[piotrus-g]

Quote:

Most IEM these days have proprietary numbers on them. This prevents other IEM companies from copying another IEM companies designs. Proprietary numbers also prevent employees from shareing information regarding product designs etc. In short, proprietary numbers protect a companies investment.
 
Because proprietary numbers are being used, I can open up a JH Audio product, and find out who made the driver, but I could not tell you what the specs are (such as impedance). Because of this, one can not easily copy a companies sound signature etc. Even the capacitors etc, being used by some of the IEM companies have no distinguishing marks.
 
My point is, I do not think that re-shelling is a key component of developing good IEMs.
 
 

I believe you don't know what you are talking about, sir. Except for the last sentence which is 100% correct.
 
Take it for what it's worth, each company has its equipment for testing and developing IEMs. You can disassemble an IEM and measure each driver's impedance vs freq, distortion, crossover points and so one.
There're companies that can copy for you ES3x or UM18 for half the price of original IEMs
 
Propietary means that the driver has tweaked perfromance to suit particular design, for example fixed impedance issues to help crossover with other drivers. Improved bass response or vented back/diaphragm.
Sometimes numbering on stock drivers can't tell you more than production date.
 
You can't copy original IEM with stock driver however you can go very close to that. My UM customs are based on non-propietary drivers I sent them and I can asure you that they surpass in every department universals with the same drivers f.e. W3 or SM3

 

[rebirthz]

just curious project are u going for a retune? the retune is basically going to raise the volume of the lows am i right? coz anyways my right fitting is less than ideal sadly

 

[Anaxilus]

Quote:

 
My point is, I do not think that re-shelling is a key component of developing good IEMs.

You have it backwards.  His point was the inverse.  Being a custom IEM maker gives your more knowledge and experience for doing a proper reshell.
 

 

[piotrus-g]

Quote:

Being a custom IEM maker gives your more knowledge and experience for doing a proper reshell.

 
I agree and wrote that it's 100% correct.
I'm only saying that you can (more or less) copy every design.
 
What would be the point if every company make the same sounding IEMs? That's why they don't use the same desings, but they are shaping the sound by themselves.

 

[project86]

Quote:

just curious project are u going for a retune? the retune is basically going to raise the volume of the lows am i right? coz anyways my right fitting is less than ideal sadly

Still working out the details, but yes one way or another I'll have the proper final version to review. Supposedly the newer tuning is up by maybe 5dB under 200Hz. So it shouldn't be all that different sounding but with a harder kick.
 
If you need to send yours back for a refit anyway, you could probably choose to keep it the same or update to the bassier sound sig. I'd give it a while and see how you like the current sound, because there's probably no going back once you change it.
 

 

[rebirthz]

just a general question. for a manufacturer to retune a iem do they need to take the iem apart? or is a non invasive procedure

 

[pkwak]

Specs and frequency response look impressive indeed.
My only concern is very low impedance. 12Ohm will not be easy to drive I guess. Probably only Clip or Touch will handle it well, otherwise external amp will be welcome, unless you want this nice dynamic bass boost to roll-off.
 
Wondering why all UM customs are so low impedanced?

Does this mean, my iPhone would not be able to drive this adequately? This is a shame as I normally use iPhone as player on the road due to it's convenience.

 

[Saintkeat]

@ rebirthz - non invasive. just do it. refit is a complete remold.
 
@pkwak - of cos the iphone would be adequate you'd just play it at a higher volume than normal. 

 

[b0ck3n]

Looking forward to seeing some reviews on this.
 
@project86: did you get a chance to listen to the ES5 yet?

 

[FullCircle]

Quote:

I believe you don't know what you are talking about, sir. Except for the last sentence which is 100% correct.
 
Take it for what it's worth, each company has its equipment for testing and developing IEMs. You can disassemble an IEM and measure each driver's impedance vs freq, distortion, crossover points and so one.
There're companies that can copy for you ES3x or UM18 for half the price of original IEMs
 
Propietary means that the driver has tweaked perfromance to suit particular design, for example fixed impedance issues to help crossover with other drivers. Improved bass response or vented back/diaphragm.
Sometimes numbering on stock drivers can't tell you more than production date.
 
You can't copy original IEM with stock driver however you can go very close to that. My UM customs are based on non-propietary drivers I sent them and I can asure you that they surpass in every department universals with the same drivers f.e. W3 or SM3

      Proprietary does not necessarily mean a driver has "tweaked performances" but I would imagine companies would like you to believe that to be the case. Yes, it is true one could theoritically do a lot of testing, and possibly get near or around the same driver or even the same driver....   But not in all cases. For example, some of these drivers have a proprietary port location. In other words, you could find the same exact acoustical specs on a particular driver, but the port is located differently & Sonion/Knowles would not sell you the driver with same port location.
 
You may say, so what....    But when you are trying to "stack" drivers, it would be nice to have both drivers with the port at the 11S location. This allows one to place 2 dual drivers on one tube, which is critical when the ear canal is very limited is space. 
 
Luckily, the CI 22955 (a driver used frequently for bass production) has a port location that allows for "stacking" on one tube. The impedance of that particular driver allows for ease of use in either parallel or series wireing...  making matching impedances fairly easy to other mid and high frequency drivers, such as the TWFK 30017 or the TWFK 23991
 
I am in no way, shape or form, suggesting that an IEM must use drivers that are proprietary in order to create jaw dropping sound quality. I think we all know the ER4P, hit legendary status, using a non-proprietary driver. and there have been many more too, beyond that particular product & I suspect a lot more are to come.
 
We all have opinions, but again, I do not think that offering re-shell service is the hallmark of a good IEM manufacturing company. UE does not offer re-shell service and never has, to the best of my knowledge (and I doubt they ever will).   A good lab technician is critical, good impressions are critical, a good design team is critical, great product support from Knowles or Sonion is critical....  but low on my list is re-shell work.
 
From your post is sounds as though, you sent UM a hand full of selected drivers and asked them to build you up some IEMs around them. That is great, and I do not think I have ever heard of any company offering this service.

 

[FullCircle]

 
Quote:

just a general question. for a manufacturer to retune a iem do they need to take the iem apart? or is a non invasive procedure

     At the risk of being told I don't know what I am talking about, I will state my opinion. Passive filters such as capacitors, dampers, and sound bore size are used to tune Custom IEMs. If the damper is placed at the tip of the ear canal, then to change this would be failry non invasive, but I have not seen many IEMs built with the dampers near the tip of the ear canal. Capacitors etc, are located on the PCB board of the crossover, which is placed inside the IEM.  So it would be very invasive, almost impossible to change out at least from an economical point of view. In my opinion, the only portion of a product like the Merlin that could be easily re-tuned would be the vent port used because it has a dynamic driver in it.
 
Every other option would involve opening the IEM up, & pulling parts, essentially a re-build.
 
In short, there is no easy way to tweak an IEM passively. 
 
 

 

[piotrus-g]

Quote:

Quote:

Specs and frequency response look impressive indeed.
My only concern is very low impedance. 12Ohm will not be easy to drive I guess. Probably only Clip or Touch will handle it well, otherwise external amp will be welcome, unless you want this nice dynamic bass boost to roll-off.
 
Wondering why all UM customs are so low impedanced?

Does this mean, my iPhone would not be able to drive this adequately? This is a shame as I normally use iPhone as player on the road due to it's convenience.

If you are using iPhone 4g or 3gs (i beileve also) then there's nothing to worry about. It'll handle it well
 
Quote:

      Proprietary does not necessarily mean a driver has "tweaked performances" but I would imagine companies would like you to believe that to be the case. Yes, it is true one could theoritically do a lot of testing, and possibly get near or around the same driver or even the same driver....   But not in all cases. For example, some of these drivers have a proprietary port location. In other words, you could find the same exact acoustical specs on a particular driver, but the port is located differently & Sonion/Knowles would not sell you the driver with same port location.
 
You may say, so what....    But when you are trying to "stack" drivers, it would be nice to have both drivers with the port at the 11S location. This allows one to place 2 dual drivers on one tube, which is critical when the ear canal is very limited is space. 
 
Luckily, the CI 22955 (a driver used frequently for bass production) has a port location that allows for "stacking" on one tube. The impedance of that particular driver allows for ease of use in either parallel or series wireing...  making matching impedances fairly easy to other mid and high frequency drivers, such as the TWFK 30017 or the TWFK 23991
 
I am in no way, shape or form, suggesting that an IEM must use drivers that are proprietary in order to create jaw dropping sound quality. I think we all know the ER4P, hit legendary status, using a non-proprietary driver. and there have been many more too, beyond that particular product & I suspect a lot more are to come.
 
We all have opinions, but again, I do not think that offering re-shell service is the hallmark of a good IEM manufacturing company. UE does not offer re-shell service and never has, to the best of my knowledge (and I doubt they ever will).   A good lab technician is critical, good impressions are critical, a good design team is critical, great product support from Knowles or Sonion is critical....  but low on my list is re-shell work.
 
From your post is sounds as though, you sent UM a hand full of selected drivers and asked them to build you up some IEMs around them. That is great, and I do not think I have ever heard of any company offering this service.

Actually I haven't heard of any propietary non-tweaked drivers. As I said propietary drivers are made for particualr designs this also goes to port location. Though you can buy even stock drivers with different port locations. On the side note both Shure SE530 and 1964-Q use tha same vented Sonion 3300 which is unavailable stock.
 
I did send them some drivers to put them in to IEM. There several companies which can do this for you: f.e. UM, Rooth, Thousand sounds.
 
Quote:

just a general question. for a manufacturer to retune a iem do they need to take the iem apart? or is a non invasive procedure

Dampers can be changed non-invasive if they are placed close to the end of tube. Though if you have Mage-like shaped sound bores shell need to be open. To make any other tuning you need to rebuild whole IEM. It's not as simple as open-do-close.

 

[airwax]

OT but just for clarification, isn't UM, same company as Rooth? A misprint on the manual I received together with my UM customs is "Thank you for selecting Rooth ear monitors for your professional use."

 

[piotrus-g]

Quote:

OT but just for clarification, isn't UM, same company as Rooth? A misprint on the manual I received together with my UM customs is "Thank you for selecting Rooth ear monitors for your professional use."

Hmm strange... I asked the same question rooth rep. (BTW. perfect english and very nice CS) and the answer was something like "I don't think so". They quoted me $200 for a reshell w/o cables w/o shipping. So pricing is different so is IEM designs. They said there will be no problem with triple bore design whereas UM won't make triple bore.

 

[rebirthz]

man now i am confused. some say retuning is totally tearing the iem and rebuilding them and some say its nothing like that haha. coz in my case i want to retune the merlins but yet my left fit is perfect, hence i only need to refit the right side but need to retune both. conflicted as too whether i need to do impressions for L and R or just R....