Funk-O-Meter
100+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2005
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So I just spend an hour authoring a post and the forum ate it when it asked me log in again cause I timed out. GRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!
So anyway, I wanted to rap a bit about the technical aspects of IEM's.
I really like Dynamics and a lot of folks in the pro audio biz do as well. Futuresonics markets themselves as "100% armature free" after having gone down armature driver road in R&D years ago as one of the industry pioneers. The can exhibit some high frequency roll off but that's easy to fix with some EQ.
Armatures are a whole other story. Most single armatures sound thin, and peaky. They smear symbols and make vocals sibilant. When you get into the more complicated multi-driver models and some that have well designed filter and impedance adjustments in the system things get much better, but usually not as natural sounding as a good dynamic.
So why is there only one custom IEM with a dynamic driver? Futuresonics is the only game in town and they're $800 while there's all sorts of custom armature based products poping up now. Well its' because you can build a dual driver IEM with an acrylic ear piece using off the shelf Knobles drivers that are really inexpensive. Last I looked the most expensive one was something like $14. So you can do some small time reverse engineering and design on your own and crank out a simple acrylic custom IEM in a small business with a small staff. This is what Livewires does and there is many more companies doing the same thing. Of course they're fortunate that UE and Westone did the some of the first R&D in on these things. UE also go beyond with crossover networks and filters. But how can UE justify $1200? Beats me. That's gotta be a huge markup. I've talked to a few IEM manufacturers and they all feel the same way. I've seen IEM's built. I've contemplated fooling around and making my own. It's not $1200 worth of hard.
Lots of IEM's use the exact same drivers from Knowles (where pretty much all the IEM companies get their armature drivers) but sound different. Livewires use the same high frequency driver as the Eymotic ER4 but sound very different. This is where the R&D came into play. It's pretty amazing.
So that's where it stands today, finally some folks have taken advantage of the huge opportunity UE, Futursonics, and other left by charging pro-only prices for customs and realized they could sell a similar product for WAYYY less. Thanks for that.
But we still don't have any other custom dynamic driver IEM other then the $800 Futuresonic "Ear Monitor". Good opportunity there.
We still don't have a affordable hybrid driver model custom IEM.
Eymotic still doesn't sell a dual driver model or a custom. Wha? Hello guys? WANT!
And the big opportunity that's gonna really seal the deal:
A multi and/or hybrid driver custom IEM with the top end of the Etymotic for under $400. THAT would be the biggest IEM yet.
What do you think?
So anyway, I wanted to rap a bit about the technical aspects of IEM's.
I really like Dynamics and a lot of folks in the pro audio biz do as well. Futuresonics markets themselves as "100% armature free" after having gone down armature driver road in R&D years ago as one of the industry pioneers. The can exhibit some high frequency roll off but that's easy to fix with some EQ.
Armatures are a whole other story. Most single armatures sound thin, and peaky. They smear symbols and make vocals sibilant. When you get into the more complicated multi-driver models and some that have well designed filter and impedance adjustments in the system things get much better, but usually not as natural sounding as a good dynamic.
So why is there only one custom IEM with a dynamic driver? Futuresonics is the only game in town and they're $800 while there's all sorts of custom armature based products poping up now. Well its' because you can build a dual driver IEM with an acrylic ear piece using off the shelf Knobles drivers that are really inexpensive. Last I looked the most expensive one was something like $14. So you can do some small time reverse engineering and design on your own and crank out a simple acrylic custom IEM in a small business with a small staff. This is what Livewires does and there is many more companies doing the same thing. Of course they're fortunate that UE and Westone did the some of the first R&D in on these things. UE also go beyond with crossover networks and filters. But how can UE justify $1200? Beats me. That's gotta be a huge markup. I've talked to a few IEM manufacturers and they all feel the same way. I've seen IEM's built. I've contemplated fooling around and making my own. It's not $1200 worth of hard.
Lots of IEM's use the exact same drivers from Knowles (where pretty much all the IEM companies get their armature drivers) but sound different. Livewires use the same high frequency driver as the Eymotic ER4 but sound very different. This is where the R&D came into play. It's pretty amazing.
So that's where it stands today, finally some folks have taken advantage of the huge opportunity UE, Futursonics, and other left by charging pro-only prices for customs and realized they could sell a similar product for WAYYY less. Thanks for that.
But we still don't have any other custom dynamic driver IEM other then the $800 Futuresonic "Ear Monitor". Good opportunity there.
We still don't have a affordable hybrid driver model custom IEM.
Eymotic still doesn't sell a dual driver model or a custom. Wha? Hello guys? WANT!
And the big opportunity that's gonna really seal the deal:
A multi and/or hybrid driver custom IEM with the top end of the Etymotic for under $400. THAT would be the biggest IEM yet.
What do you think?
