Suggestions on my first (and hopefully last) set of customs?

[Nightslayer]

We all know the deal; buy an earphone, get fascinated with it, think "oh my gosh this is the best thing i've ever heard" and vow not to buy another earphone ever again. That was me with the DBA-02 about 7 or 8 months back. Fastforward to now and you clearly see my vow just got broken. Truth be told, I'm still plenty satisfied with the DBA02. A few gripes here and there (in the head soundstage, a tad too little bass quantity, slightly thin mids and highs) but very satisfied. Then 1964ears had to come along and offer a trip-custom for 400 (incl shipping, I live in Singapore ): ) and put a dateline on the oh-so-attractive price. So I'm in a dilemma now, are the customs worth upgrading to? I was considering upgrading in say two or three years but the price seems too good to miss. I'll probably never spring for the extremely high end, but 95% should satisfy me for portable use. So question 1, are these 'phones worth getting now? Question 2, the similarly priced competitors from UM, UE, JH and Westone all have favourable reviews despite having less drivers (which I know count for very little), does anyone own or has anyone heard both and can speak favourably for the 1964-T? and lastly I've heard that your ear canals roughly retain their shape after 16 (and I"m turning 18 this year), but does anyone know if fit would ever be an issue say two years down? Thanks for the help head-fi

 

[Nightslayer]

Bump. To compress that chunk of information into a nutshell, 1964-T VS JH5 VS UE4 VS UMAero, anyone?

 

[scompton]

Quote:

I've heard that your ear canals roughly retain their shape after 16 (and I"m turning 18 this year), but does anyone know if fit would ever be an issue say two years down? Thanks for the help head-fi

Roughly is the problem there.  Some people keep growing after 18.  Also if your weight changes by 30 pounds, your ear canals can change.  My wife is deaf and wears hearing aids, and has lots of deaf friends, which is why I know this.  If your height and weight don't fluctuate, the ear molds for hearing aids last 10-15 years.  I would assume it would be the same for IEMs. 

 

[Nightslayer]

Thanks for the information, so that part is settled for me. Now to decide between the 1964-T and the JH5, which I've roughly narrowed it down to. Would anyone say the JH5 has a better quality than the 1964-T?

 

[Nightslayer]

Anyone opinionated enough to take a stand on either? Bump.

 

[Nightslayer]

Bump. JH5 vs UE4 vs 1964-T?

 

[Nightslayer]

Bump. Anyone who can speak for the JH5s, UE4s or 1964-Ts; would anyone suggest my upgrading from the DBA-02s by Fischer Audio to any of these earphones? And I've been wondering, is it possible to request for the companies doing your custom IEM to tweak the frequency response of the earphone in a certain way?

 

[Saintkeat]

hey man i'm from singapore too. and i've got 2 things to say seeing how young you are and assuming you're on a limited budget like me.
 
going down the customs route you gotta understand that its a long and expensive road. the price doesn't stop at 400. theres ear impressions and shipping those ear impressions there. then when they send you your customs and it doesn't fit right, you make new impressions and ship those with your earphones back to them. and this can happen more than once. add that to the expense of cables and possibly cracked shells, reshelling would set you back quite a bit.
 
now i'm not trying to scare you off customs, but just telling you how it is, and I wished someone would've told me how it would be so I would have sprung for more expensive customs. here's where my 2nd bit of advice comes in.
 
I don't know about 1964 manufacturing policies, but seeing how its a company no bigger than alien ears, offering the same price on similar products, its easy to assume they're cutting costs the same way. no doubt you'll have a pair that sounds pretty decent for the listed price you paid excl all other expenses. but you'd be spending a lot on all those other expenses as their techniques with regards to shaping impressions would likely be a lot more rudimentary compared to the bigger more reliable companies that have a technician that has probably done thousands of customs in his career. not just that, but you'd LIKELY find that the build quality is sub par, example the acrylic gets brittle over time and you'd find they're actually thinner than other top quality customs, therefore the chances of them holding up after 2 years are not good. And the thing that takes the icing on the cake for tiny custom companies, is the customer service. don't expect them to treat you as well as the more noted companies with good reputations. IF 1964 treats their customers extremely well, then it will be more of the exception rather than the norm.
 
so all this leads me to advice you to get either something from jh, westone, or the like. And now it all boils down to your musical preference. just remember, that customer service is as important as the sound quality. since you'd be tied to the company for a long time.
 
as for tweaking customs, I think the only custom company that does it that I know of would be UM.

 

[ericp10]

I think it's totally unfair to a young company and to the OP to suggest that is a custom is cheaper than the higher-cost ones it probably mean they are cutting cost in quality. I would seek out people (very few that I know of) like project86  or jermng  who both own 1964 EARS products and customs from the higher-end companies. I know project86 has said in the post that there wasn't a huge difference in sound quality (although there may be some) or production.
 
I, myself, own the 1964 EARS  quad, and it is my first and only custom, so I can't say how it compares to the higher-end customs. I will get one of those eventually, but not in the near future. What I can tell you is that I've owned most of the top tier universals IEMs, and none come close to the sound quality of the quad. And I can tell you that the construction quality of my custom is superb. So, although it usually does make a difference, you can't judge a product's quality by its price, especially when you're comparing a start-up company like 1964 EARS to more established companies such as JH. Many start-up companies come into the market with lower prices just to get consumers to take a chance on their products. Trust, if the company is a success, those price will shoot up. But some companies - like Livewires - use  lower prices as its competitive niche. Just my two cents.

 

[Saintkeat]

ericp10, you can't compare customs and universals. fundamentally flawed. and like i said, i don't know how they match up build quality wise, but from my experience with a young small company, build quality is always an issue, as is customer service. you can't say i'm being unfair or even wrong about questioning their build quality until you've had yours for 3 years without a single issue. i've had the opportunity recently to compare the shell of my custom with one of the demo molds from UM and the UM was a good deal thicker. my purpose is to ensure that the OP has a good idea of what hes getting himself into, and weigh the risk properly, instead of jumping on the hype wagon. being skeptical is not a fault.
 
 
 
 
 

 

[Randius]

@saintkeat: Being skeptical is of no fault but I don't think it is fair of you to generalize young companies being LIKELY to produce sub-par build quality products and poor customer service just because you had a bad experience. Also, bigger company size does not guarantee better customer service as I have friends who've had bad experiences with JH Audio and UE. One of them even had his JH16 lost in transit and JH did not offered to help despite repeated emails. They only did so when he had to resort to threat. 1964 Ears has so far provided excellent customer service to everyone interested in their products. In fact, these smaller companies know that, in addition to competitive pricing, providing good customer service will help them to garner a loyal customer base and to survive in the long run.
 
And as of build quality, perhaps TS can refer to project86's review on his 1964-T (he owns ES3X, Livewire Trips, UM Aero etc) for a better idea.