[parhelictriangle]

I've had my SE-310s for about a year now, and I used to use primarily the medium olives. I tend to grab for my IEMs when I'm studying or right before bed, so I'm usually not anywhere near a mirror when I insert them.

However, I happened to catch a glimpse in the mirror recently and noticed that my IEMs were inserted very deeply in comparison to the standard fit, if this is indeed the standard fit:

With the olives, the 310s slide into my ears at more of an angle, and looking at myself in profile, I could see less of the lateral body of the 310s and much more of the cable connection (in other words, the "L" or "R" were clearly visible, sticking out at roughly an 80 degree angle from the plane of my ear). The tip of the IEM housing appeared to be inserted into my earcanal itself, up to roughly the chrome banding.

So, question: is this safe? When I use the tri-flanges, the 310s insert more in line with the photo above, but I always feel like I'm losing some high frequency resolution with the flanges and they don't isolate nearly as well (obviously) as the deeply inserted olives. As an experiment, I tried compressing the olives less and inserting them less err, perpendicularly into my ear canal. I managed to approximate the image above, but lost a ton of isolation and the imaging was off (but maybe that's how the 310s are. . . supposed to sound?).

With the deep-insertion (for lack of a better phrase) I get tons of isolation and detail, strong bass and good mids/highs. Every one of those factors is diminished if I try to replicate the standard fit images. However, with my original method, my iPod's volume had to be at a minimal level--just a click or two above 0--or things became far too loud. Am I killing my hearing by inserting the 310s too far?

Thing is, my ears appear to be a bit odd, with rather large canal openings leading to a recessed, narrow canal proper. More accurately, there's a ton of space underneath my tragus, which seems to overhang more than usual. I can get my index finger in there up to the first joint (not that I do such a thing regularly, mind you). Aw, heck, here's a picture of my ear with the IEM inserted, plus some unappealing stray shaggy hair, for which I apologize.

Am I the only one who has ears like this (I know they're all unique, but this seems to be a fairly large deviation from the norm)? Am I inserting these too far? Am I going to damage my hearing? Any and all help/advice/commentary would be appreciated.

 

[parhelictriangle]

Just as an additional note: the medium black olives, inserted as above definitely give me the best isolation, followed by the tri-flanges which insert more in line with the standard fit as I mentioned. The other olive sizes didn't seem to fit well or isolate properly a year ago, and I've since misplaced them. The soft-flex sleeves were never comfortable for me.

The tri-flanges sound great for the most part albeit with less isolation, but there's a loss of detail in the highs for me which makes some vocals sound distant and less coherent. I listen to a lot of instrumental music across many genres so the slight vocal incoherence with the tri-flanges took a long time to register. The soundstage on the tri-flanges also seems a bit artificially wide and less coherent but this is only noticeable on some tracks.

 

[pomme de terre]

I also insert my SE210s a lot deeper than in that photo so that the L/R letters face directly outwards. I find the deeper it goes, the better the sound.

 

[Brooklyn Hype]

Even if you insert IEMs fairly deeply, they shouldn't go deep enough to actually reach your eardrum and cause damage to it. As long as you aren't listening to them too loudly (which you obviously aren't) you should be fine.