[theveterans]

The LID tech reduces a lot of variability with cables, making them harder to discern from each other. The differences are subtle with LID tech unlike IEMs that do not have LID and have wild impedance and phase swings as a function of frequency

 

[64Audio]

The LID tech reduces a lot of variability with cables, making them harder to discern from each other. The differences are subtle with LID tech unlike IEMs that do not have LID and have wild impedance and phase swings as a function of frequency

correct. U18t/A18t and Fourté are the only models which aren't made with LID. These will reflect impedance changes much more noticeably than any of our other models.

 

[PixelSquish]

It is pretty hard to beat our current stock cable. The two more expensive options were available as upgrades while all of our UIEMs came with our older cable. We launched this new one with U6t and then added it to all of the other UIEMs (except U18s) later on. The two more expensive cables were a response to market demand at the time and are better cables than the ones that used to come with the UIEMs and we're happy to continue to make them available as they are both great in their own ways. The cost is a reflection of the material and order quantity, they also all differ in feel, hardware, and gauge (as well as some having memory wire). The sound quality differences between the current three high-end cables remain relatively subjective but are available to anyone looking for cable options within the 64 audio family of products

Appreciate it. I know you have to be diplomatic on here as you don't want to upset any of your consumers, and cables are a very touch subject for many.

It sounds like you ship the IEM's you sell with a cable which you feel strongly represents the sound of that IEM (that is if one believes cables make a big difference), but whether your company believes it or not, the stock cable with the IEM represents the sound you want to sell. Anyone can dabble after.

Random question, is it even possible to pay extra for a custom version of a universal version of the Volur but with MMCX connectors instead of 2-pin? And that request has absolutely nothing to do with a cable, but a TWS solution called the Shure TW2

 

[584585]

correct. U18t/A18t and Fourté are the only models which aren't made with LID. These will reflect impedance changes much more noticeably than any of our other models.

Going forward, future iterations of A18* will be LID+? Reason why I'm asking is I'm planning on A18t as a backup plan since it is timeless if the want becomes a need, but now that I'm aware of this "LID" issue I'll holdout a little longer.

Also, since i"m here I hope future iterations of A18* will battle test for Soundstage Depth. I'm one of few Gaming with Soundstage Depth and while I trust "Reference Flat" to handle Soundstage Depth without an issue I hope for that final 10% confidence. For example, Soundstage Depth is a thing with the DCA Stealth since it leans towards Reference:

Since I'm only into Professional CIEMs, a CIEM similar to the DCA Stealth would be fantastic. I judge SQ solely on Soundstage Depth, other criteria can be easily manipulated. That's why I strive for a fully transparent chain with no Sound Signature.

In the meantime, when I go out for walks or listening for outdoor noises I'm training to judge distances like Rob Watts has done in the past. If a bird tweets / chirps or a dog barks or rain drops I try to precisely judge the distance like 10 metres or 1/2 mile or 10 feet or 1 kilometre, etc. It does help to train over time (burn-in) so I'm hoping to battle test with a A18* one day for Soundstage Depth. Unfortunately, no sheep around.

But... Listen to real sounds. I am typing this at dawn in the Welsh countryside. My window is ajar, and I can hear sheep 200 feet away - and it sounds 200 feet away. From the farm 2 miles away a dog barks; it clearly sounds 2 miles away. Do this on reproduced audio and things sounds comparatively flat; no-body would claim that a recording of a dog barking 2 miles away actually sounds anything like two miles distant.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/watts-up.800264/post-13547900

 

[Frankie D]

Going forward, future iterations of A18* will be LID+? Reason why I'm asking is I'm planning on A18t as a backup plan since it is timeless if the want becomes a need, but now that I'm aware of this "LID" issue I'll holdout a little longer.

Also, since i"m here I hope future iterations of A18* will battle test for Soundstage Depth. I'm one of few Gaming with Soundstage Depth and while I trust "Reference Flat" to handle Soundstage Depth without an issue I hope for that final 10% confidence. For example, Soundstage Depth is a thing with the DCA Stealth since it leans towards Reference:



Since I'm only into Professional CIEMs, a CIEM similar to the DCA Stealth would be fantastic. I judge SQ solely on Soundstage Depth, other criteria can be easily manipulated. That's why I strive for a fully transparent chain with no Sound Signature.

In the meantime, when I go out for walks or listening for outdoor noises I'm training to judge distances like Rob Watts has done in the past. If a bird tweets / chirps or a dog barks or rain drops I try to precisely judge the distance like 10 metres or 1/2 mile or 10 feet or 1 kilometre, etc. It does help to train over time (burn-in) so I'm hoping to battle test with a A18* one day for Soundstage Depth.

Personally, I just compared again recently and still felt the U12T, Fourte and U18 are the best IEMs made by 64 Audio, Lid or not. I would suggest picking what sounds best to you and going with that. This was with stock cables as well.

 

[theveterans]

"Professional" and "Reference Flat" for me are misnomers. You can use any IEM on a business and have it called professional. If you're into "precise" soundstage depth, Fourte or Volur would be your pick even if those aren't marketed as "Professional".

 

[584585]

Personally, I just compared again recently and still felt the U12T, Fourte and U18 are the best IEMs made by 64 Audio, Lid or not. I would suggest picking what sounds best to you and going with that. This was with stock cables as well.

Appreciate the suggestions but I'm at the end of my CIEM ARC not my prime so I only have horse blinders on for the A18*.

For example that headphone dude, Tyll (sp?). At the end of his ARC after trying every headphone in existence he rode off into the sunset with a simple few.

I'm also trying to keep a small footprint. It would be wonderful if I was in my prime to consider anything else, but father time always wins thus slowly draining the options for this hobby. Plus, my boutique cable uses only the official Estron connectors.

 

[584585]

"Professional" and "Reference Flat" for me are misnomers. You can use any IEM on a business and have it called professional. If you're into "precise" soundstage depth, Fourte or Volur would be your pick even if those aren't marketed as "Professional".

Appreciate you making aware LID was a thing. I wasn't aware that could be a potential future issue.

Yes, that's fine on the technicalities on what to label "Professional" and "Reference Flat". I forgot I'm dealing with Millennials and Gen-Z folks.

It's like walking into a Best Buy when the salesperson attempts to help me with a project:

Since I've been listening to "Reference" CIEMs for 20+ years as a Xennial, it's too late to burn-in into something foreign.

So I'm only focused on CIEMs that lean towards "Reference" since I'm Old School Philosophy but State of the Art Tech type.

 

[584585]

Appreciate it. I know you have to be diplomatic on here as you don't want to upset any of your consumers, and cables are a very touch subject for many.

It sounds like you ship the IEM's you sell with a cable which you feel strongly represents the sound of that IEM (that is if one believes cables make a big difference), but whether your company believes it or not, the stock cable with the IEM represents the sound you want to sell. Anyone can dabble after.

Random question, is it even possible to pay extra for a custom version of a universal version of the Volur but with MMCX connectors instead of 2-pin? And that request has absolutely nothing to do with a cable, but a TWS solution called the Shure TW2

I'm triggered by you trying to be diplomatic. In the end, as long as R&D gets funded by whichever product is chosen, we all win. You get cross transfer of technologies to CIEM <==> UIEM. For example, all the UIEMs will fund the new A18*, etc. so it's great there is such a diversity of options. Hopefully, LID+ tech will get transferred too one day to the A18*.

As for cables, my theory is that Millenials and Gen-Y'ers grow up and raised on $4 OEM DAC chips. So whether you are listening on an iDevice, TV soundbar, high markup DAPs, bluetooth speaker, etc. your pretty much conditioned to $4 OEM DACs. So $4 OEM DAC chains and OEM (wires all from the same monopoly supply chain) cables will all mostly sound the same with zero Soundstage Depth. Since 99% run $4 OEM DACs, there's not going to be much difference between cables.

My experience with scaling my desktop chain with custom DACs is that the cable plays an important role. I don't want to get too much into it since I'm not in my Prime so my energy runs low quickly but basically everybody runs $4 OEM chains no matter if you spend $5K-$10K on your source device (it's still a $4 OEM DAC) and basically the same OEM cable just marketed and assembled by different brands so your not going to get much difference in that these are basically generic chains (all sound the same). The $4 OEM DAC is the bottleneck that is not going to take your cable thus your chain further.

Everything matters in a fine-tuned desktop chain and the cable is the glue. Without unlocking Soundstage Depth, I could not justify scaling transducers. IMO, transducers no matter how highly-priced are useless without Soundstage Depth. Don't get me wrong, I can be happy with just building my own low profile custom DAP with a low latency realtime kernel powering a Apple iPhone dongle ($4 OEM DAC) but Gaming with Soundstage Depth is such a luxury (Custom DAC). Different use cases but there's convergence in play with cables and transducers to justify the value.

 

[584585]

Just putting an additional plug (haha) for the High Fidelity Earplugs! Got mine a couple weeks ago and actually use mine regularly for sleep among other things. Wife loves having a white noise machine and a fan on, plus our kids wake up so early some days, so I had been looking at earplug solutions… tried many and either didn’t block enough noise, didn’t feel comfortable while sleeping, or both. Should have tried these sooner since I already had my impressions on file from my A12t from a couple years ago.

Really like these! Stay in my ears all night, comfortable, block a good amount of noise AND stays consistent without fiddling with them.

Thanks for sharing, I was always curious about these.

With the power of hindsight, if you had no CIEM (A12t) would you go through the effort and cost of ear impressions just for these Custom Earplugs?

 

[584585]

hey folks, I'm considering getting custom IEMs and would love to hear if anyone has any insights... initially I was looking at the A3e, but was wondering if the A3t would be worth springing a couple hundred dollars extra for? Can anyone explain, functionally speaking, what the difference would be that I could likely hear between the two? I imagine the A3t should just hands down be better with the tia technology, but I'm not really understanding what exactly is better about it.

Also curious to know, though this may be a bit beyond my budget, since I'm already spending this much for customs, would it make sense to spring for the A6t instead?

No idea if any of the following info will help:
I would not call myself an audiophile and genuinely don't think I'd be able to hear the difference between comparing two high end IEMs. I do enjoy being able to hear the clarity and distinction between instruments with better IEMs/headphones, but beyond that, I'd be lying if I say I could really hear the difference between a "great" headphone vs. an "average" headphone. I haven't tried a ton of different IEMs, but I believe I prefer neutral/reference tuning. I do know that I don't like heavy bass. I currently have the Shure SRH440 and Moondrop Blessing 3 so those are really the only references I have, if that helps at all.

As for my use case, I'm a (hobby) vocalist and want to use them as monitors for singing. That would be my main functional purpose for springing for customs, but of course would likely be wearing them a lot throughout the day just for listening to music as well, though on that front I'm actually happy with what I already have and wouldn't necessarily expect or need these to outperform those.

Happy to provide more information if that helps give better advice/suggestions. Thanks so much!!

There's a ProSoundWeb website that might cater to your use case but only has a sprinkle of CIEM info.

Studio Recording
https://www.prosoundweb.com/study-hall/studio-recording/

Live Recording
https://www.prosoundweb.com/study-hall/live-recording/

Stage Monitoring
https://www.prosoundweb.com/study-hall/stage-monitoring/

Real World Gear
https://www.prosoundweb.com/real-world-gear-in-ear-monitoring-iem-earpieces-systems/

A3t
https://www.prosoundweb.com/64-audio-announces-new-a3t-custom-in-ear-monitors/

 

[Aetherhole]

Thanks for sharing, I was always curious about these.

With the power of hindsight, if you had no CIEM (A12t) would you go through the effort and cost of ear impressions just for these Custom Earplugs?

I think it’s dependent on use case. In my case, I’ve used them every day since I got them. Having a comfortable, long-term solution is worth its weight in gold. If I was using it only occasionally or rarely, that would definitely be something to consider.

 

[Rolu]

MKBHD gave a shout out to the Volür as one of his top 3 favorite “tech” of 2023

we all know that means nothing. He doesn't get audiophilia.

 

[PixelSquish]

we all know that means nothing. He doesn't get audiophilia.

Very true. But in this case, even a broken clock is right twice a day. The man got lucky.

 

[584585]

We really don't recommend that you do that. If they need to be changed you can send it in for cleaning, but they need to stay there to protect the Tia driver.

I really enjoyed reading how posters were taken care of after-warranty and/or post-sales. It reminded me of how I was taken care of at UE since 1999, but I will eventually move on from UE. I was wondering how the sending in for cleaning / tune-up policy is set up?

Sometimes, I may sleep on my CIEMs or get in a scuffle with a 'Karen' or drop the CIEMs on the ground. S*it happens around here. That's what I like about CIEMs is they can be resurrected or tune-up like a car if something goes wrong going forward.



https://crimegrade.org/safest-places-in-los-angeles-ca/

I'm only concerned about domestic USPS policies. I doubt I can just physically drop by like I can with UE.

Do you have something similar to this flat rate tune-up policy like UE had at one time?





So repair for a A18t is $299? What about tune-up?