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As a musician who uses in-ear-monitors weekly, I very much wish I had custom molded ones. It's not a hipster 'artisinal' thing as much as they ostensibly work
by scarecrowbob 10y ago
As a musician who uses in-ear-monitors weekly, I very much wish I had custom molded ones.
It's not a hipster 'artisinal' thing as much as they ostensibly work better, and they aren't "hand carved"... there are refined process for this.
But they are supposed to be much more comfortable and sound better. I can't comment becasue I don't play enough (or make enough playing) to justify spending $500-800 on them.
- pbhjpbhj 10y agoSeems like the pinna+upper ear-canal could be moulded very easily with dental alginate? The issue would probably be that you'd need to insert some form of tethered plug to stop the alginate going in too far, perhaps a bead on nylon thread. Then it's just a hack job to pair it with the earphone. (Or you could produce a mould, etc.)
- scarecrowbob 10y agoAs far as I know, there is an existing process that can do this fine. And I believe (but am not sure) that there are existing bluetooth solutions, though I couldn't imagine using those in a professional music monitoring context. So I can easily imagine that there will be custom refitting of these devices. However, custom molds often cost $200-300 (or more) by themselves, plus the drivers, so not in my proce range. I do use my "cheap" (Shure se215 ~$100) wired IEMs with my iphone now when I want more isolation than open-backed earbuds like ones that came with my phone. They are great for mowing the lawn. But maybe the airpods are more reliant on the ambient sound, so I dunno if there is much to gain from custom molds.