Soft® Silicone Earplugs" ($2.99 at your local drugstore). Thats right, I made my own custom tips by molding silicone earplugs onto the snouts of my phones... and they sound amazing. So, if you want to hear the absolute best out of your universal IEM's, give this a try. It's not very convienient, but if you know you are going to have an uninterupted listening session, its worth it. The key to getting this right is to not use too much material when making your custom tip; I have found that 1/4 of an earplug is just about right. Just take the 1/4 earplug and mold it into a ball and then roll it between your fingers to form a "snake" thats about 1.5 inches long. The simply wrap it around the snout of your IEM like so:

Before inserting into your ear, it also helps if you mold the material into a slight cone shape; just be careful not to let any of the silicone get on top of the snout...or else you'll clog up your phones when you try to insert them. When inserting your IEMs, use gentle steady pressure and the silicone will mold to your ears very easily. After your listening session, the mold will look something like this:

If you are careful, you can use the same mold a few times before you have to pull it off and start over again.

During my experimenting, I also tried doing this with silly putty - which didnt work too great; after being exposed to the body heat in your ear canal, it started to break down and was a little hard to remove. The silicone earplugs do not have this problem and I have yet to have any portion of the silicone get left behind in my ear. Try this at your own risk. I cannot be held responsible for gumming up your IEMs with silicone or getting something stuck in your ear canal.

i am going to try the olives one, pushign the tubing out, i jus got some super fis so would love to get my olives working with em, will let you know how it goes!

first try: no success, tryn a pin to seperate tube from foam and not working, dont wanna damage the foam. i wanna try the expanding the tube method, any ideas?

second try: put tip on a headphone jack, and work on it like that. use the pin to pry apart the foam from tube and jus go around once in a circle and use ur findernails to sperate, and continue, after a few goes u can just peel it off.

Instead of a needle you could also use a really small pair of scissors. That's what I used by simply cutting around the tube bit by bit until it fell out.

They sound pretty good on my CK7, but the isolation still isn't where I would like, though it's still much better than the stock tips.

I still prefer the biflange as the olives dont stay on the best since their a bit demented now. THey are much more comfortable, But i have afear it will get stuck in my ear!

It helps to have a tube from a UE foamie lying around. Simply remove the stock tube from the olive, then insert the UE foamie tube. The olive seems to stick to the UE tube fairly well and it didn't leave the olive stuck in my ear when I took the earphone out.

How's the isolation with the custom tips?

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Its unbelievable. Nothing but the music.

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here's the pics!

Okay I broke down and tried the custom tips today. The isolation is okay. I found it to be no better than the dual-flange tips, and it seemed to make the music sound hollow. The only upside was the comfort. I couldn't even tell that they were in my ears. But all in all I think I'll stick with the dual-flanges.

goes to show you that procrastination is bad

i actually wrote a guide on how to use shure foamies with triple.fi and some other phones but never got around to posting it...

anywho, i experimented with taking the tube out and the easiest way is to scrape it out.

here's a quote:

"Start with the flat part; pull the foam back and scrape at the glue on tube with a sharp knife or some other blade you have handy. Keep repeating all the way around the tube while rolling the foam back. A little tip - warm the olives up in your hands before you start - the glue will come off easier."

hope it helps a bit.