[Bilavideo]

NEW DEVELOPMENTS

1. I took some earmold foam and made foam models of my ear canals.

2. I got some UM3X shells from a friend in Canada who sent in his UM3X to be customized. While I don't want to copy Westone's specific housing design, I think the UM3X provides a good example of the relationship between the shape of customs and its approximation among universals.

As you can see from the only photo I was able to upload (freakin' batteries!) there's not a lot of extra space in the UM3X shell. With the connector wire and a miniature crossover circuit, the housing is used up. This will allow me to pop in the CI-22955 and the TWFK, but nothing more ambitious than that. When I get some fresh batteries, I'll show you the foamy molds I made. They're much more spacious (while avoiding any sacrifice in fit). I think the UM3X goes small, to maximize its fit with lots of ear shapes and sizes. A custom mold allows more expandability.

CROSSOVER UPDATE

I found a pretty cool website with a calculator for determining cutoff frequencies for both high-pass and low-pass filters. It won't tell you what values to plug in for the resistor and cap in an RC filter, but it gives you the ability to see what effect different choices would have. Here it is: http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-RCpad.htm

 

[Bilavideo]

After getting the UM3X shells and examining their limitations (just enough space for a triple), I'm beginning to think that shells are unncessary. I got into this so I could talk about ways to build DIY IEMs, not to make the process more difficult or more expensive than necessary. I think I'm going to go back to the tips. I've put together a quad (involving about $104 in drivers) and it easily accommodates a medium Shure olive. What I want to do next is pop in that next driver to create a "super six."

What I have so far needs filters and a crossover, but the six-driver arrangement is worth doing.

 

[RubbberDucky]

By the time you make yourself a pair you will be ready to make your own company and compete with the big boys! Hahaha! This is looking awesome, and so far over my newbie head that it makes me wonder if I will ever understand... Good luck!

 

[specto]

so cool...

 

[Bilavideo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RubbberDucky /img/forum/go_quote.gif By the time you make yourself a pair you will be ready to make your own company and compete with the big boys! Hahaha! This is looking awesome, and so far over my newbie head that it makes me wonder if I will ever understand... Good luck!

RubberDucky, don't let these pages intimidate you. When we first set out to make IEMs a DIY experience, a number of us began researching various aspects of IEM design. Lots of questions arose:

What drivers should we use?
How many drivers are optimal?
How do we create a crossover small enough to fit in a shell.
How do we build the shells?
Where do we go to get tubing and filters?
What filters should we use?
How do we create a decent housing?
What kind of wire is best for connecting the drivers and crossover?
What wire should we use to hook everything up to a sound source?
What kind of connectors should we use for the housing?
What kind of connectors should we use to hook up the sound source?

We didn't know what we were doing. We still don't know everything. But with each step, we're drawing closer to the good stuff. Things are coming together. The best part about it is that a person can finally take ownership of the monitors. People can decide what drivers they want and how many. They can decide where to cross the drivers over. This is the future, one where ordinary listeners get what they want - without all the mystical, magical, mumbo jumbo.

Like my Dad always said, "Don't sell yourself short."

 

[RubbberDucky]

Well maybe one day I will understand... Today I took my first baby step in the DIY audio world! I began work on my first custom interconnects! I still need to solder the connections, however I have never soldered and I do not own an iron. I am waiting to order my soldering iron when I have the money. It's either wait or use my gradfather's old dusty and dirty one that I am not sure works... But I don't want it to compromise the connection so for now we wait.

By the sound of it, making your own IEMs has to cost one pretty penny!

How hard would it be to make some decent single driver IEMs? Wouldn't that not require a crossover and you would be less concerned about space constraints. But I am sure there is some wild wiring I wouldn't understand. I need a "Custom IEMs For Dummies" book.

 

[Bilavideo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RubbberDucky /img/forum/go_quote.gif By the sound of it, making your own IEMs has to cost one pretty penny! How hard would it be to make some decent single driver IEMs? Wouldn't that not require a crossover and you would be less concerned about space constraints. But I am sure there is some wild wiring I wouldn't understand. I need a "Custom IEMs For Dummies" book.

You'd be surprised.

Although the CI-22955 is used as a woofer because of its high output (114 dB at 200 Hz), an undamped driver does a decent job of covering the spectrum through about 6 kHz. It won't give you the highest highs but when I tried on a pair, I was surprised at how good they could sound. At $53 a pair (through Mouser), it's just a matter of soldering a replacement cable, which you can get as expensively or as cheaply as you like. There's no need for a fancy shell. The drivers are small enough to pop into an eartip. The one place for special care is in soldering the wires to the drivers' pads and in bracing the wire to something other than the drivers' pads so you don't rip the pads out if the cord gets a strong yank. If you're going for cheap cheap, you could make an earphone with these for less than $70.

The least expensive option is to go with the BK series, which will run you about $38/pair. With these, you'll get less HF extension but the sound is surprisingly good and you can make earphones out of these for less than $50.

Personally, if I were going for a single driver, I'd actually buy a single "dual" driver: the TWFK. This is KA's best and smallest dual, running about $103/pair. The sizzle of the tweeter side is so sweet, I'd buy it for the value.

 

[RubbberDucky]

So there are no other little electronic components necessary other than the Cable and the driver? It would be really cool to put them in a custom mold and figure out how to get a little jack in there that would accept the Ultimate Ears replacement cables. But by that time I would have probably spent more time and money on it than buying some nice dual customs from Alien Ears. Not to mention the fact that they wouldn't be a nice translucent blue acrylic. It would be very difficult to work with custom molds of my ears, at least they are big... However they would be Mine, and I love making things. Maybe I will give it a go in a few months. I always have you guys to ask for help when the going gets rough!

 

[Bilavideo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RubbberDucky /img/forum/go_quote.gif So there are no other little electronic components necessary other than the Cable and the driver?

On a single driver IEM, there's no crossover. If the HF came off as harsh, you could add a filter to each outlet, but we're talking about a $3 upgrade. The white filters are the least intrusive. KA recommends them for the TWFK as a way of smoothing out some of the HF. If I were using them on something like the CI-22955, which already tapers the HF, I wouldn't go heavier than that, because you're using the wide-range single to get both high and low.

So yeah, to get sound, all you have to do is solder a connection. Once wired for sound, you can pop them into an earpiece and run like the wind. It's not complicated at all. When you consider the mark-up for molded plastic, this is really the poor man's wa of laughing all the way to the bank.

Quote:

It would be really cool to put them in a custom mold and figure out how to get a little jack in there that would accept the Ultimate Ears replacement cables.

Depending on the cable you get, Ultimate Ears offers some of the best prices on earphone cable. For the universals, the replacement cable is only $20. For the customs, the replacement cable is $36. Either way, it's pretty cheap.

 

[RubbberDucky]

Wow that is really cool. So the problem for me would probably be finding the earpeice. Has anyone on here made their own IEMs with a custom mold? My ears are shaped too weird to like universals.

If I made a custom cable for them would there be a ground for both? I have never messed with earphones or headphones wiring. :/

This is awesome stuff! I totally want to try it. These forums are awesome, but I wish there were some how to videos. I just like videos haha! Maybe I will just have to make some for the other noobs out there...

 

[Bilavideo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RubbberDucky /img/forum/go_quote.gif Wow that is really cool. So the problem for me would probably be finding the earpeice. Has anyone on here made their own IEMs with a custom mold? My ears are shaped too weird to like universals.

Check this out. http://cre.ations.net/creation/creat...ear-headphones

Quote:

If I made a custom cable for them would there be a ground for both? I have never messed with earphones or headphones wiring. :/

You can have any wiring you like. That's the beauty of the thing. You can go three-wire or even completely balanced.

 

[RubbberDucky]

Ive seen that before, but he uses some stuff that might cause an allergic reaction. Plus he used those crap little speakers out of $5 headphones.

How would you wire it? Haha! Im too new to know what is best.

 

[Bilavideo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RubbberDucky /img/forum/go_quote.gif Ive seen that before, but he uses some stuff that might cause an allergic reaction. Plus he used those crap little speakers out of $5 headphones. How would you wire it? Haha! Im too new to know what is best.

He's using epoxy. When I looked into it, I wasn't wild about putting anything into my ear that might be toxic or flammable. I'd rather cast acrylic, even if I had to do it without a $2,000 plastic injection molder.

For a reasonable price, you can make ear impressions - either with a $15 home kit or for $50 through an audiologist. Once you have workable impressions, you can send them off to any number of places that will make acrylic plastic moldings with a professional plastic injection molder. There are companies in China that will do the work for cheap. Once you have a custom fit, professionally-molded shell, you can put whatever you want inside it. That seems like the most convenient way to have the best of both worlds: Let the pros make the housing while you design the configuration inside.

Unfortunately, this violates the goal I set out for myself at the beginning, which was to make a do-it-yourself earphone from materials and equipment available to the average listener. While anybody could go get impressions from an audiologist and send off to China for a custom-built earmold, I considered doing so a cheat - at least for me, because I'm trying to explore what the average person could do on his or her own. I'm looking for a hack that could let the little guy outsmart the pros.

So, until I get past this acrylic-casting hurdle, I'm working with universal eartips. With a glue gun, a soldering iron and a cheap hands-free device from Radio Shack, there's a lot you can do on your own. Also, I recently picked up some soft silicone earplugs from Walmart, which have made experimentation cheap and fun. With the silicone, I was able to fabricate, by hand, the right-shaped part to seal the ear canal. The result was a deeper, more profound, bass - the kinds of things customs-owners talk about. It cost me all of $4. If I could cure the silicone into something hard, I'd have what I need at a fraction of the cost.

 

[RubbberDucky]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bilavideo /img/forum/go_quote.gif He's using epoxy. When I looked into it, I wasn't wild about putting anything into my ear that might be toxic or flammable. I'd rather cast acrylic, even if I had to do it without a $2,000 plastic injection molder. For a reasonable price, you can make ear impressions - either with a $15 home kit or for $50 through an audiologist. Once you have workable impressions, you can send them off to any number of places that will make acrylic plastic moldings with a professional plastic injection molder. There are companies in China that will do the work for cheap. Once you have a custom fit, professionally-molded shell, you can put whatever you want inside it. That seems like the most convenient way to have the best of both worlds: Let the pros make the housing while you design the configuration inside. Unfortunately, this violates the goal I set out for myself at the beginning, which was to make a do-it-yourself earphone from materials and equipment available to the average listener. While anybody could go get impressions from an audiologist and send off to China for a custom-built earmold, I considered doing so a cheat - at least for me, because I'm trying to explore what the average person could do on his or her own. I'm looking for a hack that could let the little guy outsmart the pros. So, until I get past this acrylic-casting hurdle, I'm working with universal eartips. With a glue gun, a soldering iron and a cheap hands-free device from Radio Shack, there's a lot you can do on your own. Also, I recently picked up some soft silicone earplugs from Walmart, which have made experimentation cheap and fun. With the silicone, I was able to fabricate, by hand, the right-shaped part to seal the ear canal. The result was a deeper, more profound, bass - the kinds of things customs-owners talk about. It cost me all of $4. If I could cure the silicone into something hard, I'd have what I need at a fraction of the cost.

I would have tried it as well, but the flammable/Possibly toxic epoxy that might get stuck in your ear didn't sound like the smartest way to go...

If you DID cheat yourself, do you have a specific company/site you would use to buy the molds?

We need to find a good alternative to Acrylic... Too bad we can't make a ghetto DIY injection molder. $2000 is a little out of my budget, hahaha! Don't some companies actually use silicone for some of their custom molds?

Or we could just buy a couple of those plastic injection molders and start our own little custom IEM business! Then we could make ourselves all the IEMs we want! Not to mention the fun of experimenting with all that stuff!

 

[meraj.salek]

Quote:

Or we could just buy a couple of those plastic injection molders and start our own little custom IEM business! Then we could make ourselves all the IEMs we want! Not to mention the fun of experimenting with all that stuff!

where do i sign up?