My experience going to custom IEMs

[Wadge]

Regarding the personal headphone amp, Rock on audio, he has an interesting unit called the tasty blender. Essentially you can plug multiple imputs (such as a line from your bass amp and a line from the mixer's auxiliary and be able to blend them). What is nice about that model is that it has limiters to protect the earphone user from sudden increases in volume to protect your hearing. The only thing I didn't like about them was that the only inputs are TR jack inputs and I can forsee being given an XLR cable by sound engineers (although I suppose that you could carry around convertors).

Rolls have a similar product with XLR imputs but without the limiter.

Another good alternative is the rack mounted Behringer HA4700. It is cheaper than both the above mentioned models and has a variety of imputs. It also has 4 separate headphone amps so it can be shared with other members of the band.

For now, I shall be using my small Behringer mixer as a headphone amp which should do the job, maybe purchasing the Behringer if other member of the band join me in my move to IEM.

[Wadge]

Originally Posted by DonaldR

Thanks.

I checked and the cable seems to be a guitar cable + a headphone cable in a sleeve with heatshrink... Their headphone monitor is impressive though..

That is pretty much it. I read somewhere that the cables are mogami cables (although I may be wrong on that). I suppose if you are handy with a soldiering Iron (I am not) you could do these yourself for cheaper.

In other news, I just got my ear impressions done today and shall be sending them over to 1964 ears for them to create my IEM. Still a bit of a wait to go.

[DonaldR]

Originally Posted by Wadge

That is pretty much it. I read somewhere that the cables are mogami cables (although I may be wrong on that). I suppose if you are handy with a soldiering Iron (I am not) you could do these yourself for cheaper.

It's Canare GS-4 for guitar cable. Good cable but not top-of-the-line.

I don't think I will have to solder anything. I will buy an expandable sleeve like the one they use, slide the guitar cable and the headphone extension cable in it and then put heatshrink on both ends to "seal" everything. I'll even try to find thin "rubbery" heatshrink and use only that.

I will post result when done.

[bobbybass85]

Here are the charts that were requested:

V3:


V4:


V6:

[spindoc]

Hey bobby, thanks for the thread. I wasn't able to do the hands-on research you did, but I wound up getting the 1964 Ears Quad Drivers early this year. You're right, they're outstanding!

[KingRazor]

Originally Posted by bobbybass85

Here are the charts that were requested:

V3:


V4:


V6:

Can't see em at work, I'll have to look at them when I get home.

[vision]

Originally Posted by KingRazor

Can't see em at work, I'll have to look at them when I get home.

They aren't showing up for me either...

[bobbybass85]

Hmmm.... I will post them to my photobucket and re-link. They showed up in your quote king razor which is weird though... oh well. Give me a sec

[bobbybass85]

V3:



V4:



V6:

[vision]

Looks great, thanks! Yeah - the graphs line up exactly with what you said about hearing them - the Quads look to have the best bass response. The V3's look more smooth, while the V6's have the most detail up top.

I'm strongly thinking about going with the Quads instead of the V3's...I'll have to find a chard for my Westone UM2's (which I'm really happy with in terms of tone, I just want a custom fit) to see how they compare.

[Wadge]

I think that would be a good move. If I were a guitar player I might go for the V3, particularly now that, as opposed to the previous Triples, they have a 3 way crossover. But the Quads would probably give us the best results as bass players because the bass ought to be a little more present with the quads

[KingRazor]

Wow I'm impressed with how flat the response is on the V3s. Those might be good for me as I mix a lot more than I play bass and those could be a decent replacement to my Sony MDRs. I'd be able to use them for both bass playing and mixing!

[moose906]

I recommend the quads for bass players. I use 1964 ears quads and they are amazing! Shortly after I bought mine the rest of my band ended up buying them too. We are now endorsed by 1964 ears! Great people to deal with too.

[bobbybass85]

I received my ears this last weekend as I was walking out the door for the weekend's services at church!

We do a short rehearsal on Saturday (about 60 minutes) and then run a complete dress rehearsal, 2 services Saturday night, and 2 services Sunday morning. All totaled up I'd say I spent about 3 hours of on-stage time with the monitors in my ears.

The main points I was looking for:

Fit: These do take a little getting used to, but that's what I expected. The fit is good, and while a little awkward feeling, they are in fact quite comfortable to wear. The seal really helps with the sound quality and best of all they don't shift around as you move which may have been my top peeve with the non-molded monitors.

Sound: WOW! I could easily say the difference in clarity between these monitors and the generics I had used in the past is the difference between how your band sounds on-stage vs. how it sounds fully mixed in the house. Everything is there with both types of monitors, but the separation, clarity, and definition of every instrument is unreal. The quads were absolutely the right choice. These can reach down far enough to give you rumbles and booms, but stay quick and clean giving you punch. The guitars sat in their own sonic-space for the first time ever and weren't bleeding into either the bass or the vocals in my mix. The biggest surprise though? Even with the -26db of noise isolation, I could hear the crowd. There's enough air that comes in through the fit that you don't feel isolated and sufficating, and with the added clarity in the vocal mics you pick up a good deal of the crowd through them as well. IMO there's no need for the ambient port.

Finish: The color is beautiful. I ordered the deep trans purple with silver graphics. They are subtle enough to not be distracting, but have great pop when your up close. I spent some time just looking over the casing to see if I could see any seams, flaws, blems... there were none. Period.

The honeymoon opinion: These were worth every penny, and I still would have happily paid more for these monitors. I look forward to getting more and more use out of them and will keep you guys posted on how they hold up.

Oh and I'll try to get some good pics up when I get the chance.

Later!

[Wadge]

Aaaaarg. You are not helping me with my wait for mine. Apparently my ear impressions won't even be reaching the USA for some time yet owing to Hurricane Sandy making a mess in New York.

I'm glad you like them.

[Biggbass]

I ended up going with the Rockon Audio Rockbox & cable and a good set of buds. Can't say enough good things about it. No batteries to mess with, no frequency issues, and the tethering is as natural as using a guitar cable. For me it's a keeper.

[bobbybass85]

As promised, pics of the final product.

Still in love with these. I have a weekend at a different church this weekend so I'll get to test these out in a new room, new board, new everything so it'll be a good test

[vision]

They look great! Nice review as well...

I had to go back to the audiologist today to get new impressions because the first ones I did had some missing information in my right ear. The ones I have now look good so I'll be sending them in.

I'm trying to find a good image of a bass clef to send to them because I want a bass clef on both monitors, but I don't want a plain generic one like this:



That treble clef on yours is SWEET! Does anyone have suggestions on where I can get a quality jpeg image of a stylized bass clef?

[bobbybass85]

You know I was looking for the same thing when I came up with that logo. What I did is I started looking at tattoos of bass clefs and saw some cool design's that used both the bass and the treble clef. So I sat down and started drawing some designs that tied them together, and that was the one I liked the best. I love how the bass clef molds into the lower bout of the treble clef. It will be a tattoo at some point, but for now it's on my monitors.

I imagine a TBer here with much better art skills than me could even whip something up.

[vision]

Wow you did that yourself? Nice! Looks sweet...maybe I'll try to draw my own as well...