ColdsnapBry
500+ Head-Fier
Thanks. Is there a certain model of SpinFits?
The Watercooler -- Impressions, philosophical discussion and general banter. Index on first page. All welcome.
- Thread starter Rockwell75
- Start date
Thanks. Is there a certain model of SpinFits?
Murphity
New Head-Fier
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2016
- Posts
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- 68
No clue. I was under the impression that they were designed for specific models/nozzles rather than performance, but that's likely wrong.
Also saw that Dunu is making ear tips now. Might be worth a try.
ColdsnapBry
500+ Head-Fier
Maybe @Sajid Amit might know too as I saw him do an ie900 review. If you'd recommend some good tips starters for someone just getting into iems.
nihalsharma
500+ Head-Fier
I spent hours yesterday demoing the IE900. I think Spinfit W1 (size S) fits really well. Gives a good comfortable seal and I feel the bass impact is really nice on the W1. You should definitely consider it.
maegnificant
Headphoneus Supremus
Cp-100(+) worked well for me. A tip is, don't try to get the shell too deep in your ear. The seal is better with a shallow fit.
ColdsnapBry
500+ Head-Fier
Ok cool! I'll get some SpinFits. I'm down to just buy a bunch of tips and try them out.
I hope you're having a great weekend! I've just posted a review of the Penon Globe IEMs, which you're invited to read here.
davidmolliere
Headphoneus Supremus
One solution if you have a bit more $ and can't find a good fit with the universal tips is buy the ADV custom tips
I own them and they're great!
https://www.adv-sound.com/collectio...ity-custom-fit-eartips?variant=19638354477125
Last edited:
Amadeo Nospherathu
Headphoneus Supremus
Thanks)
As far as I know, they are quite different IEMs, so a custom Supermoon definitely won't be very similar to a Trifecta. But I guess you can order custom tips and that will ensure proper fit and ergonomics.
Piotr Michalak
500+ Head-Fier
"The Greatest Escapade"
People are asking me in PM's now about reshelling Oriolus Trailii or making custom shells for their IEMs. I also hear many people have problem with a proper fit for their CIEMs. There's so much I could say about this, I believe this should not be kept in private channels but put to a wider use for the popularization of CIEMs. Let's understand this first:
1) Having a custom-fit IEM is one of the most satysfying, unique and intimate audio experiences you can have. Nothing, not even ANC, isolates like a closed back IEM. Nothing is so comfortable. Nothing is so personal. If done right, it may sound better than an UIEM too.
2) Almost all CIEM companies make a multitude of mistakes in the process. You need to understand the process yourself or there is a huge chance (50%+) you may be not satisfied with the result.
3) Because of the problems custom-fit IEMs generate for both consumers and companies, you can see brands move away from CIEMs with their newest flagships. This makes sense from a business perspective, because making a CIEM is a personalized service, hard to scale and generating support problems. Packaging overpriced flagship UIEMs and sending them out to distributors is an easier way to make money.
4) The way industry goes is also... your "fault". Why? Because most of you are satisfied with universal IEM designs and purchase them straight away, not asking about CIEMs. So these companies do not feel pressured to answer a market need, as they think there is no need. And proffesional CIEM users (musicians) are typically satisfied with simple 4-8BA designs, so there's no pressure too.
Now, to quickly get back to my intro, I have sent my Trailii to Ambient Acoustics (Ukraine). I will ask them to 3D scan them and design silicone (removable) custom half-shells. We will also consider acrylic custom half shells. Examples later on.
I still consider straight reshelling Trailii too, but that's always a risk. Often times the drivers inside get broken and need to be replaced, which may be hard if they were proprietary. AA people did a good job reshelling my EE Zeus XRA a few years ago, but even then I had to send them back for corrections.
So the first pro tip is, if you ever reshell your IEMs, you really need to measure them. You need to know how to use an IEC60318-4 compliant inner ear simulator. Read about this, take time to learn this. If you don't, don't ever bother reshelling. Because you really, really don't know what you'll reveive. I can't stress this enough.
Here's how Zeus XRA should measure:
Here's what I first received after reshelling (this is setting one or two, not different channels; channel balance was OK):
As you can see, a completely different (and broken) tuning. Thankfully, after some negotiations, Ambient Acoustics corrected this for me and now they measure perfectly. That was in 2019. Maybe they make less of these mistakes now. So actually that is one of the very few acrylic reshells that I am happy about (sic!).
But there was this other time when I reshelled UE18 (mk1), SE5ult and Viento R with Itsfit (Vietnam). All three were extremely beautiful... and done wrong. First of all, the fit was so loose, they barely closed my ear canal. I have later found that most Asian companies prefer a very loose fit, but with Itsfit I didn't even got a seal.
UE18 had a channel imbalance:
Viento tuning was completely changed into this abomination:
That's how Viento should measure, on top of the one before:
SE5ult was done all right, just that repackaging into acrylic made it too bright to listen:
We tried some back and forth with Itsfit but in the end all three IEMs ended in trash. Itsfit was nice enough to offer me a free Fusion, so at least I can say that I appreciate their honesty. That was in 2020, I don't know if they learned their trade a little bit better since.
I also remember taking UE18 to Custom Art (Poland) for another reshell afterwards. They don't do reshells, only custom tips, but work with AAW (Singapore). Since I know Piotr from CA, I decided it's easier to deal this through him.
AAW made a shell too loose for me again. They also made an imbalance mistake that Piotr checked and fixed himself (kudos to Custom Art here). So again, AAW failed to produce a reshell I'd be happy about, because of the loose fit.
As you can see, reshelling is not an easy business, and I am not an easy customer. And if you don't measure your IEMs, you have absolutely no proof that the company did a bad job with your IEMs.
By the way, these are custom tips I mentioned. It's always nice to have a pair or two to test with your IEMs. These were done by Custom Art several years ago and still look fine. They also fit nicely with Trailii, for example. However they do not give me the full experience and comfort that a whole shell does, so rather treat this as a curio.
Oh, and you may wonder "why did he reshell Viento". I originally purchased it as an UIEM to check it out. The next day, the nozzle on one of the sides broke off (sic!). The way they made it was an acrylic shell with the nozzle isolated by an incision. This incision must have been to deep because they just broke in half.
I had to wait a long time for Hidition to produce this IEM and for the package to get from Asia to Europe, and I had to pay 23% taxes, so imagine my disappointment. I decided to ship it to Itsfit then, since I already risked the other two IEMs with them.
After this went south, I returned my reshell to Hidition and they corrected everything. They told me their design is so proprietary, that it was a mistake to reshell them. All right. But when after a few months they returned my newly made CIEM... the next day a driver unglued inside and rattled in the shell.
So I had to ship them back, and after another several months, at last I received my Viento! I had them for a few years now only to get another driver unglue inside just a few days ago. That's life!
So in general I do not recommend reshelling anything unless you are a very experienced prosumer that measures everything and is patient and knows how to negotiate with these companies.
Now deeper pockets also help, as I would even consider generously tipping these companies for any additional corrections to motivate them to get these things right.
My TLDR would be: if you are not absolutely sure what you're doing, go for acrylic or silicone half-shells made for your IEMs, rather than reshelling.
Half shells or reshelling would be similarly problematic if you didn't have good impressions, right? Wrong.
All of these companies have different styles of producing a custom-fitted shells based on your impressions. For example:
1. I have a very nicely fitted Empire Ears Odin CIEMs (USA). Tight fit, but not too tight. Perfect. Good job guys!
2. I have a completely loose fitted Moondrop S8 CIEMs (China) that I practically can't use, as they barely seal. They will end up in trash.
3. My 64audio A18s (USA) are nicely fitted. Rather shallow and loose, but they seal allright. I would call that a laid-back fitting, but not completely loose fit. I can use them. It's the same with Ultimate Ears (USA), but 64audio are a bit nicer. Jerry Harvey Audio (USA) are also laid-back.
4. Similarly, FiR Audio (USA) changed my 3D scans of my favorite CIEM to make them more laid-back fitted, even though I specifically told them to replicate my CIEM design.
5. The Ambient Acoustics Zeus XRA reshells (Ukraine) I told you before are also tight fitted and similar to Empire Ears. Have them for years now and they are still perfect. No corrections needed.
6. Unique Melody and QDC (China) made loose fit CIEMs for me in the past. I had them reshell all of this for me according to my favorite CIEM design. QDC still managed to change my design a bit to make the canals rounded off. That's their style. It's acceptable but I don't like it.
7. Unique Melody LeJardin CIEMs were produced by an USA sub-contractor. Maybe that's because they are wooden, but somehow they managed to make them super-tight fitting, which makes them uncomfortable at times. I also had one side much bigger than the other (the shell itself, not canals) and had to send them for corrections.
7. Vision Ears specifically make very tight ear canals. This is not correct according to the book, but results in a perfect tight fit.
That's why I had my VE CIEMs 3d scanned by a separate company to STL files (that cost about $100). You can just find a local company near you to do this. Use Google.
Now I use these CIEM scans as my main ear impressions now. New companies always ask me what the hell did I sent them, and I have to explain: just replicate this design for me. As you can see above, they sometimes make changes.
Even though I always say "watch out not to make it too large by printing 1:1 and adding a milimeter of laquer, as these are scans of already laquered CIEMs":
Bad job, but still usable:
- Camfire Audio made it too large
- Unique Melody USA subcontractor made it too large
- Noble Audio made it too large
- FiR Audio made them smaller but acceptable
Good jobs:
- Craft Ears has done a perfect job!
- Ambient Acoustics the same!
- Aroma Audio did fine also
- Unique Melody in China does fine now
So the way to go is always try different companies, but especially Vision Ears, to find your favorite CIEM fit.
Next, scan your favorite CIEM design to 3d STL files once you find it. Use that as ear impressions - not the real impressions.
That's my pro tip for you. Even then you have no guarantee. But getting a CIEM is always worth it rather than showing silicone ear tips into your ears to make them bleed.
You just need to accept that some of these design will end up in trash or... send them for a refit.
Then let's explore creating custom shells for IEMs in place of reshelling!
Tralucent Audio Ref Gen3 - not very well known on Head-fi, but I first met them at CanJam Singapore several years ago and loved their neutral, highly technical tubeless designs. This is their flagship with a tubeless 2DD + 4BA and bi-wiring allowing bi-amping and thus a change of sound signature. Here's the only review I could find. Priced at $4300-5700 (signature edition) this falls under persuasive Chinese sales tactics, but the sound is worth it.
By the way, this summit-fi overpriced IEM also had a channel imbalance, and if I did not measure them, I would have no proof for the company to make them re-tune this for me. Once I sent them measurements, they actually took time to do a good job and my Ref Gen3 are perfect now. In this industry you are either a prosumer, or a sucker.
Their shells are huge. I always had a problem with a proper fit. Here you can see acrylic half-shells made by Craft Ears (Poland). I urged them to try to fit them as deeply as possible. Of course these shells still protrude from my ears, but that's because the IEM itself is very large.
Here's their other former flagship, a tubeless 5BA "Plus 5.2" (what a naming system!), a flat-dead neutral reference. Note that the shell is now almost completely encompassing the IEM and looks nicer - almost as if the whole design was a normal CIEM, not a shell on top of UIEM:
These acrylic shells are glued onto the IEMs with a special glue that is supposedly removable, but not by myself - I need to send it back to the lab and get them re-laquered again.
That does not mean everything Craft Ears done for me was superb. There are always problems in this industry, but it is still worth experimenting.
One problem was how my Noble Khan UIEMs looked after this operation and I didn't like it. Protruded even more than Ref Gen3, but the original UIEMs are also very wide, so that may be Noble Audio designs "fault".
We also tested transclucent shells, which didn't look that good. So to sum this up, if you go acrylic shell route, I recommend going black.
Another case is how Craft Ears packaged my Etymotic in an acrylic full shell:
This may look perfectly well, but those of you who used Etymotics know, that you need to shove them into your ear as deep as possible. Preferably in Comply foams.
But in this design they lay flat in parallel to my concha and perpendicularly to my ear canal, and a rather long piece of tubing is attached for the sound to flow into my ear canals. This is not a correct design to use Etymotics. The result is and even brighter than usual sound with very little lower frequencies. This ended up in my drawer.
Let me jump quickly to a design that worked for Etymotics well:
There's a lot of stuff, but focus on the lower left corner. See that? There's an opening for an Etymotic driver to go deep into my ear canal. And the driver sticks out parallel to the ear canal. That's a correct design.
So that's a half-shell, and it's from silicone. Made by Snugs (UK) - but I can't really recommend them, as they recently made a mistake on almost everything I ordered. You can risk, however, because often it's a matter of luck with these things.
There is also a similar company in the States called Eartune, but I never had a chance to try them out.
To finish off the above photo, you can find custom shells for Apple Airpods on the upper left, and all of the rest are different takes on Shure KSE1500 made by different companies. There are different Snugs designs in the second column from the left. Then black and white Ambient Acoustics. And on the right - Sensaphonics (USA). Note that only the last set are full shells!
I can't really recommend Sensaphonics though. I had many problems with their customer service. They cost 180$ to ship to Europe. They even made me pay that twice after they made a mistake in making these shells. Obviously I shouldn't pay for their mistake - it was a bubble inside the material, which resulted in one side not playing at all. And these should be all black, but they made translucent canals arbitrarily. Still, these are the best sounding KSE shells I ever had.
What now?
I am now waiting for the Trailii and Khans to get their new shells from Ambient Acoustics. I will probably make shells also for AKxVE Aura and UM Amber Pearl, which I have decided to order after all (I am irreformable). Especially the latter two would be very hard to reshell from obvious reasons.
Recently I can't find any more CIEMs that I would be interested in enough to order them. Most things are another take on 1-2 DD on the bass plus 4-6 BA on the mids and 4-6 EST in the highs. I hope something interesting will pop-up in the future to explore.
CIEM landscape does not look good for me. VEX will be launched in CIEM format several months after the UIEM. Empire Ears doesn't even make their flagships in CIEM anymore. Noble Audio has left CIEMs similarly. 64audio tunings are focused on IEMs and get too warm and fuzzy in the CIEM format (looking at U12t, Nio / N8, and U18s).
But CIEM's are worth fighting for and I hope some of you will join the fight!
Going the custom route is full of mistakes, errors and problems. It's expected to loose time and money.
But then again it's worth it, as you finish with at least a few CIEMs that you really love, that fit like a glove and are your most trusted musical companions.
Never will a universal fit sound as good as a well-fitted CIEM.
I focused on some problems and tips in this article but I didn't want that to demotivate anyone from exploring this path, on the contrary. I hope it will help you and these companies do a great job for you to be happy with the result.
Also there are many niche companies I haven't yet tried and I hope to work with in the future. Please let me know if you find any of them do a great job!
At the end, remember to also read this article I posted a longer time ago here and take care of your ear and spine health, to make most of your CIEMs! It uber important.
TLDR summary:
1. Find your favorite CIEM design by trial and error - or starting with Vision Ears - and 3d scan them to STL to use as ear impressions.
2. Abstain from reshelling IEMs unless you're really sure and can risk it. Almost always problematic.
3. Learn measuring your IEMs if you want to reshell - or if you want to order any summit-fi overpriced IEMs, as even they can have channel imbalance!
4. Prefer silicone or acrylic full-shells or half-shells. Try getting them from Ambient Acoustics or Craft Ears.
5. Get yourself a set of custom ear tips from Custom Art as a curio rather than an end-game solution.
6. Go to several different orthodontist, osteopath, laryngologist and chiropractor experts to check your ear and spine symmetry.
7. Always ask your favorite IEM companies "when will you make a CIEM version" to promote the very roots and summit of this industry!
People are asking me in PM's now about reshelling Oriolus Trailii or making custom shells for their IEMs. I also hear many people have problem with a proper fit for their CIEMs. There's so much I could say about this, I believe this should not be kept in private channels but put to a wider use for the popularization of CIEMs. Let's understand this first:
1) Having a custom-fit IEM is one of the most satysfying, unique and intimate audio experiences you can have. Nothing, not even ANC, isolates like a closed back IEM. Nothing is so comfortable. Nothing is so personal. If done right, it may sound better than an UIEM too.
2) Almost all CIEM companies make a multitude of mistakes in the process. You need to understand the process yourself or there is a huge chance (50%+) you may be not satisfied with the result.
3) Because of the problems custom-fit IEMs generate for both consumers and companies, you can see brands move away from CIEMs with their newest flagships. This makes sense from a business perspective, because making a CIEM is a personalized service, hard to scale and generating support problems. Packaging overpriced flagship UIEMs and sending them out to distributors is an easier way to make money.
4) The way industry goes is also... your "fault". Why? Because most of you are satisfied with universal IEM designs and purchase them straight away, not asking about CIEMs. So these companies do not feel pressured to answer a market need, as they think there is no need. And proffesional CIEM users (musicians) are typically satisfied with simple 4-8BA designs, so there's no pressure too.
Now, to quickly get back to my intro, I have sent my Trailii to Ambient Acoustics (Ukraine). I will ask them to 3D scan them and design silicone (removable) custom half-shells. We will also consider acrylic custom half shells. Examples later on.
I still consider straight reshelling Trailii too, but that's always a risk. Often times the drivers inside get broken and need to be replaced, which may be hard if they were proprietary. AA people did a good job reshelling my EE Zeus XRA a few years ago, but even then I had to send them back for corrections.
So the first pro tip is, if you ever reshell your IEMs, you really need to measure them. You need to know how to use an IEC60318-4 compliant inner ear simulator. Read about this, take time to learn this. If you don't, don't ever bother reshelling. Because you really, really don't know what you'll reveive. I can't stress this enough.
Here's how Zeus XRA should measure:
Here's what I first received after reshelling (this is setting one or two, not different channels; channel balance was OK):
As you can see, a completely different (and broken) tuning. Thankfully, after some negotiations, Ambient Acoustics corrected this for me and now they measure perfectly. That was in 2019. Maybe they make less of these mistakes now. So actually that is one of the very few acrylic reshells that I am happy about (sic!).
But there was this other time when I reshelled UE18 (mk1), SE5ult and Viento R with Itsfit (Vietnam). All three were extremely beautiful... and done wrong. First of all, the fit was so loose, they barely closed my ear canal. I have later found that most Asian companies prefer a very loose fit, but with Itsfit I didn't even got a seal.
UE18 had a channel imbalance:
Viento tuning was completely changed into this abomination:
That's how Viento should measure, on top of the one before:
SE5ult was done all right, just that repackaging into acrylic made it too bright to listen:
We tried some back and forth with Itsfit but in the end all three IEMs ended in trash. Itsfit was nice enough to offer me a free Fusion, so at least I can say that I appreciate their honesty. That was in 2020, I don't know if they learned their trade a little bit better since.
I also remember taking UE18 to Custom Art (Poland) for another reshell afterwards. They don't do reshells, only custom tips, but work with AAW (Singapore). Since I know Piotr from CA, I decided it's easier to deal this through him.
AAW made a shell too loose for me again. They also made an imbalance mistake that Piotr checked and fixed himself (kudos to Custom Art here). So again, AAW failed to produce a reshell I'd be happy about, because of the loose fit.
As you can see, reshelling is not an easy business, and I am not an easy customer. And if you don't measure your IEMs, you have absolutely no proof that the company did a bad job with your IEMs.
By the way, these are custom tips I mentioned. It's always nice to have a pair or two to test with your IEMs. These were done by Custom Art several years ago and still look fine. They also fit nicely with Trailii, for example. However they do not give me the full experience and comfort that a whole shell does, so rather treat this as a curio.
Oh, and you may wonder "why did he reshell Viento". I originally purchased it as an UIEM to check it out. The next day, the nozzle on one of the sides broke off (sic!). The way they made it was an acrylic shell with the nozzle isolated by an incision. This incision must have been to deep because they just broke in half.
I had to wait a long time for Hidition to produce this IEM and for the package to get from Asia to Europe, and I had to pay 23% taxes, so imagine my disappointment. I decided to ship it to Itsfit then, since I already risked the other two IEMs with them.
After this went south, I returned my reshell to Hidition and they corrected everything. They told me their design is so proprietary, that it was a mistake to reshell them. All right. But when after a few months they returned my newly made CIEM... the next day a driver unglued inside and rattled in the shell.
So I had to ship them back, and after another several months, at last I received my Viento! I had them for a few years now only to get another driver unglue inside just a few days ago. That's life!
So in general I do not recommend reshelling anything unless you are a very experienced prosumer that measures everything and is patient and knows how to negotiate with these companies.
Now deeper pockets also help, as I would even consider generously tipping these companies for any additional corrections to motivate them to get these things right.
My TLDR would be: if you are not absolutely sure what you're doing, go for acrylic or silicone half-shells made for your IEMs, rather than reshelling.
Half shells or reshelling would be similarly problematic if you didn't have good impressions, right? Wrong.
All of these companies have different styles of producing a custom-fitted shells based on your impressions. For example:
1. I have a very nicely fitted Empire Ears Odin CIEMs (USA). Tight fit, but not too tight. Perfect. Good job guys!
2. I have a completely loose fitted Moondrop S8 CIEMs (China) that I practically can't use, as they barely seal. They will end up in trash.
3. My 64audio A18s (USA) are nicely fitted. Rather shallow and loose, but they seal allright. I would call that a laid-back fitting, but not completely loose fit. I can use them. It's the same with Ultimate Ears (USA), but 64audio are a bit nicer. Jerry Harvey Audio (USA) are also laid-back.
4. Similarly, FiR Audio (USA) changed my 3D scans of my favorite CIEM to make them more laid-back fitted, even though I specifically told them to replicate my CIEM design.
5. The Ambient Acoustics Zeus XRA reshells (Ukraine) I told you before are also tight fitted and similar to Empire Ears. Have them for years now and they are still perfect. No corrections needed.
6. Unique Melody and QDC (China) made loose fit CIEMs for me in the past. I had them reshell all of this for me according to my favorite CIEM design. QDC still managed to change my design a bit to make the canals rounded off. That's their style. It's acceptable but I don't like it.
7. Unique Melody LeJardin CIEMs were produced by an USA sub-contractor. Maybe that's because they are wooden, but somehow they managed to make them super-tight fitting, which makes them uncomfortable at times. I also had one side much bigger than the other (the shell itself, not canals) and had to send them for corrections.
7. Vision Ears specifically make very tight ear canals. This is not correct according to the book, but results in a perfect tight fit.
That's why I had my VE CIEMs 3d scanned by a separate company to STL files (that cost about $100). You can just find a local company near you to do this. Use Google.
Now I use these CIEM scans as my main ear impressions now. New companies always ask me what the hell did I sent them, and I have to explain: just replicate this design for me. As you can see above, they sometimes make changes.
Even though I always say "watch out not to make it too large by printing 1:1 and adding a milimeter of laquer, as these are scans of already laquered CIEMs":
Bad job, but still usable:
- Camfire Audio made it too large
- Unique Melody USA subcontractor made it too large
- Noble Audio made it too large
- FiR Audio made them smaller but acceptable
Good jobs:
- Craft Ears has done a perfect job!
- Ambient Acoustics the same!
- Aroma Audio did fine also
- Unique Melody in China does fine now
So the way to go is always try different companies, but especially Vision Ears, to find your favorite CIEM fit.
Next, scan your favorite CIEM design to 3d STL files once you find it. Use that as ear impressions - not the real impressions.
That's my pro tip for you. Even then you have no guarantee. But getting a CIEM is always worth it rather than showing silicone ear tips into your ears to make them bleed.
You just need to accept that some of these design will end up in trash or... send them for a refit.
Then let's explore creating custom shells for IEMs in place of reshelling!
Tralucent Audio Ref Gen3 - not very well known on Head-fi, but I first met them at CanJam Singapore several years ago and loved their neutral, highly technical tubeless designs. This is their flagship with a tubeless 2DD + 4BA and bi-wiring allowing bi-amping and thus a change of sound signature. Here's the only review I could find. Priced at $4300-5700 (signature edition) this falls under persuasive Chinese sales tactics, but the sound is worth it.
By the way, this summit-fi overpriced IEM also had a channel imbalance, and if I did not measure them, I would have no proof for the company to make them re-tune this for me. Once I sent them measurements, they actually took time to do a good job and my Ref Gen3 are perfect now. In this industry you are either a prosumer, or a sucker.
Their shells are huge. I always had a problem with a proper fit. Here you can see acrylic half-shells made by Craft Ears (Poland). I urged them to try to fit them as deeply as possible. Of course these shells still protrude from my ears, but that's because the IEM itself is very large.
Here's their other former flagship, a tubeless 5BA "Plus 5.2" (what a naming system!), a flat-dead neutral reference. Note that the shell is now almost completely encompassing the IEM and looks nicer - almost as if the whole design was a normal CIEM, not a shell on top of UIEM:
These acrylic shells are glued onto the IEMs with a special glue that is supposedly removable, but not by myself - I need to send it back to the lab and get them re-laquered again.
That does not mean everything Craft Ears done for me was superb. There are always problems in this industry, but it is still worth experimenting.
One problem was how my Noble Khan UIEMs looked after this operation and I didn't like it. Protruded even more than Ref Gen3, but the original UIEMs are also very wide, so that may be Noble Audio designs "fault".
We also tested transclucent shells, which didn't look that good. So to sum this up, if you go acrylic shell route, I recommend going black.
Another case is how Craft Ears packaged my Etymotic in an acrylic full shell:
This may look perfectly well, but those of you who used Etymotics know, that you need to shove them into your ear as deep as possible. Preferably in Comply foams.
But in this design they lay flat in parallel to my concha and perpendicularly to my ear canal, and a rather long piece of tubing is attached for the sound to flow into my ear canals. This is not a correct design to use Etymotics. The result is and even brighter than usual sound with very little lower frequencies. This ended up in my drawer.
Let me jump quickly to a design that worked for Etymotics well:
There's a lot of stuff, but focus on the lower left corner. See that? There's an opening for an Etymotic driver to go deep into my ear canal. And the driver sticks out parallel to the ear canal. That's a correct design.
So that's a half-shell, and it's from silicone. Made by Snugs (UK) - but I can't really recommend them, as they recently made a mistake on almost everything I ordered. You can risk, however, because often it's a matter of luck with these things.
There is also a similar company in the States called Eartune, but I never had a chance to try them out.
To finish off the above photo, you can find custom shells for Apple Airpods on the upper left, and all of the rest are different takes on Shure KSE1500 made by different companies. There are different Snugs designs in the second column from the left. Then black and white Ambient Acoustics. And on the right - Sensaphonics (USA). Note that only the last set are full shells!
I can't really recommend Sensaphonics though. I had many problems with their customer service. They cost 180$ to ship to Europe. They even made me pay that twice after they made a mistake in making these shells. Obviously I shouldn't pay for their mistake - it was a bubble inside the material, which resulted in one side not playing at all. And these should be all black, but they made translucent canals arbitrarily. Still, these are the best sounding KSE shells I ever had.
What now?
I am now waiting for the Trailii and Khans to get their new shells from Ambient Acoustics. I will probably make shells also for AKxVE Aura and UM Amber Pearl, which I have decided to order after all (I am irreformable). Especially the latter two would be very hard to reshell from obvious reasons.
Recently I can't find any more CIEMs that I would be interested in enough to order them. Most things are another take on 1-2 DD on the bass plus 4-6 BA on the mids and 4-6 EST in the highs. I hope something interesting will pop-up in the future to explore.
CIEM landscape does not look good for me. VEX will be launched in CIEM format several months after the UIEM. Empire Ears doesn't even make their flagships in CIEM anymore. Noble Audio has left CIEMs similarly. 64audio tunings are focused on IEMs and get too warm and fuzzy in the CIEM format (looking at U12t, Nio / N8, and U18s).
But CIEM's are worth fighting for and I hope some of you will join the fight!
Going the custom route is full of mistakes, errors and problems. It's expected to loose time and money.
But then again it's worth it, as you finish with at least a few CIEMs that you really love, that fit like a glove and are your most trusted musical companions.
Never will a universal fit sound as good as a well-fitted CIEM.
I focused on some problems and tips in this article but I didn't want that to demotivate anyone from exploring this path, on the contrary. I hope it will help you and these companies do a great job for you to be happy with the result.
Also there are many niche companies I haven't yet tried and I hope to work with in the future. Please let me know if you find any of them do a great job!
At the end, remember to also read this article I posted a longer time ago here and take care of your ear and spine health, to make most of your CIEMs! It uber important.
TLDR summary:
1. Find your favorite CIEM design by trial and error - or starting with Vision Ears - and 3d scan them to STL to use as ear impressions.
2. Abstain from reshelling IEMs unless you're really sure and can risk it. Almost always problematic.
3. Learn measuring your IEMs if you want to reshell - or if you want to order any summit-fi overpriced IEMs, as even they can have channel imbalance!
4. Prefer silicone or acrylic full-shells or half-shells. Try getting them from Ambient Acoustics or Craft Ears.
5. Get yourself a set of custom ear tips from Custom Art as a curio rather than an end-game solution.
6. Go to several different orthodontist, osteopath, laryngologist and chiropractor experts to check your ear and spine symmetry.
7. Always ask your favorite IEM companies "when will you make a CIEM version" to promote the very roots and summit of this industry!
Alexzander
500+ Head-Fier
I know I’m spamming on this a bit but guys you need to check Tune 01 on LP W40.
Very drastic differences from stock Tune 02 - the scene is tad less wide but becomes much more holographic and 3-dimensional, it also injects a tasteful amount of warmth in mid bass and makes mids including vocals more vivid.
I’m personally taking it over default one 100% of time.
On another side I found W4 to be kind of prone to electromagnetic interference - not in terms of noise, but it could just stop working if you put it without case on a charging MacBook as it has leaks coming through it chassis.
davidmolliere
Headphoneus Supremus
Very insightful post @Piotr Michalak
I'll just nuance to say most companies that do CIEMs do it right at least for me and my straight and easy canals with no funky bends.
But as you say it all comes down to prints being taken correctly. That's ground zero for great fit and you have to direct the person taking the prints especially if they apply different pressure to the ears. Close mouth or open mouth in the end I prefer open mouth as I prefer a tighter fit. Once you get good prints get them scanned and use those 3D STL files and you're set. I never had a reshell...
Why are companies moving towards universal only for kilobucks flagships?
Well to me that has less to do with reshelling and complexity of custom fit and more about resell value... with flagships costing more and more, it's easier to sell universal which hold resell value that's also why you'll see more and more durable materials for universals... Custom fit is a commitment in a hobby where the rotation cycle is high...
But as you say, there is nothing like it and once you've tasted it there is no going back...
I'll just nuance to say most companies that do CIEMs do it right at least for me and my straight and easy canals with no funky bends.
But as you say it all comes down to prints being taken correctly. That's ground zero for great fit and you have to direct the person taking the prints especially if they apply different pressure to the ears. Close mouth or open mouth in the end I prefer open mouth as I prefer a tighter fit. Once you get good prints get them scanned and use those 3D STL files and you're set. I never had a reshell...
Why are companies moving towards universal only for kilobucks flagships?
Well to me that has less to do with reshelling and complexity of custom fit and more about resell value... with flagships costing more and more, it's easier to sell universal which hold resell value that's also why you'll see more and more durable materials for universals... Custom fit is a commitment in a hobby where the rotation cycle is high...
But as you say, there is nothing like it and once you've tasted it there is no going back...
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Sunday Snap Survey: what are your Top 5 BASS-FIRST IEMs?
Quick explainer: my criteria for a bass-first IEM is an IEM with world-class bass first, foremost, and sometimes to the detriment of balance, neutrality and any other metric. I'm not just talking head-shaking bass that muddies the entire FR, but head-shaking is definitely a positive if the rest of the tuning is still very good. Think visceral, textured, powerful, dynamic bass.
Bass-first IEMs can also have world-class mids or treble, though it's extremely rare to have all three in one IEM. They can also be technically superb, but as often happens, one or other technical metric might suffer if it's bass you're priotising.
If bass is an afterthought, plays a supporting role, or comes second to anything, it doesn't belong on this list.
My Top 5 below, have fun voting.
1. CFA Trifecta
2. Sony IER-Z1R
3. FIR Radon 6
4. FatFreq MSE
5. Sennheiser IE900
Honorable mentions and potential substitutes: EE Legend X, FIR Xe6, HiBy Zeta
(PS. Unlike Prof Rockwell, I'm not going to be tallying anything up, this is just for fun, and to see how may bassheads I can tease out of the Watercooler closet).
Quick explainer: my criteria for a bass-first IEM is an IEM with world-class bass first, foremost, and sometimes to the detriment of balance, neutrality and any other metric. I'm not just talking head-shaking bass that muddies the entire FR, but head-shaking is definitely a positive if the rest of the tuning is still very good. Think visceral, textured, powerful, dynamic bass.
Bass-first IEMs can also have world-class mids or treble, though it's extremely rare to have all three in one IEM. They can also be technically superb, but as often happens, one or other technical metric might suffer if it's bass you're priotising.
If bass is an afterthought, plays a supporting role, or comes second to anything, it doesn't belong on this list.
My Top 5 below, have fun voting.
1. CFA Trifecta
2. Sony IER-Z1R
3. FIR Radon 6
4. FatFreq MSE
5. Sennheiser IE900
Honorable mentions and potential substitutes: EE Legend X, FIR Xe6, HiBy Zeta
(PS. Unlike Prof Rockwell, I'm not going to be tallying anything up, this is just for fun, and to see how may bassheads I can tease out of the Watercooler closet).
"The Greatest Escapade"
People are asking me in PM's now about reshelling Oriolus Trailii or making custom shells for their IEMs. I also hear many people have problem with a proper fit for their CIEMs. There's so much I could say about this, I believe this should not be kept in private channels but put to a wider use for the popularization of CIEMs. Let's understand this first:
1) Having a custom-fit IEM is one of the most satysfying, unique and intimate audio experiences you can have. Nothing, not even ANC, isolates like a closed back IEM. Nothing is so comfortable. Nothing is so personal. If done right, it may sound better than an UIEM too.
2) Almost all CIEM companies make a multitude of mistakes in the process. You need to understand the process yourself or there is a huge chance (50%+) you may be not satisfied with the result.
3) Because of the problems custom-fit IEMs generate for both consumers and companies, you can see brands move away from CIEMs with their newest flagships. This makes sense from a business perspective, because making a CIEM is a personalized service, hard to scale and generating support problems. Packaging overpriced flagship UIEMs and sending them out to distributors is an easier way to make money.
4) The way industry goes is also... your "fault". Why? Because most of you are satisfied with universal IEM designs and purchase them straight away, not asking about CIEMs. So these companies do not feel pressured to answer a market need, as they think there is no need. And proffesional CIEM users (musicians) are typically satisfied with simple 4-8BA designs, so there's no pressure too.
Now, to quickly get back to my intro, I have sent my Trailii to Ambient Acoustics (Ukraine). I will ask them to 3D scan them and design silicone (removable) custom half-shells. We will also consider acrylic custom half shells. Examples later on.
I still consider straight reshelling Trailii too, but that's always a risk. Often times the drivers inside get broken and need to be replaced, which may be hard if they were proprietary. AA people did a good job reshelling my EE Zeus XRA a few years ago, but even then I had to send them back for corrections.
So the first pro tip is, if you ever reshell your IEMs, you really need to measure them. You need to know how to use an IEC60318-4 compliant inner ear simulator. Read about this, take time to learn this. If you don't, don't ever bother reshelling. Because you really, really don't know what you'll reveive. I can't stress this enough.
Here's how Zeus XRA should measure:
Here's what I first received after reshelling (this is setting one or two, not different channels; channel balance was OK):
As you can see, a completely different (and broken) tuning. Thankfully, after some negotiations, Ambient Acoustics corrected this for me and now they measure perfectly. That was in 2019. Maybe they make less of these mistakes now. So actually that is one of the very few acrylic reshells that I am happy about (sic!).
But there was this other time when I reshelled UE18 (mk1), SE5ult and Viento R with Itsfit (Vietnam). All three were extremely beautiful... and done wrong. First of all, the fit was so loose, they barely closed my ear canal. I have later found that most Asian companies prefer a very loose fit, but with Itsfit I didn't even got a seal.
UE18 had a channel imbalance:
Viento tuning was completely changed into this abomination:
That's how Viento should measure, on top of the one before:
SE5ult was done all right, just that repackaging into acrylic made it too bright to listen:
We tried some back and forth with Itsfit but in the end all three IEMs ended in trash. Itsfit was nice enough to offer me a free Fusion, so at least I can say that I appreciate their honesty. That was in 2020, I don't know if they learned their trade a little bit better since.
I also remember taking UE18 to Custom Art (Poland) for another reshell afterwards. They don't do reshells, only custom tips, but work with AAW (Singapore). Since I know Piotr from CA, I decided it's easier to deal this through him.
AAW made a shell too loose for me again. They also made an imbalance mistake that Piotr checked and fixed himself (kudos to Custom Art here). So again, AAW failed to produce a reshell I'd be happy about, because of the loose fit.
As you can see, reshelling is not an easy business, and I am not an easy customer. And if you don't measure your IEMs, you have absolutely no proof that the company did a bad job with your IEMs.
By the way, these are custom tips I mentioned. It's always nice to have a pair or two to test with your IEMs. These were done by Custom Art several years ago and still look fine. They also fit nicely with Trailii, for example. However they do not give me the full experience and comfort that a whole shell does, so rather treat this as a curio.
Oh, and you may wonder "why did he reshell Viento". I originally purchased it as an UIEM to check it out. The next day, the nozzle on one of the sides broke off (sic!). The way they made it was an acrylic shell with the nozzle isolated by an incision. This incision must have been to deep because they just broke in half.
I had to wait a long time for Hidition to produce this IEM and for the package to get from Asia to Europe, and I had to pay 23% taxes, so imagine my disappointment. I decided to ship it to Itsfit then, since I already risked the other two IEMs with them.
After this went south, I returned my reshell to Hidition and they corrected everything. They told me their design is so proprietary, that it was a mistake to reshell them. All right. But when after a few months they returned my newly made CIEM... the next day a driver unglued inside and rattled in the shell.
So I had to ship them back, and after another several months, at last I received my Viento! I had them for a few years now only to get another driver unglue inside just a few days ago. That's life!
So in general I do not recommend reshelling anything unless you are a very experienced prosumer that measures everything and is patient and knows how to negotiate with these companies.
Now deeper pockets also help, as I would even consider generously tipping these companies for any additional corrections to motivate them to get these things right.
My TLDR would be: if you are not absolutely sure what you're doing, go for acrylic or silicone half-shells made for your IEMs, rather than reshelling.
Half shells or reshelling would be similarly problematic if you didn't have good impressions, right? Wrong.
All of these companies have different styles of producing a custom-fitted shells based on your impressions. For example:
1. I have a very nicely fitted Empire Ears Odin CIEMs (USA). Tight fit, but not too tight. Perfect. Good job guys!
2. I have a completely loose fitted Moondrop S8 CIEMs (China) that I practically can't use, as they barely seal. They will end up in trash.
3. My 64audio A18s (USA) are nicely fitted. Rather shallow and loose, but they seal allright. I would call that a laid-back fitting, but not completely loose fit. I can use them. It's the same with Ultimate Ears (USA), but 64audio are a bit nicer. Jerry Harvey Audio (USA) are also laid-back.
4. Similarly, FiR Audio (USA) changed my 3D scans of my favorite CIEM to make them more laid-back fitted, even though I specifically told them to replicate my CIEM design.
5. The Ambient Acoustics Zeus XRA reshells (Ukraine) I told you before are also tight fitted and similar to Empire Ears. Have them for years now and they are still perfect. No corrections needed.
6. Unique Melody and QDC (China) made loose fit CIEMs for me in the past. I had them reshell all of this for me according to my favorite CIEM design. QDC still managed to change my design a bit to make the canals rounded off. That's their style. It's acceptable but I don't like it.
7. Unique Melody LeJardin CIEMs were produced by an USA sub-contractor. Maybe that's because they are wooden, but somehow they managed to make them super-tight fitting, which makes them uncomfortable at times. I also had one side much bigger than the other (the shell itself, not canals) and had to send them for corrections.
7. Vision Ears specifically make very tight ear canals. This is not correct according to the book, but results in a perfect tight fit.
That's why I had my VE CIEMs 3d scanned by a separate company to STL files (that cost about $100). You can just find a local company near you to do this. Use Google.
Now I use these CIEM scans as my main ear impressions now. New companies always ask me what the hell did I sent them, and I have to explain: just replicate this design for me. As you can see above, they sometimes make changes.
Even though I always say "watch out not to make it too large by printing 1:1 and adding a milimeter of laquer, as these are scans of already laquered CIEMs":
Bad job, but still usable:
- Camfire Audio made it too large
- Unique Melody USA subcontractor made it too large
- Noble Audio made it too large
- FiR Audio made them smaller but acceptable
Good jobs:
- Craft Ears has done a perfect job!
- Ambient Acoustics the same!
- Aroma Audio did fine also
- Unique Melody in China does fine now
So the way to go is always try different companies, but especially Vision Ears, to find your favorite CIEM fit.
Next, scan your favorite CIEM design to 3d STL files once you find it. Use that as ear impressions - not the real impressions.
That's my pro tip for you. Even then you have no guarantee. But getting a CIEM is always worth it rather than showing silicone ear tips into your ears to make them bleed.
You just need to accept that some of these design will end up in trash or... send them for a refit.
Then let's explore creating custom shells for IEMs in place of reshelling!
Tralucent Audio Ref Gen3 - not very well known on Head-fi, but I first met them at CanJam Singapore several years ago and loved their neutral, highly technical tubeless designs. This is their flagship with a tubeless 2DD + 4BA and bi-wiring allowing bi-amping and thus a change of sound signature. Here's the only review I could find. Priced at $4300-5700 (signature edition) this falls under persuasive Chinese sales tactics, but the sound is worth it.
By the way, this summit-fi overpriced IEM also had a channel imbalance, and if I did not measure them, I would have no proof for the company to make them re-tune this for me. Once I sent them measurements, they actually took time to do a good job and my Ref Gen3 are perfect now. In this industry you are either a prosumer, or a sucker.
Their shells are huge. I always had a problem with a proper fit. Here you can see acrylic half-shells made by Craft Ears (Poland). I urged them to try to fit them as deeply as possible. Of course these shells still protrude from my ears, but that's because the IEM itself is very large.
Here's their other former flagship, a tubeless 5BA "Plus 5.2" (what a naming system!), a flat-dead neutral reference. Note that the shell is now almost completely encompassing the IEM and looks nicer - almost as if the whole design was a normal CIEM, not a shell on top of UIEM:
These acrylic shells are glued onto the IEMs with a special glue that is supposedly removable, but not by myself - I need to send it back to the lab and get them re-laquered again.
That does not mean everything Craft Ears done for me was superb. There are always problems in this industry, but it is still worth experimenting.
One problem was how my Noble Khan UIEMs looked after this operation and I didn't like it. Protruded even more than Ref Gen3, but the original UIEMs are also very wide, so that may be Noble Audio designs "fault".
We also tested transclucent shells, which didn't look that good. So to sum this up, if you go acrylic shell route, I recommend going black.
Another case is how Craft Ears packaged my Etymotic in an acrylic full shell:
This may look perfectly well, but those of you who used Etymotics know, that you need to shove them into your ear as deep as possible. Preferably in Comply foams.
But in this design they lay flat in parallel to my concha and perpendicularly to my ear canal, and a rather long piece of tubing is attached for the sound to flow into my ear canals. This is not a correct design to use Etymotics. The result is and even brighter than usual sound with very little lower frequencies. This ended up in my drawer.
Let me jump quickly to a design that worked for Etymotics well:
There's a lot of stuff, but focus on the lower left corner. See that? There's an opening for an Etymotic driver to go deep into my ear canal. And the driver sticks out parallel to the ear canal. That's a correct design.
So that's a half-shell, and it's from silicone. Made by Snugs (UK) - but I can't really recommend them, as they recently made a mistake on almost everything I ordered. You can risk, however, because often it's a matter of luck with these things.
There is also a similar company in the States called Eartune, but I never had a chance to try them out.
To finish off the above photo, you can find custom shells for Apple Airpods on the upper left, and all of the rest are different takes on Shure KSE1500 made by different companies. There are different Snugs designs in the second column from the left. Then black and white Ambient Acoustics. And on the right - Sensaphonics (USA). Note that only the last set are full shells!
I can't really recommend Sensaphonics though. I had many problems with their customer service. They cost 180$ to ship to Europe. They even made me pay that twice after they made a mistake in making these shells. Obviously I shouldn't pay for their mistake - it was a bubble inside the material, which resulted in one side not playing at all. And these should be all black, but they made translucent canals arbitrarily. Still, these are the best sounding KSE shells I ever had.
What now?
I am now waiting for the Trailii and Khans to get their new shells from Ambient Acoustics. I will probably make shells also for AKxVE Aura and UM Amber Pearl, which I have decided to order after all (I am irreformable). Especially the latter two would be very hard to reshell from obvious reasons.
Recently I can't find any more CIEMs that I would be interested in enough to order them. Most things are another take on 1-2 DD on the bass plus 4-6 BA on the mids and 4-6 EST in the highs. I hope something interesting will pop-up in the future to explore.
CIEM landscape does not look good for me. VEX will be launched in CIEM format several months after the UIEM. Empire Ears doesn't even make their flagships in CIEM anymore. Noble Audio has left CIEMs similarly. 64audio tunings are focused on IEMs and get too warm and fuzzy in the CIEM format (looking at U12t, Nio / N8, and U18s).
But CIEM's are worth fighting for and I hope some of you will join the fight!
Going the custom route is full of mistakes, errors and problems. It's expected to loose time and money.
But then again it's worth it, as you finish with at least a few CIEMs that you really love, that fit like a glove and are your most trusted musical companions.
Never will a universal fit sound as good as a well-fitted CIEM.
I focused on some problems and tips in this article but I didn't want that to demotivate anyone from exploring this path, on the contrary. I hope it will help you and these companies do a great job for you to be happy with the result.
Also there are many niche companies I haven't yet tried and I hope to work with in the future. Please let me know if you find any of them do a great job!
At the end, remember to also read this article I posted a longer time ago here and take care of your ear and spine health, to make most of your CIEMs! It uber important.
TLDR summary:
1. Find your favorite CIEM design by trial and error - or starting with Vision Ears - and 3d scan them to STL to use as ear impressions.
2. Abstain from reshelling IEMs unless you're really sure and can risk it. Almost always problematic.
3. Learn measuring your IEMs if you want to reshell - or if you want to order any summit-fi overpriced IEMs, as even they can have channel imbalance!
4. Prefer silicone or acrylic full-shells or half-shells. Try getting them from Ambient Acoustics or Craft Ears.
5. Get yourself a set of custom ear tips from Custom Art as a curio rather than an end-game solution.
6. Go to several different orthodontist, osteopath, laryngologist and chiropractor experts to check your ear and spine symmetry.
7. Always ask your favorite IEM companies "when will you make a CIEM version" to promote the very roots and summit of this industry!
One reason some new flagships are not available as CIEM is that they have BCD and it’s a difficult problem to get them work right in a CIEM setting.
I’d de cautious altering Amber Pearl for that reason
Trifecta
Thummim
XE6
Trifecta so so fun feels like
dynamic driver whip cream over my
Jaco Geddy swirl pudding.
Thummim with C9 amplification double bass moves my noggin towards living inside the instrument.
XE6 all rounder for me with a bass focus.
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