Shawnb
1000+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2012
- Posts
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- 1,340
Listed my UM Mentors, OTL cable and DX 320 Max in the classifieds if anyone is interested
The Watercooler -- Impressions, philosophical discussion and general banter. Index on first page. All welcome.
- Thread starter Rockwell75
- Start date
Based on my current and previous IEM :
1. RN6
2. EE Odin
3. OG Fourte
4. Jewel
5. VE Elysium (I know it's not known for the bass but for the sake of top 5, I put it on the list
)
Last edited:
nocturne19
100+ Head-Fier
1. FIR Rn6
2. Fatfreq Grand Mastero
3. EE Raven/Odyssey
4. Sony IER-Z1R
5. 64A Trio/Fourte
Honorable mention:
Hidition Violet. Best BA bass imo with excellent extension and slam.
DunkFealer
100+ Head-Fier
That's a fun one! From the ones I've heard/demoed:
1. Trifecta
2. IER-Z1R
3. 64A Trio
4. Legend X
5. IE900
I struggled with maybe including Odin, but despite it's outstanding bass quality... I wouldn't necessarily call its tuning philosophy "bass first."
Before going custom try some Comply foamies - helps me a lot getting a good seal. I exchanged the standard tips on day one got myself a decent silver cable (Lavricables) and never looked back after this...
pankaj1431
100+ Head-Fier
That’s really great post with lot of insights. Should be pinned for reference."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!
Interesting that you consider Odin, Fourte and Jewel as 'bass first' IEMs. All three have good, even great bass, but I don't think of bass first when I think of any of them. Elysium definitely not, but you get a pass for that oneBased on my current and previous IEM :
1. RN6
2. EE Odin
3. OG Fourte
4. Jewel
5. VE Elysium (I know it's not known for the bass but for the sake of top 5, I put it on the list
MaxwellDemon
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2010
- Posts
- 918
- Likes
- 1,070
"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!
This has been such an excellent read as someone that dabbled briefly in custom tips and was slightly aghast as the Traillii only being available as universal -- this speaks to me a lot and resonate to my understanding of why the market has shifted more and more to universals. It is kinda crazy because a decade back, custom was all the rage instead. However, I can see the merits of universals after I took some time to adjust my perceptions. I still wish they are offered more frequently and if an IEM has an option to go custom, I'll always take that (which is the route I'll likely do for the XE6)
In my short listens, I only have a few IEMs that I can genuinely call bass first, which is:
1. Trifecta
2. FIR XE6
3. FIR RN6
Otherwise, I haven't heard of the legedary Z1R or IE900 yet! Maybe one day!
1. Empire Ears EVO
2. Empire Ears Legend X
3. MMR Thummim
4. 64 Audio Trio
5. Thieaudio Divinity
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I had a great listening session last night with the Odin on desktop equipment, and the bass was the most enjoyable part, sooo good in terms of texture and timbre. So in terms of enjoyment, yeah I can see the Odin being bass first..Interesting that you consider Odin, Fourte and Jewel as 'bass first' IEMs. All three have good, even great bass, but I don't think of bass first when I think of any of them. Elysium definitely not, but you get a pass for that one
But in the traditional sense, my bass first top 5 is:
1. EVO
2. EVO
3. EVO
4. EVO
5. EVO
Honorable mentions for Xe6, Z1R, Thummim, LX. Only IEMs I currently own. Otherwise the Trifecta would be on the list for sure.
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