[Slater]

When I mentioned the double-side duct tape I meant this. The tape is placed on the inside of the plastic cover

BTW... if you are wondering which driver has the best abs, the berillyum 130ohm has 8-pack abs

 

[Slater]

Haha good one, it's certainly the fittest of all by the looks. By the way, what those LF and HF marks mean? I've always found intriguing why this one has 4 pairs of solder blobs, but I've never looked into it as I don't own one

My guess is that they are solder pads for crossover components (resistors or capacitors). Low (frequency) pass and high (frequency) pass filters.

 

[RikudouGoku]

Hi I gotten curious on DIY earbuds/iems, particularly earbuds since they seems to be the easiest to make. Is there any guide on how to actually assemble your own earbud and what do you need (besides the drivers and shell)?

Is a kit like this the only tool you need?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B07Q4T12PH/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?smid=A2NRY4HOWAHJOF&psc=1

I am also guessing that you chose specific drivers that are already tuned to sound a specific way, and you yourself dont actually tune it right?

Lastly...should I not go into the DIY rabbit hole?

TIA

 

[assassin10000]

Hi I gotten curious on DIY earbuds/iems, particularly earbuds since they seems to be the easiest to make. Is there any guide on how to actually assemble your own earbud and what do you need (besides the drivers and shell)?

Is a kit like this the only tool you need?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B07Q4T12PH/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?smid=A2NRY4HOWAHJOF&psc=1

I am also guessing that you chose specific drivers that are already tuned to sound a specific way, and you yourself dont actually tune it right?

Lastly...should I not go into the DIY rabbit hole?

TIA

Depends on how far down the rabbit hole you want to go.

I'm sure there is lots of info about soldering. Google/YouTube is probably gonna be your newest friend.

___________

If you buy drivers, shells with foam installed, and pre built/tinned cables; then maybe all you need may be a soldering iron/solder and some way to hold things while assembling. No tuning may be necessary, of course YMMV.

Others have used bluetac, magnets, tape, etc. I use a modded mini vice.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/diy-earbuds.822327/page-119#post-15612382

If not using pre-tinned cables you will want flux and a soldering heat sink. The heat sink will help prevent the wire/enamel/coating/insulation from melting and also making the wire ends stiff when tinning.

___________


If you want to play with tuning you'll probably want to order foam and paper 'tuning cotton'. The paper is available in several thicknesses.

3m micropore or 'paper' tape is good for tuning shells as well. It is breathable and you can punch holes with a needle to fine tune air flow.

Cotton balls are a good source for a loose material if you want to dampen resonance/reflections or slow air flow inside a housing.

For placing, positioning and removing all of the above, I'd recommend a pair of curved or angled tip tweezers.


You can also consider getting a small hand drill and drill bits (.6mm, .8mm & 1.0mm) to either add or fine tune the porting of various shells.

___________


If you want to make MMCX buds, you'll want a set of articulated alligator clips for soldering them. A pick or needle to place a tiny amount of flux on the solder points.

You'll also need a M3 x .5 tap & 2.5mm drill bit or a M4 x .5 tap & 3.5mm drill bit. Or both, for the two different style MMCX connectors commonly used (Long style is M3 x .5, Short is M4 x .5).

You can buy pre-tinned wires, MMCX with wires already soldered, or DIY it. If DIY refer to above about tinning.

___________


If you are going to mod shells, I'd also recommend some small precision files, a small hobby hacksaw for removing or shortening stems and a medium size fine file for rough shaping.

A dremel or rotary tool can be used but I found it was hard to be precise enough with it.

___________


Also, a multimeter. This will allow you to check drivers, cables and verify your work. It can also allow you figure out what wire goes where if working with multiple strand cables.

 

[KevDzn]

Whoa, hold ya horses @RikudouGoku .....
You're thinking too fast too far. I think maybe you can start by getting some cheap buds like vido, monks+.... and recable it with various cables like OFC, SPC etc. to get your experience meter started first.

 

[assassin10000]

Whoa, hold ya horses @RikudouGoku .....
You're thinking too fast too far. I think maybe you can start by getting some cheap buds like vido, monks+.... and recable it with various cables like OFC, SPC etc. to get your experience meter started first.

^ this.

That's a great suggestion. My first foray into diy'ing earbuds was making a cheap (<$2) vido equal length instead of J cable.

 

[robar]

@RikudouGoku
I recommend getting a set of 5 mx500 shells with foams (about 3usd), a couple of cheap 15.4mm speakers from our recommendations (3-4usd per pair) and some cables ready for soldering (1-4usd per cable). You can buy a nice starter kit like this for about 15-20usd which should provide plenty of opportunity to learn and build some nice sounding buds if they survive the process It could be a good base for further experiments as well. Optionally buying a hand drill and some e8000/b7000 glue is also beneficial but not necessary for starting out, especially for mx500 shells. Double sided tape and a tweezer is very useful though for holding stuff in place.
Much better investment than buying a bunch of crappy vidos which are fragile as hell and sound much worse compared to what you can buy in parts.

Recabling existing ultra cheap earbuds is an option as well, though I wouldn't really recommend it if you're interested in building earbuds, because the sound quality will be far worse than what you can build yourself with basic parts and also it's much more likely that something gets damaged in the process, as most earbuds are not built to be safely disassembled.

I recommend NSC store, Jietu and CKlewis from aliexpress for budget parts. The 5-set mx500 with horseshoe is not available at NSC (tuning foam sold separately) but you can find the 19-21 heavy bass only there. I can recommend the 19-21 heavy bass (only NSC but it's my 1st rec), the N50 steel mesh (cheapest at jietu) and the EMX500 (I prefer the other two but still decent and cheaper, 3usd at jietu) speakers for starters. All of them are below 4usd and have nice price/performance ratio.

 

[purplesun]

Lastly...should I not go into the DIY rabbit hole?

Not rabbit hole; stare into the bass resonance hole on MX500-based earbuds and it will suck you in! Just like a Helen Reddy song (too old?)

Some stuff I would recommend:
- Order a bunch of cheap raw material from Aliexpress to learn by making mistakes.
- Less than 20 watt solder iron with needle nose
- Clips/jigs/implements to hold the buds when you solder
- Cheap digital calipers
- And this forum thread

 

[assassin10000]

These showed up earlier today.

https://m.aliexpress.com/item/32877041035.html

Initial thoughts: somewhat warm, rich, bassy sound. The lower mids are more present and tapers into upper mids. Treble is present but somewhat rolled off. Not super detailed but also not veiled or muddy.

No sibilance or harsh upper mids, good for long sessions. A bit better on male vocals than female.

They remind me somewhat of my Yuin PK2's, with more bass extension/sub-bass.

 

[captione]

@RikudouGoku you should start with rewiring your Vidos. Buy a pre build cable and some additional accessories to personalise your cable

 

[captione]

Finally reshelled my VE Monks Plus to a shell with an additional vent to the other stem hole. In no surprise, it increased the bass and somehow made the upper mid/lower treble almost strident. Putting a cotton ball to the stem hole made it less, and soundstage really increased by depth. Didn't glue the cotton in place because I wanna experiment on dampening materials for this shell.

Spoiler: Pictures

Yeah I know the paintjob is kinda botched but it reminds me of this meme and I think it's pretty epic:

I also recabled my Headroom MS16s and swapped the cable from my EMX500. This was a pain in the ass just dismantling those metal strain relief (or is it? Idk), I almost wrecked the EMX500 wire dismantling it. I also used the wire from my VE Monks for my EMX500, and made some worthwhile modifications.

Spoiler: Picture

 

[Themilkman46290]

Hi I gotten curious on DIY earbuds/iems, particularly earbuds since they seems to be the easiest to make. Is there any guide on how to actually assemble your own earbud and what do you need (besides the drivers and shell)?

Is a kit like this the only tool you need?
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B07Q4T12PH/ref=ox_sc_act_image_1?smid=A2NRY4HOWAHJOF&psc=1

I am also guessing that you chose specific drivers that are already tuned to sound a specific way, and you yourself dont actually tune it right?

Lastly...should I not go into the DIY rabbit hole?

TIA

Well, I have made both, iems are more difficult because of space and if you make your own shell then the shell is expensive and takes many steps, but tuning was easier, earbuds on the other hand, easier to solder and fit in the shells but harder to tune

 

[RikudouGoku]

Whoa, hold ya horses @RikudouGoku .....
You're thinking too fast too far. I think maybe you can start by getting some cheap buds like vido, monks+.... and recable it with various cables like OFC, SPC etc. to get your experience meter started first.

Yeah that sounds like the smarter thing to do....trying out what is available in the market before I resort to DIY...seems to me that DIY stuff is when you already tried a lot of what is available on the market and then not finding what you want or just want it cheaper.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, really didnt expect that many answers. I will stick to buying buds from already assembled stuff at least for a while more.

DIY stuff aside, is there anyone that knows if there are any beryllium driver earbuds that is for sale?
I only seen this one: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000858070091.html
and ordered it since I got @ClieOS approval.

 

[captione]

Yeah that sounds like the smarter thing to do....trying out what is available in the market before I resort to DIY...seems to me that DIY stuff is when you already tried a lot of what is available on the market and then not finding what you want or just want it cheaper.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, really didnt expect that many answers. I will stick to buying buds from already assembled stuff at least for a while more.

I technically started with modding my MH755s, which turned out to be a big hurdle for a newb like me, and I started to branch out by rewiring my own vidos, monks, and some few drivers to save me from quarantine boredom and started to build up my soldering proficiency and experience like @KevDzn pointed out. It's a fun hobby for sure!

 

[furyossa]

Yeah that sounds like the smarter thing to do....trying out what is available in the market before I resort to DIY...seems to me that DIY stuff is when you already tried a lot of what is available on the market and then not finding what you want or just want it cheaper.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone, really didnt expect that many answers. I will stick to buying buds from already assembled stuff at least for a while more.

DIY stuff aside, is there anyone that knows if there are any beryllium driver earbuds that is for sale?
I only seen this one: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000858070091.html
and ordered it since I got @ClieOS approval.

On Ali you can find two version 15.4mm Beryllium coated drivers, 130ohm and 600ohm. It is cheaper to buy theses drivers and other parts separately and make your own earbuds, but first try with cheaper models as some have already recommended. You just have a chance to test theses Beryllium speakers before you decide to buy assembled models which in my opinion are expensive, at least double