Bilavideo
Caution: Incomplete trades.
- Joined
- Feb 29, 2008
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Quote:
I definitely would not shove anything hot into my ear. I've made impressions using home kits. What you end up with is surprisingly accurate but the material, itself, which is rubbery, doesn't strike me as the best stuff to use for an in-ear tip. It's best feature (soft and malleable against the irregular surfaces of the ear canal) is also it's worst feature: unwanted sound absorption. A harder substance would vibrate less and provide a less resonant contact surface.
There are several ways to use the Shapelock. One is to create a customized tip, not unlike the Westone UM56. Tips are simpler. Fabricating a tip is simply a matter of finding the right shape and girth. With earphones that are as ergonomic as the UM3X, replacing the silicone and foam tips with something rigid (but custom-fit) is known to make a noticeable difference. Owners of expensive custom-fit IEMs get defensive and are quit to point out the limitations of a "tip," but if one did nothing more than fix the problems with universal tips, one would be doing something right.
Another use for the Shapelock is to take that $20 home-ear impression you've made and either make a mock-up of it or (after applying a release) cover it over with the Shapelock so that you now have a hard coating. The resulting hard-candy shell can be handled several ways. If you apply the release with care, you will be able to cut and remove the shell to have your own empty container within which to lay your drivers, etc. If you decide to keep the impression material intact, you can use it as padding and damping material for the drivers you lay within the halves of your new shell. You'll have to cut away enough rubbery material to position your drivers but wrapping them in this rubbery material may be an effective way to damp their resonance.
I've been thinking about something else. I'm a big fan of open-air headphones precisely because their open-air backs allow so much resonance to be released rather than become an echoey headache. Baffle-less IEMs don't work, because the lack of a proper seal just kills the bass. However, there's a difference between sealing the tip and sealing up the entire driver. One of the most pervasive complaints about IEMs is the lack of soundstage. There are ways to improve the situation, such as by using the widest-range drivers (to get that airy top end in HF) and low-passing the bass to the max, so that the bass doesn't crowd the midrange. But resonance merits attention, too. If the rear of the driver could be vented while the area from the front of the driver to the driver tip were sealed, you'd have a true open-baffle design, one that would cut a lot of spikes that limit how high these drivers can be cranked. Doing so would help bring out a sculpted bass while preserving the airiness needed to present a larger soundstage.
Of course, the proof is in the pudding.
