After looking around for a wile I was surprised how many people were doing things to get 3% better sound like washing there pads with special soap, drilling holes in driver backs spending ludicrous amounts of money on gear just to plug it into an mp3 player and just about everything else short of standing on your head for 20 min before listening to your cans in your sound proof room. Although some of things things may work and some are more practical than others there is one very very practical and commonly overlooked thing that you can do at home for about 4 dollars that will always improve audio quality without exception wether your using cans or a 350thousand dollar hifi setup.
CLEAN YOUR EARS!
But first the back story about why I recommend this: As a small boy I reacted to the first shot that they give you as a baby and the resulting ear infection lasted over 2 years. After many doses of antibiotics (crazy strong and expensive ones) we were at the pharmacy when an old lady who worked there (a pharmacist) saw my mother and took her aside and told her something that got rid of my ear infection in 2 days, and it was cheap safe and painless.
Some of you may have guessed it by now but the secret is hydrogen peroxide! That's right the old lady told my mother that she used to use warm hydrogen peroxide in her children's ears to cure/prevent ear infections.
Heres what it dose and how to do it to improve audio quality.:
First get a bottle of regular diluted strength hydrogen peroxide from your local pharmacy, next take a capful and heat it to body temp or a little hotter (no hotter than 101 F I used my microwave for 4 seconds then test with my pinky) The heat is important because it makes this process work better as the warm peroxide melts some of the extra wax and dissolves it better in the solution. Then take this capful and lay on your side, now pour it into your ear (just one at a time) you will hear a gurgling crackling sound as it fizzes the decades of ear wax away from the inside of the ear this is normal and you should continue until you hear this sound all but stop. If necessary repeat this process on the same ear twice. Then roll onto your other side take a paper napkin and place it on the ear to catch all the draining wax peroxide mixture.
Here is what you are doing and what to expect: You are moving the ear wax that has built up over the past several years. After this is done the body will automatically produce more wax but for about 3 days you will want to keep your ears warm out side and wear earplugs at concerts and you will need to turn down your headphones some because it will be to loud.
HOW dose this improve audio quality? Essentially your ears should have a natural amount of dampening from ear wax. What happens in our modern noise saturated society is that your ears produce allot of wax to protect them from noise levels which are quite common. Also if you get into cold water on a regular basis you will have excessive amounts of wax. (as a note all cold water surfers or divers who like there ears should where a hood as well as Docs pro plugs to prevent surfers ear.) Now I am not going to say this is fact but ear buds of any type seem to stimulate the production of ear wax, this may be because the constant putting of things into your ears makes your ears react or the sound pressure makes your ears produce more wax.
PLEASE NOT THAT THIS IS NOT TO BE DONE ON A REGULAR BASIS JUST TO GET BETTER SOUND!, Myself I clean my ears with this method about every 9 Months to a year this is with heavy use in a moderate climate (SCUBA DIVING) it is possible you would want to do this more or less frequently depending on conditions. Doing this every day would be a bad idea if you don't have a serious ear infection.(buddy of mine had Larva growing in his ear peroxide would have helped prevent this but no more than vodka and vinegar)
ALTERNATE METHOD(S) NOT RECOMENDED
There is a sort of hollow candle that is sold commonly at well supplied health food stores, Essentially you light the end of this thing and put the non burning end into your ear wrap a rag around your face to protect it from burning candle wax and wait for the heat and vacuum created by the burning such the heated wax out of your ear and stick it to the inside of the hollow candle. This method works well but is more expensive (as much as 20-30 buck for both ears) not to mention a little more time consuming and dangerous (hot wax in the ear anyone?)IT WOULD BE GOOD TO NOTE THAT THIS METHOD IS UNPROVEN AND IT IS QUITE LIKELY IT DOSE NOT WORK AT ALL.
Second method not recommended alone: It is possible that may of you clean your ears with Q-tips if used improperly (99.9 percent of people use them improperly in there ears) they will push ear wax from the canal back onto the drum and can even cause a build up that resembles a hard as a rock little pebble in your canal. This is not a recommended alternate method, nether is the back end of a Bobbie pin (ask your girl friend what a Bobbie pin is if you don't know)
Third method: There are many ear rinse products on the market most of which are sold to prevent swimmers ear. The majority of these are a mixture of vinegar and ethyl alcohol and every once in awhile something else. These rise liquids are designed to displace water from your ears and kill bacteria however they do not get rid of excess wax these would be ineffective at improving sound.
DEFINE IMPROVE:
WARNING YOU MAY NOT LIKE YOUR CANS AFTER THIS "MOD".
Essentially wax cuts a certain frequency range more than just knocking down DLS. I have no way of testing this or determining the exact composition of your ear wax. So let me just say that you may have modded a pair of cans to make up for what you thought was a lack of X frequency range. But in fact your caked full ears were cutting that frequency out. The solution is simple just let the wax build up again and ignore and semblance of audio neutrality or get new cans that sound good to yer new ears.
About the Author:
The author teaches Police divers who scuba dive in contaminated waters on a regular basis, has over 250 dives in cold and dirty water some of which you can not see a hand in front of your face and has been responsible for maintaining the health and preventing ear infections in students ears while training. (basically Hundreds of students and twice as many ears cant be wrong)
Edited by ediverudt - 10/14/10 at 3:48pm
