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Originally Posted by pdupiano
 Come to think of it, I think the biggest part of making custom iems with cross overs may actually be the cross over moreso than which drivers you use. If you can find the right frequency cutoffs for each driver, and the right amount of cross over from one driver to the other, you may end up with the perfect mix. I can see that as being a major contributor to overall sound signature (not quality) and could potentially be the number one cost and differences say between the W3, UM3x, SE530, TFT Pro, etc... and of course the same should apply to even higher end iems.
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Whatever the case, I think it's time we took it to the next level. Being the little guy puts us at a capital disadvantage but our weakness is also our greatest virtue. A corporate product rollout is a very stiff thing. These guys have so much money dedicated to administrative costs, advertising, et cetera. They don't market what they can't mark-up. They build in vast quantities, according to regimented schedules, for a fixed release date. They don't like to update an existing product while they have stockpiles of it waiting to be sold to distributors. The need to maximize profitability is their bottleneck. A cottage-made IEM, made with quality materials, still has David's chance against Goliath.
This is an early version, which I had to resolder because I had too much extra wire. The in-the-tip design is great, because it puts the drivers right into your ears. The foamies are also good for attenuating wild treble before you apply filters. It's not a good design if you want to add a lot of drivers. Things get bulky fast, which is why we see so many ITE-style shells.
This is the CI-22955, a real workhorse driver capable of producing a wide range of frequencies, including quite decent bass. I was really impressed at how good these sounded, even before I started experimenting with filters.
These are the TWFKs, the tiny little dual drivers (the world's smallest duals). As you can see, these would fit quite easily into an eartip to create instant "dual drivers." A pair of them would also create an instant "quad."
Here's my first attempt at a triple, an in-the-ear triple. Without earshells to house the drivers, there's only so much room in the eartips. This first attempt at getting it all into the eartip was successful, and with the addition of an additional TWFK, I think it's also possible to up the ante to a "quint" (five-driver-setup). Beyond that, there just isn't enough space in the eartip to keep plugging in drivers, which is why I'm working on some plastic shells to house more drivers and some semblance of a crossover.
