[up late]

congrats - hope you enjoy it as much as i do

 

[Idsynchrono_24]

Congrats, if you bought the pair that I think you did, then you own my old pair lol. I still think about them from time to time but I have too many pairs at the moment

 

[M-13]

  hoping my gut feeling is right , i went ahead and bought a used like-new pair of K3003
 
the price was just too good to pass , i guess i deserved a late xmas present in a very turbulent year (YOLO)

this place is a wallet killer

thanx to M13 for his input/thoughts , will let you know how these sound , hopefully they are quite an upgrade from my RE-272/600

Congrats Man! YOLO!

 

[MrGuzmanWhite]

Hello everyone. I just bought a K3003i and yesterday was my first day trying and I like to share few things to see if you can help me.
 
I think the IEM is beautiful, very well designed, but unfortunately the fit for my ears is terrible. I can't get a seal with any of the tips provided because I have an small ear canal. I have tried some triple flange tips from other manufacturers that fit the K3003i, but as I don't have small size still hurts a lot. After a couple of hours I had a tremendous headache.
 
Any advise on tips that fit the K3003 and small ear canals while maintaining good SQ?
 
On top, one thing I noticed of the k3003i, is that to really get the dynamics of the sound and the punchy bass, you need to flow some juice. At low volume is not that engaging, this results again in a very tiring experience. I have tried the reference filter and it is good albeit I find that some vocals a bit strange, like there is a mismatch between the frequencies, maybe end a bit V-shaped sound. On the contrary the treble filter create an extremely good sound, with fantastic vocals and resolution, really outstanding clarity. Unfortunately the treble filter loses a bit of the bass presence resulting in a sound that is good for acoustic, classical etc but not as great for other types of music. It is a pity there is no filter between the reference and the treble boost, that would be perfect.
 
I am startngt yo think that for my ears the only way to have comfort is to go custom. If any of you can recommend a custom IEM that sounds similar to the K3003 (resolving, clear, good dynamics, good soundstage, with excellent treble but not too aggressive) please advise as I may just need to take that route. I think universals are just hard for small ear canals.
 
Please advise on tips for small ear canals and also please advise on how long I need to :"break-in" the K3003i to get to its "real" sound.
 
Thanks indeed.

 

[Idsynchrono_24]

If you're looking to go the custom route, I'd recommend the UERM. If you're looking for tips... I'd probably try looking into Comply tips. I wouldn't worry about break in, just listen to them. 

 

[MrGuzmanWhite]

  If you're looking to go the custom route, I'd recommend the UERM. If you're looking for tips... I'd probably try looking into Comply tips. I wouldn't worry about break in, just listen to them. 

Thank you. What is the UERM?
 
What is the manufacturer of that IEM?
 
Thank you,
 
Miguel

 

[Idsynchrono_24]

Ultimate Ears' Reference Monitor. Commonly abbreviated as UERM. They are simply stellar phones with fantastic transparency and balance 

 

[Dobrescu George]

people are saying that good tips are shure olives. on comply site, shure everything, and akg k3003 seem to have different size, shure having 100 series, and akg k3003 having 500 series, same as ie8. this means that shure olives might not be compatible with AKG k3003...
this sucks as i wanted to buy a shure se535 for it's rare tips, to get more foams for k3003, after i buy k3003...
 
this also occured to me, with ie8 i already need the biggest foam and biggest tips for them. this means that i will be okay with k3003?
 
 
edit:: i should have asked this before, just remembered it, do comply tips degrade over a period of time?... i am using my sennheiser foam since i bought it, and it is the same, but i remember reading around head-fi that comply degrades to a certain level after some time of usage...is it true?...

 

[tumburu]

Using Comply tips with the high boost filter could sound somewhere between the reference and the high boost, I think.

 

[MrGuzmanWhite]

  Ultimate Ears' Reference Monitor. Commonly abbreviated as UERM. They are simply stellar phones with fantastic transparency and balance 

Thank you, very kind. If I follow the custom route I will explore this one, I love clarity in the sound.

 

[MrGuzmanWhite]

  Using Comply tips with the high boost filter could sound somewhere between the reference and the high boost, I think.

Thank you. I will get some comply tips right now. In looking at the comply website they have different types of Tips for the K3003, named Isolation, comfort, isolation plus and comfort plus. Do all of them sound the same, any recommendation?
 
Thank you again.

 

[proedros]

which other tips suit K3003 ? i find the comply tips not to my liking with my previous iems as they tend to muffle the highs .

very curious to listen for myself and see if the 'coherency issues' are real or just mind games - in any case , better to try for myself than rely on another person's point of view (or hearing , in this case)

 

[james444]

 
Hello everyone. I just bought a K3003i and yesterday was my first day trying and I like to share few things to see if you can help me.
 
I think the IEM is beautiful, very well designed, but unfortunately the fit for my ears is terrible. I can't get a seal with any of the tips provided because I have an small ear canal. I have tried some triple flange tips from other manufacturers that fit the K3003i, but as I don't have small size still hurts a lot. After a couple of hours I had a tremendous headache.
 
Any advise on tips that fit the K3003 and small ear canals while maintaining good SQ?
 
On top, one thing I noticed of the k3003i, is that to really get the dynamics of the sound and the punchy bass, you need to flow some juice. At low volume is not that engaging, this results again in a very tiring experience. I have tried the reference filter and it is good albeit I find that some vocals a bit strange, like there is a mismatch between the frequencies, maybe end a bit V-shaped sound. On the contrary the treble filter create an extremely good sound, with fantastic vocals and resolution, really outstanding clarity. Unfortunately the treble filter loses a bit of the bass presence resulting in a sound that is good for acoustic, classical etc but not as great for other types of music. It is a pity there is no filter between the reference and the treble boost, that would be perfect.
 
I am startngt yo think that for my ears the only way to have comfort is to go custom. If any of you can recommend a custom IEM that sounds similar to the K3003 (resolving, clear, good dynamics, good soundstage, with excellent treble but not too aggressive) please advise as I may just need to take that route. I think universals are just hard for small ear canals.
 
Please advise on tips for small ear canals and also please advise on how long I need to :"break-in" the K3003i to get to its "real" sound.
 
Thanks indeed.

 

It seems the manufacturer was well aware of K3003's bulkiness, and it is virtually impossible for the users to insert this giant into their ear canals. So AKG designed the product in such way that the frequency response measured at a shallow insertion depth to be the reference.

 
Source: Rin's K3003 analysis.
 
Bottom line: don't try to shove them deep into your ears, the K3003 have been designed for a shallow seal. Also, their isolation isn't the best, so you may not immediately notice when you've got a seal.
 
Imo these are some of the most engaging low volume IEMs on the market, but of course you'll need a good and painless fit to enjoy them.

 

[MrGuzmanWhite]

   
 
Source: Rin's K3003 analysis.
 
Bottom line: don't try to shove them deep into your ears, the K3003 have been designed for a shallow seal. Also, their isolation isn't the best, so you may not immediately notice when you've got a seal.
 
Imo these are some of the most engaging low volume IEMs on the market, but of course you'll need a good and painless fit to enjoy them.

Thank you. Yes I imagine that shallow insertion will work, but I can't get a seal, it is so light that any movement displaces the seal and I am constantly relocating it, very annoying. Interestingly when using deep insertion with the triple flange tips, I seem to perceive better soundstage that when using shallow insertion. In anyway, what I need is to have a tight seal that is comfortable. So far I can't get this at all. It may be my ears, in general "bulky" IEMs are hard for me to use, but I can use without any problem the RE-400, Etys ER4P, and even the XBA-30 from Sony, but once it gets to the AKG size it is a real challenge, unfortunately.

 

[MrGuzmanWhite]

  which other tips suit K3003 ? i find the comply tips not to my liking with my previous iems as they tend to muffle the highs .

I have had the same experience, comply tips usually degrade the sound quality, but recently I used the Noble 4 universal with foam tips vs silicone, and the foam tips worked awesome with no negative impact in the SQ, so maybe it is headphone dependent (?). These were the foam tips provided with the Noble 4, not comply, so that may be a difference. I ordered the comply tips, variety pack in small size, so I will try to see how they work and will report back.