Custom mould sleeves vs stock custom mould IEM's?

[dickiefunk]

Hi,

What are peoples thoughts on getting custom mould sleeves for standard IEM's vs buying dedicated custom mould IEM's?

I'm currently considering buying some ACS custom sleeves for my Shure SE215's but am not sure how well the sleeves would work? Will these degrade the audio quality as it appears the speaker of the SE215's will not be able to go as far into the ear canal with the moulds as they would with the stock foam plugs? It appears that the dedicated custom mould IEM's have the speaker going further into the ear canal?

Alternatively, I'm considering getting the ACS Evoke Studio Custom IEM's but the price difference will be considerable. The custom mould sleeves for my SE215's cost £105 vs £299 for the Evoke Studio Custom's.

What are your thoughts/experiences on using custom mould sleeves vs dedicated custom mould IEM's?

[Dave Rowles]

My Experience of custom moulded IEMs is fantastic, and I would highly recommend going for them.

However, even though I don't have experience of custom sleeves, my physics/logic brain says you wouldn't lose any sound quality. My experience of ACS is that they wouldn't offer something that doesn't enhance IEMs either in sound or noise rejection.

That said, if your SE215s fit perfectly then there really isn't a need for the sleeves.

I have the T3 single driver IEMs from ACS which were the forerunner to the Evokes and they are very good!

[dickiefunk]

Well if the ACS custom sleeve's will further enhance what I'm hearing with the SE215's then that would be a great option as they already sound surprisingly good for the money! Not sure if the ACS Evoke Studio Customs would be worth triple the price of just buying custom sleeves for the SE215's?

[Dave Rowles]

Well, it's double the price, not triple if you factor in the cost of the SE215s themselves.

While I suppose not technically sleeves, I did use the T15 attachment with my ACS Pro17 earplugs, and that provided a great sound. The T3s are better though, and once they got the fit right they are more comfortable than the plugs with the attachment.

Whether they sound twice the price better is a question, but I know I'll be saving up for the more expensive ones (Evolves) when it comes time to replace the ones I've got now.

[Sam Spoons]

I have T3s and despite three sets of impressions I still don't have a perfect fit, (I suspect the Evoke's full cochlea mould would be significantly better than the ones I have). No fault of ACS, they were great but I must have very difficult ears. I'm having some sinus issues and don't use the T3s on stage so have decided to live with the fit I have as they are way more comfortable than my old Shures with triple flange buds (the only ones I could get a good seal with). They do sound very good too. Boots Hearingcare do 10 or 15% off ACS stuff and have audiologists available in most big stores.

[dickiefunk]

Thanks guys. I have an audiologist (who is a musician himself) near where I live who did impressions for ear plugs for me a few years ago and they fit great. Very comfortable and still fit great now

I've got an appointment to get moulds done there again on Thursday morning so I will need to make a decision by then as to what I go for. At the moment it's between the ACS custom moulds for my SE215 or the ACS Evoke Studio Custom's.

[TheChorltonWheelie]

ACS custom moulds for my SE215 or the ACS Evoke Studio Custom's.

The SE215's are right at the bottom of the "useable" in-ear buds, and being single driver, they're not detailed enough for any specific application, i.e. if you're a singer or bass player and therefore need certain frequencies to be accurately represented rather than just a sum of all of them.

You only generally buy buds once (some people do believe you should replace them as the canal does change shape over time, although you can remove the custom mould and have a new mould placed over the old drivers), so why not just buy properly and buy once?

If you're using those IEM's for mixing FOH, you really need to be looking at least 3 drivers, right up to the 5 driver models that ACS do.

[Dave Rowles]

and being single driver, they're not detailed enough for any specific application,

Having done monitors using single driver IEMs for some rather demanding artists who keep on hiring me, I have to say I fundamentally disagree.

It is totally possible to have a clear, clean, full range sound on single driver earphones. Yes they probably don't go quite as low or high as dual or triple driver, but that doesn't mean they can't be clean or do the job well. And lets face it, a bassist is either going to have the warmth of the bass stack, or feel from the PA when he's playing, or they'll have the money to buy the more expensive ones.

[TheChorltonWheelie]

Yes they probably don't go quite as low or high as dual or triple driver, but that doesn't mean they can't be clean or do the job well.

Not being "clean" is never an issue I've worried about with IEM's, but having a flat response across all of the useable frequency range is, and SE215's simply cannot do that. I know this, as not only do I have SE215's, which come with the PSM200 as standard, but I also have SE535's and ACS 5-driver customs, so a back-to-back test is easily possible.

90% of the gigs we do are in-ear, so no backline, and 90% of those bass players simply wouldn't accept "the feel from the PA itself" as their only source of monitoring. The whole point of IEM is that we don't need on-stage monitoring, so buying the correct IEM for the job is mandatory. I can categorically state that the single driver SE215 isn't anywhere near as detailed as the triple driver, and the same for the ACS custom either.

Settling for something, because "it'll do" isn't how most professionals work.

[Dave Rowles]

Interesting. I'll keep on using my T3 single drivers until the artists on stage with their triple driver IEMs tell me I'm not doing a good enough job though.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Settling for something, because "it'll do" isn't how most professionals work.

It is when there are tight budgets involved!

In general I agree with you, though, in that it is better to invest in the best that can be afforded since good in-ears will last a long time if looked after properly.

It is also worth noting that the multi-driver fashion in 'quality' earphones is required because the balanced-armature drivers used in almost all earphones inherently suffer from a relatively limited bandwidth. So to deliver a good, wide frequency response and elevated power handling requires band-splitting between two, three or more separate, band-optimised balanced-armature drivers.

In contrast, Sennheiser offers the (expensive) IE800 earphone which is very unusual in employing a single, full-bandwidth, 6mm moving-coil driver -- basically miniaturised conventional headphone technology that they know very well indeed. And they sound astonishingly good too!

H

[Dynamic Mike]

I've been looking at the prices of custom moulded earbuds & the prices are unreal. Buy yourself a tub of Otoform and make your own. For £20 you'll get enough for about 200 practice runs...just make sure you have something to keep your mouth open whilst it hardens. A hand-rolled Cuban cigar should do the trick.

[TheChorltonWheelie]

Interesting. I'll keep on using my T3 single drivers until the artists on stage with their triple driver IEMs tell me I'm not doing a good enough job though.

They're probably none the wiser, as they're using the "feel" from the FOH PA for most of their monitoring???

[TheChorltonWheelie]

In contrast, Sennheiser offers the (expensive) IE800 earphone which is very unusual in employing a single, full-bandwidth, 6mm moving-coil driver -- basically miniaturised conventional headphone technology that they know very well indeed. And they sound astonishingly good too!

H

By sheer coincidence, I tried these at a show, and even without custom moulds I thought these were easily the most detailed in-ear I'd used. However, at £600, I don't think they're expensive for what you get, not when you consider that £600 buys a very cheap keyboard, a Mexican strat or a nice bass drum and pedal setup.

[dickiefunk]

Quick update. I've ordered some custom mould sleeves for my SE215's. After speaking to a few companies it didn't make a lot of sense to spend an extra £200 for another pair of single driver IEM's when I could have sleeves for the SE215's for £105.
The audio quality of the SE215's has been way better than I expected and given me the best onstage sound I've had (whilst they stay in)! With the custom sleeves they should be perfectly good enough for what I need.

One day I may save for some triple driver IEM's but at the moment I need to keep my outgoings to a minimum with baby number two arriving any day

[Sam Spoons]

Does this mean you can keep the Qu16?....... Good plan

[dickiefunk]

Yes it means I'll be keeping the QU16 or possibly get the QU-PAC

[dickiefunk]

The sleeves arrived today and so far I'm very impressed. The build quality seems excellent and they fit very snug and secure over the SE215's. The also fit my ear's extremely well and are both snug and very comfortable. I've noticed that the bass sounds a little fuller but apart from that they sound exactly the same.
Really looking forward to trying these on gigs over the next few weeks