[AlexMills]

update - this mod gave it more bass than the stock ie800. now I have to figure out how much cotton or whatever I need to put in the bass port to get me just the right amount of bass. SO PLEASE DON'T DO IT UNLESS YOU WANT TO GO THROUGH THIS. this is my spare ie800 that I got used.

but I think this explains the wide disparity in sound among ie800s, with some complaining that it has too much disgusting bloated bass and others saying it's fine. IT'S EXTREMELY SENSITIVE TO THE SIZE OF THE HOLE IN THE BASS PORT

----

Hello,

Just reporting my experience with clogged bass ports. So I owned a real ie800, that I got from Sennheiser, and I purchased a second one from ebay. The one from ebay was completely bass anemic. I carefully compared the two physically and the ebay one was perfect, and it sounded good and super-detailed except for the missing bass. I know how to spot ie800 fakes so I was really stumped. Also, the serial no. was good, receipt from Sennheiser, everything. The sound was just like a real ie800, except for the bass.

This was a set made in around 2013-2014 so I concluded that Sennheiser just changed the tuning on these, but this was wayyyy less bass. Well, I stuck a pin in the bass port and discovered that it was clogged. I unclogged it by sticking the pin about 2mm in each bass port, and now it has a ton of bass again.

Just wanted to mention it to ie800 users who may be experiencing diminished bass due to a clogged bass port. Now that I unclogged it, I discovered that I can really adjust the bass by sticking a tiny bit of tissue in the bass port. I'm surprised that I'm the first ie800 owner to have this problem and make this discovery lol.

 

[Bjrmd]

They are not bass ports, they are Helmholtz resonance ports to reduce the peak at 6 to 8 Khz from closed ear standing waves.

 

[AlexMills]

They are not bass ports, they are Helmholtz resonance ports to reduce the peak at 6 to 8 Khz from closed ear standing waves.

no they msut be bass ports. Unclogging them increased the bass a ton, from virtually no bass, to a ton. Also, if I put my fingers over them, the bass goes back down again.
 
So you don't know what you're talking about.

 

[ryanjsoo]

 
no they msut be bass ports. Unclogging them increased the bass a ton, from virtually no bass, to a ton. Also, if I put my fingers over them, the bass goes back down again.
 
So you don't know what you're talking about.

 
Well they`re pretty much the same phenomena, most sub-woofers use helmoltz ports to increase bass response for example.
 
edit: Actually I do remember them offering different functions, one of them equalizing pressure in the ear cannal and one affecting the 8KHz peak.

 

[AlexMills]

   
Well they`re pretty much the same phenomena, most sub-woofers use helmoltz ports to increase bass response for example.
 
edit: Actually I do remember them offering different functions, one of them equalizing pressure in the ear cannal and one affecting the 8KHz peak.

 
hmm. I noticed that with the top bass port, i could go in like 3-4 mm (and I could have gone in more but I stopped because I didn't want to risk even getting close to the driver) but with the bottom bass port I could only go in 3mm or so before I hit something hard. So they could be for different functions. Also, "unclogging" the bottom ports has no effect because if I put my finger over them the sound doesnt' change.
 
What's interesting is that if I use a little tissue paper, half-clogging the top port, it reduces the bass a little, but not as much as putting my fingers over the top bass ports.

I'm glad I figured that out though, because I had zero absolutely zero evidence of a fake and I didn't want to accuse the seller baselessly. There's no way someone in this thread isn't suffering low bass due to clogged bass ports.
 
edited to give exact measurements of how far I went in

 

[AlexMills]

and please be careful if you try this! you don't want to risk cutting the driver by going in too far (how far is the driver? i didn't go more than 4mm deep on the top port to be safe)

 

[AlexMills]

update - this mod gave it more bass than the stock ie800. now I have to figure out how much cotton or whatever I need to put in the bass port to get me just the right amount of bass. SO PLEASE DON'T DO IT UNLESS YOU WANT TO GO THROUGH THIS. this is my spare ie800 that I got used. I hope I didn't ruin anyone's perfectly working ie800

 

[AlexMills]

OK I've lost so much respect for the ie800 and for dynamic driver iems in general.
 
1. With the bass turned up by expanding the size of the bass port, as I did, the treble got toned down a lot. On this topic, I remember that Sennheiser claims they have some magic innovation that solves the "iems that produce bass can't produce treble" problem. You know what that innovation is? A perfectly-sized bass port hole with a little sound absorbing material inside of it. But that is a super primitive solution. I'm playing with various amounts of cotton over the bass port, and it dramatically changes the amount of bass, and thus the amount of treble, and I'm not innovating any less than Sennheiser did.
 
2. This design feature is a problem because there will be too much variability between ie800s (I had to return an IE800 to amazon once because it had too much bass and I thought it was defective or fake, but it wasn't, it just happened to have a larger bass port than the ie800 I was used to).
 
3. This design feature is a problem because the bass port WILL get clogged over time, as will the sound absorbing material inside the bass port.
 
4. BA drivers are superior to dynamics for iems -- because they're consistent.
 
If I can't get the bass perfect on this for me, I'm just going to open it up and show everyone what's inside an ie800.
 
But overall, the above are major problems with the ie800's design. Too unreliable, too much variability between ie800s, degrades over time

 

[AlexMills]

p.s. I guess we found out the reason behind Tyll Hersten's two radically different ie800 measurements. Sennheiser didn't change anything, the second one just has a slightly bigger bass port. What a horribly inconsistent product.

 

[AlexMills]

After an hour of tinkering with bass port covers, this is what I came up with.
 
Again, if you cover the bass port you get a weak anemic bass-less ie800. If you open it too far, you lose treble, detail and it sounds relatively muddy, at least by flagship TOTL iem standards.
 
This is what I came up to give me the perfect balance between bass and treble.
 
But Sennheiser shouldn't make a product that's so incredibly sensitive to the size of the bass port. I hope this random experiment I stumbled into has been helpful for other ie800 owners.
 
http://i.imgur.com/4WmgOEh.jpg
 
On a positive note, with the tape over it like this I love the bass/treble balance. Sounds great, detailed, highs, slamming bass.

 

[ryanjsoo]

Nice find Alex, pretty interesting mod. I found that using spinfit tips gave a similar increase in bass presence and slam with maybe a little more texture, they`re worth a look too if you want to further tune the sound. 

 

[Dobrescu George]

update - this mod gave it more bass than the stock ie800. now I have to figure out how much cotton or whatever I need to put in the bass port to get me just the right amount of bass. SO PLEASE DON'T DO IT UNLESS YOU WANT TO GO THROUGH THIS. this is my spare ie800 that I got used.

but I think this explains the wide disparity in sound among ie800s, with some complaining that it has too much disgusting bloated bass and others saying it's fine. IT'S EXTREMELY SENSITIVE TO THE SIZE OF THE HOLE IN THE BASS PORT

----

Hello,

Just reporting my experience with clogged bass ports. So I owned a real ie800, that I got from Sennheiser, and I purchased a second one from ebay. The one from ebay was completely bass anemic. I carefully compared the two physically and the ebay one was perfect, and it sounded good and super-detailed except for the missing bass. I know how to spot ie800 fakes so I was really stumped. Also, the serial no. was good, receipt from Sennheiser, everything. The sound was just like a real ie800, except for the bass.

This was a set made in around 2013-2014 so I concluded that Sennheiser just changed the tuning on these, but this was wayyyy less bass. Well, I stuck a pin in the bass port and discovered that it was clogged. I unclogged it by sticking the pin about 2mm in each bass port, and now it has a ton of bass again.

Just wanted to mention it to ie800 users who may be experiencing diminished bass due to a clogged bass port. Now that I unclogged it, I discovered that I can really adjust the bass by sticking a tiny bit of tissue in the bass port. I'm surprised that I'm the first ie800 owner to have this problem and make this discovery lol.

 
 
You do understand the fact that you're using a needle to tweak a well engineered 700 EUR IEM, no? 
 
This is why no one sticked a needle inside ie800, because it is a 700 EUR carefully engineered IEM, not a plastic cheap thing that you can get ten of. 
 
I just listened to Sennheiser momentum in ear. Man, those were good. 
 
Also, my ie800 came from repairs XD. AgainXD. 
 
Time for critical listening. 

 

[Dobrescu George]

  OK I've lost so much respect for the ie800 and for dynamic driver iems in general.
 
1. With the bass turned up by expanding the size of the bass port, as I did, the treble got toned down a lot. On this topic, I remember that Sennheiser claims they have some magic innovation that solves the "iems that produce bass can't produce treble" problem. You know what that innovation is? A perfectly-sized bass port hole with a little sound absorbing material inside of it. But that is a super primitive solution. I'm playing with various amounts of cotton over the bass port, and it dramatically changes the amount of bass, and thus the amount of treble, and I'm not innovating any less than Sennheiser did.
 
2. This design feature is a problem because there will be too much variability between ie800s (I had to return an IE800 to amazon once because it had too much bass and I thought it was defective or fake, but it wasn't, it just happened to have a larger bass port than the ie800 I was used to).
 
3. This design feature is a problem because the bass port WILL get clogged over time, as will the sound absorbing material inside the bass port.
 
4. BA drivers are superior to dynamics for iems -- because they're consistent.
 
If I can't get the bass perfect on this for me, I'm just going to open it up and show everyone what's inside an ie800.
 
But overall, the above are major problems with the ie800's design. Too unreliable, too much variability between ie800s, degrades over time

 
 
BA is still a dynamic membrane, it's just positioned differently, achieves another sound, with another principle. I listened to BA IEMs. They sound awful. The treble was so freaking recessed, sound was so muddy and dark. Not all are like this, but the ones I tried were awful for my tastes, and they costed around the same as ie800. 

 

[0rangutan]

Interesting set of posts.

I don't doubt that partly blocking the ports will affect the sound, but as counterpoints to your experiences:

1. I have owned three pairs of IE800s and all have had an identical signature with perfect bass and treble balance in all cases.
2. The idea that Sennheiser quality control is poor on anything, never mind their TOTL IEM is a little hard to believe.
3. Differing bass quantity experiences in most cases are down to insertion and seal. I know this isn't the case for you Alex, just pointing out that this is *usually* the case.
4. There are a lot of fakes around and the IE800 fakes are VERY good, both in appearance and sound. Buying from Amazon helps, but is no guarantee. Again, some people's differing experiences are sadly down to fakes.

Not disputing any of what you have found and certainly keen to hear more as you learn more.

 

[Duncan]

BA is still a dynamic membrane, it's just positioned differently, achieves another sound, with another principle. I listened to BA IEMs. They sound awful. The treble was so freaking recessed, sound was so muddy and dark. Not all are like this, but the ones I tried were awful for my tastes, and they costed around the same as ie800. 

Fit is more key than anything...

I've heard expensive BA's sound bad, I've heard expensive dynamics sound bad, but I've heard inexpensive dynamics sound good (with a bit of creativity of how they're placed in the ear)...

There is no right or wrong answer, just different opinions, and - varying ear shapes to add into the mix.