They are just silver-colored triple.fi's. I have them. I hate teal. They are amazing. I switched from Etymotic ER4Ps. I can't believe how much more detail I hear -- even in music I know by heart.
To give you an idea of my tastes: I like very flat response, and I like to hear every detail, warts and all. I liked the etys a lot, and I use studio monitors (krk vxt6s) as speakers at home. To test speakers or headphones, these are my acid tests:
- kd lang to check how accurately it reproduces vocals (Diet of Strange Places)
- My Bloody Valentine to see how much detail it reveals
It's unnerving how much I feel the bass. It's like having a tiny subwoofer in my head. Very clean bass, strong and crisp, but still flat - not eq'd up.
To get good bass - to get good sound at all - in IEMs, you must have a TOTAL seal. See below:
Important ie40 / triple.fi mods / hacks / tricks:
- Try the Comply T-500 aftermarket memory foam ear thingys if you're not getting a good seal. They work better for me than any of the ones in the box. UE should put 'em in the box.
- If you switch to complys and you get tired of replacing them ($$$) because the light gray foam looks filthy, or they don't stay in place, cover them in dark silicone. (Learned this from someone else's post)
Take one of the comply's, carefully scrape the memory foam donut off the short plastic hose it's glued to with your fingernail. (The hose is what slides onto the monitor)
Take one of the single-flange dark silicon ear thingy's that came with the unit. I'm using the largest one. Turn it inside out. Roll the donut over the thin end, then turn the silicone rightside out again.
Then just slide it onto the monitor. Amazing. Seals so well the suction is almost annoying. And the dark silicone doesn't show dirt.
- To use these with your iphone, buy the "ultimate ears vi" cable off ebay. $45.
[Rant: Ultimate Ears just got bought by Logitech. They will not sell you the "vi" cable. They expect you to drop another $400 to buy the triple.fi 10vi product (teal only, thank you very much). It's just a triple.fi with a cable that has a combination microphone/answer/skip button. But if you're a loyal customer and just want the cable, sorry, no. They think they can screw you out of more money than that. Thank God for ebay. I hope someone at Logitech gets some sense and stops insulting their loyal customers.]
- These are designed so the wires join behind your neck, not under your chin. Bend the memory wire over the top of your ears, then use the sliding clasp to pull the wires tight to the back of your neck. This keeps them in place to maintain a total seal - essential with iems. It also reduces stethescoping noise from the wire bumping into things. Very comfortable, but different from what you're used to.
The company is ridiculous (for the vi cable issue and for not putting Comply's in the box), but the phones are so good they're worth it. The alternative for me would be SE530s, but the cable isn't user-replaceable and I'm not sure they'd be monitor-y enough for me.
