[kaavik47]

Ordered last week as a birthday present to myself - after reading this thread I am really excited to hear them firsthand!!

 

[Kangeki]

I received mine today and I am just discovering them, will post a feedback in the near future!

 

[kaavik47]

I received mine today and I am just discovering them, will post a feedback in the near future!

Curious about what design input you provided and how it turned out. I was surprised to have so much input into the faceplate design.

 

[Kangeki]

Curious about what design input you provided and how it turned out. I was surprised to have so much input into the faceplate design.

I initially described a kind of concept using a few images. However I did not totally stick to that concept, even though I fell not too far either.
Then Aldo showed me a few plates he had which may be not too far from that concept (+ a few other he had in stock), which gave me a rough idea of what it could be. I chose one of them, the latest one he showed me actually.

It was a moderately long email discussion but in the end I settled for one of his suggestion as for me it would lessen the risk of having a "bad surprise" :

• I could see a photo of what the design could look like, even if photos do not totally represent the final result (you have some impacts from light, angles, etc.),
• I can imagine how consuming is the manual labor of creating the faceplates and the Mentawai so I wanted to avoid "overtasking" Aldo if I could be satisfied with one of the designs ; also I guess it has an impact on the lead time: the more complex, the further in the time you may receive your earphones.

Also navigating Google Images to search for some Alambic Ears designs, and checking out a few other manufacturers websites about their faceplates helped me think about it and as inspirations. Like you I kind of needed a ground context to think about the faceplates.

In any case you can discuss it with Aldo, of course. He may also have a few inputs if you tell him about how you imagine your own faceplates.

In the end I am super happy with the result so I do not have any regret.

 

[kaavik47]

I told him I liked organic designs - fractals and other patterns found in nature - and that I tended to like greens, blues , and yellows. After looking at some examples, we ended up with dragon skin that emphasizes greens and blues. I still don't know the final form, but I wanted it to be his creation, so I'm leaving that up to him.