[DrBlast33]

I'm in Washington DC, USA.  I emailed them again.  I know someone is there, they posted a tweet yesterday.  
 
I went to UPS, they offered to ship the impressions for $140.  I went to USPS, and they have $29 option, $45 or $65 option.  Do they video SKYPE, Skype audio only or text only?  What times are best to Skype them?... I have to figure out if I'm available the same time in my time zone (Eastern time zone -American).  I think I might ship the impressions today at lunch time and hope to get in touch with them soon.
 
Thanks for the help guys.

 

[daftpolecat]

  I'm in Washington DC, USA.  I emailed them again.  I know someone is there, they posted a tweet yesterday.  
 
I went to UPS, they offered to ship the impressions for $140.  I went to USPS, and they have $29 option, $45 or $65 option.  Do they video SKYPE, Skype audio only or text only?  What times are best to Skype them?... I have to figure out if I'm available the same time in my time zone (Eastern time zone -American).  I think I might ship the impressions today at lunch time and hope to get in touch with them soon.
 
Thanks for the help guys.

I just text skype them, they're online and talking when I get up in the morning and when I go to bed, so anytime, I was asking a few questions an hour ago and they're still online as always

 

[Starky]

I rarely post on these forums, but thought I should share my experience with Cosmic Ears, as an early adopter of both the brand and the BA4.
 
I ordered the HY3 last September, before seeing the announcement of a new model (that was to become the BA4), that at that time was arriving in November. I put my order on hold to wait and see what was coming – November arrived, the BA4 was announced for a Februrary 2013 release. Whilst I was initially inclined to stick with my HY3 order, given the wait, at that point February 2013 was according to Phil a ‘worst case scenario’, and Phil very kindly offered to upgrade my order at no cost from HY3 to BA4, if I decided to wait. I took him up on the offer.
 
At the same time, Phil wasn’t happy with the first set of impressions (taken by a local audiologist) I had sent. I went to see another audiologist with a lot of experience with musicians' monitors, and whilst they were of the opinion that the problems noted by Phil were the sorts of things IEM companies deal with, without trouble, all the time, I went ahead and had another set of impressions taken.
 
This is where it started to go wrong.
 
February arrived, I contacted Phil to find out what was going on, and discovered that the BA4 would not be ready until April. I persisted with the BA4 anyway, and went through the pre-fit process in March, which was fine comfort-wise but shed no light on the quality of the seal. April arrived, and after 2 weeks and 4 emails to Phil I eventually heard back that the monitors were now not going to be ready for April, but were only around 4 weeks away. 4 weeks passed, and in early May I received another email saying my BA4 was a ‘few weeks away’. Then another in late may saying they would ship by 3 June. They didn’t.
 
My BA4(F) arrived on 17 June. They were quite comfortable, a little large, and sounded terrible. They were not even close to sealing. Phil asked me to send them back to find out what the problem was, so on 27 June I did, at which point Cosmic Ears went on holiday. On 29 July Phil emailed me, essentially to say that he didn’t know what the problem was. My options were to have new impressions taken, or Cosmic Ears could guess and try to fix the fit.
 
I went with the guesswork option, having already gone through two trips to the audiologist. My thinking was that Cosmic Ears already had two sets of impressions, though every comment I have made about the first set has been ignored – my best guess is that they went in the bin. The guesswork monitors arrived in August, still useless. Neither earphone seals, and as an added bonus the left earphone’s treble response is nothing like the right’s. I emailed Phil on the 26th, essentially to ask for a refund – a full year of missed deadlines and ignored emails has left my patience thin. I was told to expect a detailed response on 2 September, and I’m still waiting.
 
YMMV, but my experience with Cosmic Ears has been a disaster.

 

[shakur1996]

Interesting. I guess you are the first person who had negative experience with Phil (or at least the first person who decided to post his experience). Am I understand you correctly - you don't have a good seal with your BA4? You say that the sound is terrible - in what way?

I've just ordered BA4R and hope that I will not have same problems.

 

[Mimouille]

A disaster is almost an understatement...my interest in these products went down by a couple of notches

 

[blueangel2323]

I'm disappointed that the right earpiece doesn't seal for me either. I have no bass in my right ear But to be fair, all they have to work with are your impressions, so if there's some kind of problem that isn't obvious from looking at the impressions, it's not really their fault.

 

[davidcotton]

A little harsh there.  First (?) genuine complaint out of 190 pages.  That's not bad going.  Whilst I sympathize with the various problems Starkey's had it might be worth firing another email at CE again, it's been a week after the 2nd of september so it's not as if your pestering them.  If you want a real clusterf**k go take a look at the kozee thread or the inearcustom one.  That's a disaster!

 

[shakur1996]

blueangel2323, is my understanding correct that in your case your problems with Cosmic Ears CIEM (not good seal and thus lack of bass) results just from your bad ear impressions? Do you plan to send them for the re-fit?

From what I have read from this thread up to date there are just two complaints about Cosmic Ears work i.e. blueangle2323 and Starky, right?

 

[blueangel2323]

blueangel2323, is my understanding correct that in your case your problems with Cosmic Ears CIEM (not good seal and thus lack of bass) results just from your bad ear impressions? Do you plan to send them for the re-fit?

 
I'm not sure exactly. The impressions themselves were good quality and very deep. But maybe my jaw was in the wrong position, maybe I moved the wrong way, I don't know. But the fit itself is very good and comfortable, the canal just isn't thick enough to seal. I will probably try using the nail polish trick to see if that helps before I send them back for reshelling, as it's quite a hassle shipping back and forth to Sweden. And I didn't even select the "keep impressions" option, so it may not be possible to reshell without redoing the impressions, that I don't want to go through that painful experience again.

 

[Marleybob217]

 
I rarely post on these forums, but thought I should share my experience with Cosmic Ears, as an early adopter of both the brand and the BA4.
 
I ordered the HY3 last September, before seeing the announcement of a new model (that was to become the BA4), that at that time was arriving in November. I put my order on hold to wait and see what was coming – November arrived, the BA4 was announced for a Februrary 2013 release. Whilst I was initially inclined to stick with my HY3 order, given the wait, at that point February 2013 was according to Phil a ‘worst case scenario’, and Phil very kindly offered to upgrade my order at no cost from HY3 to BA4, if I decided to wait. I took him up on the offer.
 
At the same time, Phil wasn’t happy with the first set of impressions (taken by a local audiologist) I had sent. I went to see another audiologist with a lot of experience with musicians' monitors, and whilst they were of the opinion that the problems noted by Phil were the sorts of things IEM companies deal with, without trouble, all the time, I went ahead and had another set of impressions taken.
 
This is where it started to go wrong.
 
February arrived, I contacted Phil to find out what was going on, and discovered that the BA4 would not be ready until April. I persisted with the BA4 anyway, and went through the pre-fit process in March, which was fine comfort-wise but shed no light on the quality of the seal. April arrived, and after 2 weeks and 4 emails to Phil I eventually heard back that the monitors were now not going to be ready for April, but were only around 4 weeks away. 4 weeks passed, and in early May I received another email saying my BA4 was a ‘few weeks away’. Then another in late may saying they would ship by 3 June. They didn’t.
 
My BA4(F) arrived on 17 June. They were quite comfortable, a little large, and sounded terrible. They were not even close to sealing. Phil asked me to send them back to find out what the problem was, so on 27 June I did, at which point Cosmic Ears went on holiday. On 29 July Phil emailed me, essentially to say that he didn’t know what the problem was. My options were to have new impressions taken, or Cosmic Ears could guess and try to fix the fit.
 
I went with the guesswork option, having already gone through two trips to the audiologist. My thinking was that Cosmic Ears already had two sets of impressions, though every comment I have made about the first set has been ignored – my best guess is that they went in the bin. The guesswork monitors arrived in August, still useless. Neither earphone seals, and as an added bonus the left earphone’s treble response is nothing like the right’s. I emailed Phil on the 26th, essentially to ask for a refund – a full year of missed deadlines and ignored emails has left my patience thin. I was told to expect a detailed response on 2 September, and I’m still waiting.
 
YMMV, but my experience with Cosmic Ears has been a disaster.

 
I'm sorry to hear about your problems. As a rule of thumb, never ever put money into something that doesn't exist yet (unless you're like an investor or something). It will only give you pain.
When the earpiece doesn't seal, it probably really is due to bad impressions. It's probably best for everyone to just use the prefit option.
 
How exactly does the treble differ in the two monitors? 
 
I hope you get your money back, or atleast a part of it.

 

[Mimouille]

Do not blame the impressions systematically...he apparently went through several sets of impressions. There might be only 2 complaints out of 200 pages, but how many actually got a pair out of 200 pages? Not that many that I recall.

I am by no means wanting to bash a company that I have not tried yet and that seems interesting, but it is always weird when someone has such a consistently bad experience to blame the person. If he is telling the truth, and his experience is detailed enough to have me believe so, them he really received bad service.

 

[Q Mass]

   
......YMMV, but my experience with Cosmic Ears has been a disaster.

Damn, sorry to hear that Starky.
LIke you I'm a Cosmic 'early adopter', also like you Phil deemed my impressions unworthy.
I too opted for the 'best guess' approach, rather than getting more impressions done ( mine were DIY and had definite flaws ).
Sadly for you our experiences from that point on were very different, as my HY3 came fairly promptly, fit reasonably well, and sounded great!
 
I've now had three pairs of CIEMS from Cosmic ( all from those 'faulty' impressions ), and although the fit was good on the first ones I've requested tiny changes to the fit of each subsequent pair and the most recent pair fit superbly, which indicates to me that Phil has very fine control over the fit.
 
Please don't think that I'm posting this to be an apologist for poor customer service, I really hate being let down by people who have taken my hard earned cash too, and I have experience of that too( outside of this hobby thankfully ) .
However I have great faith in Phil and am sure that he busts a gut to provide the best results he can.
 
My advice here would be to stick with it and try contacting him again to attempt a fix.
 
I get the impression from all I've read here on Head-Fi that CIEM's can be a bit of a minefield regardless of the vendor.
I've had a very easy experience with all three of mine thanks to Phil ( barring my HY3's getting smashed by a dog, but Phil went out of his way to help me out despite the accident being no fault of his ) and I'm waiting for the HY5 to become available in a state of high excitement, which will be my fourth set of CIEM's! ( I only ever intended to get one, damn you Head-Fi )
 
I really hope that you end up as happy with your CIEM's as I am with mine ( sorry, that's not meant to sound as smug as it might come across ).
It sounds like your patience has been sorely tested, and although I wouldn't quite say that's 'par for the course' with CIEM's, I do think it's more common than with any other product 'field' within Head-Fi ( except maybe the wait for announced but as-yet-unavailable-DAP's! ) and you're not alone.
 
I do get the impression that Phil puts plenty of effort in to these sort of situations though, witness the lengths he went to with other contributors to this thread!
 
Good luck Starky, I hope the final result is worth it to you.

 

[davidcotton]

Oh I'm not denying that, I just wanted to put things in perspective by pointing out the other threads   Everyone should feel free on headfi to post the bad as well as the good.  That's the whole point of it.

 

[Q Mass]

..... I don't want to go through that painful experience again.

BTW, as I understand it, getting impressions done shouldn't involve any pain, mine certainly didn't.
 
But perhaps you weren't referring to the impression process being painful?

 

[blueangel2323]

BTW, as I understand it, getting impressions done shouldn't involve any pain, mine certainly didn't.
 
But perhaps you weren't referring to the impression process being painful?

 
The audiologist inserted the foam thingy really really deep, pretty much touching my eardrums, and it hurt like hell. And that might have been part of the problem - my ears could've been swollen from the insertion, causing an inaccurate impression.
The pre-fit service only helps with general fit. Just because it fits perfectly and is comfortable doesn't mean it seals perfectly. You need to hear music and try out the isolation to test the seal.