The best thing to understand is that while we're all trying to be so modern with our designs here, IEMs with balanced armatures and "speakers" will be kickin' it old school until the next thing. And from what I can tell, that will be a long, long time.

balanced armature speaker: http://youtu.be/gr4eJtfbORQ   Yes. That's a great vid.

Does anyone else think it's ironic that the audio quality on the video of guys talking about the audio quality of audio products is terrible?   Dan Jarros

  Hello all. I been making CIEMs and doing posts here for a while. I just had a fairly dangerous experience and wanted to pass it along as a public service announcement to all the builders here. I've made a good number of shells now using the mega-sil 2 part impression material as my positive...

Nice job CMOS. That looks exactly like what I hoped to be able to do when I started my designs.So these are your UV shells? Really shiny work. Now that I see them, just some basic questions:   UV gel cured in a clear negative? Knox gelatin or other?   Dremel cut the top ring off for the back...

So....When you use lots of drivers inside a shell do you just not use any individual tubing and let the drivers play into the shell? Those Roxanne IEMs are 12 driver. How does all the sound get to the ear hole?

Yea. I like the heaviness of those connectors.

Thanks again CMOS. It seems your experience with materials is the same as mine. For me, I think if the drivers had much longer ports that easily accepted AT with minimal adhesive and hada ribbed design like in beer tubing connectors all this stupidity would go away. Also I would like a 2 prong...

Thanks CMOS. My next design will be as you suggest. GK with 2 tubes deep with no dampers. What has been your best method of attaching tubes to the 2 ports? Also what tubing if I might ask? I just tried a combination of a little super glue followed by UV gel on the GK sound port and ruined one of...

I'm looking for  opinions on those who have experience with the Knowles GK-31732-000 drivers and the GQ-30710-000 series as well. I've built a couple of units using the GQ-30710-000 with no electronics and various (red or green) dampers. I would describe them as full range and smooth but...

Great vid. Thanks for that..........when a denture polishing video is a great find....well....We're all pretty warped in here.   DJ

I saw some of you talking about getting a shiny finish on DIY acrylic shells. I saw in some pro company vids they use a standard high speed polishing/ grinding wheel with the cotton buffer and standard "red" rouge. Anybody tried it? I tried red and white rouges with a dremel polish wheel with...

Hello all. I'd like to try to do a set of CIEMs using a recessed 2 pin plug sockets like this:   http://www.lunashops.com/goods.php?id=3569   Does anybody know of a US supplier of these type of plugs? 

Nice.

He's right. but buy one of the UV nail dryer boxes on ebay with bulbs included. It's perfect. Do your back plates on a mirror. Go back and look at my earlier posts.

If you're building them fixed cord you can tie one knot in the cable and let the UV gel lock the knot in place for your strain relief. On the first ones I had done the cable wound up slipping in and out threatening to pull on the drivers. This method fixed the problem.

Don't need extra flux. Tin the tips of the wire first. That can be tricky with some headphone wire because there can be a layer of insulation that will burn off before the solder will sick to the copper. Use the helping hands to perfectly set up the connection and solder the wire to the tabs. If...

You need to solder. Get a 20-25 watt iron with a very smooth tip and get a set of "helping hands" from EBay. Use a flux core electronics solder that melts fast and clean. I almost hate to say this but the electronics solder(specifically) from Radio Shack is really good. DJ

Good work on the shells. How did you polish them up? I've seen the videos of the companies using a buffing wheel at high speed. I had pretty unsatisfactory results with the high speed polishing wheel on the dremel. I'd like to get a more polished finish on my future models. DanJarros

Yes. 4mm-2mm shrink tubing in place of the rubber earpieces.

It's a good thing they didn't use the ED-209 drivers.

  OK. I've completed another set of CIEMs. Basically they are clear acrylic shells with Astrotec AX35 monitors in them. If you didn't know, the Astrotecs are affordable ($70) hybrid monitors with a dynamic speaker for the low spectrum and a balanced armature for the highs. Sound-wise, they are...

It's acrylic so it's good to go. Acrylic is inert to skin.

OKAY....In response to guy37 and others that say DIY is not about saving $ I present my new cans. As some of you know I've been trying to come up with a cost effective way to repair/ produce CIEMs for my band. I did a set wit Knowles dual drivers and it didn't cost a lot. These will surely tip...

Is that new shells with 3 sound tubes? Yikes.