First try with IEM's - sounds a bit to thin to me

MisterE

MisterE

Fractal Fanatic
I've been using wedges and the Atomic FR's and my sound is OK.
Even the sound FOH is OK.
At home on my B&W DM 602's my sound is OK.
Tonight I tried a Shure PSM 200 with ultimate ears Super Fi5 and TripleFi 10.
The sound was to thin and shrill for my taste.
Is this what I may expect from IEM's or are there better alternatives?
 
Part of it could be the Shure PSM 200. Play CDs or MP3s that you know well through it and see what they sound like. And, connect the in ears directly to a mixer or headphone amp to see what the patches sound like without the wireless unit in the loop.

> The sound was to thin and shrill for my taste.

Your guitar can certainly sound killer through in ears. I think the Axe Fx sounds amazing through my Carvin EM900 and M-Audio IE-40s.

- John
 
MisterE said:
I've been using wedges and the Atomic FR's and my sound is OK.
Even the sound FOH is OK.
At home on my B&W DM 602's my sound is OK.
Tonight I tried a Shure PSM 200 with ultimate ears Super Fi5 and TripleFi 10.
The sound was to thin and shrill for my taste.
Is this what I may expect from IEM's or are there better alternatives?
Click to expand...


It can sound like this if the IEM are not well seated in your ears. ie. there is an air gap.
Guitar in IEM in mono sound really sterile. At first you will also miss the intercation with the speakers. I HIGHLY recommend stereo guitar for IEM if you are not already doing this.
 
i've been using iems for a bit now, and now i'm about 98% happy with my sounds i'm getting. I tweak with the iems, not cabs, bottom line. Then get with the band, then tweak a bit more, and leave it. I did listen to my sound with regular type headphones and it was a little bass heavy, but that can be dialed out at FOH, i want to be happy first and foremost.

I have custom Fidelity triple drivers, and i have it sounding great. When i use my wireless with my buds, i notice a tad bit of high end loss, but the pack on my em900 has a treble boost which makes up for it a bit... and when the band comes in i cant tell anyways. all in all it takes a bit to get used to, but my rig fits in my trunk, and my setup time is slashed tremendously.

the high / low pass filter trick did wonders for me using the iems as well, cant say enough about that.

also check out this seal test, to check if you are getting a good seal: http://www.sensaphonics.com/test.html
 
So, if understand correctly, I should be able to get the same sound from IEM's as from my monitors or speakers.
Before going the custom fit route, are there any universal earphones I should look at and any I should stay away from?
What about transmitters?
 
MisterE said:
So, if understand correctly, I should be able to get the same sound from IEM's as from my monitors or speakers.
Before going the custom fit route, are there any universal earphones I should look at and any I should stay away from?
What about transmitters?
Click to expand...

I would at least get dual drivers, huge difference there. I used shure e2c's for a while when i had a psm200 and the difference between those and my customs are the shures are a bit scooped sounding, more eq'd, where the custom triples are pretty flat.

Check out the fidelity customs http://www.fidelitycustomearphones.net/ they cost about the same as some universals, and these are custom molds. compare specs to the big guys, you'll be suprised.
 
dpeterson said:
MisterE said:
So, if understand correctly, I should be able to get the same sound from IEM's as from my monitors or speakers.
Before going the custom fit route, are there any universal earphones I should look at and any I should stay away from?
What about transmitters?
Click to expand...

I would at least get dual drivers, huge difference there. I used shure e2c's for a while when i had a psm200 and the difference between those and my customs are the shures are a bit scooped sounding, more eq'd, where the custom triples are pretty flat.

Check out the fidelity customs http://www.fidelitycustomearphones.net/ they cost about the same as some universals, and these are custom molds. compare specs to the big guys, you'll be suprised.
Click to expand...

Nice to hear that Fidelity sounds good with Axe, I have just sent ear impressions to them, and ordered triple drivers. I'm setting up IEM setup too, and I think I will use Mipro 808T and Shure P4M with Fidelity Triple drivers. But I will wait to recieve Fidelity triples first.
 
MisterE,
> So, if understand correctly, I should be able to get the same sound from IEM's as
> from my monitors or speakers.

Same exact sound? If you mean the good quality and a great sound, absolutely. I would recommend a multistep approach to narrow down the issue. First, try the earphones connected directly to a mixer or headphone amp and listen to a music source you know well. Evaluate the sound of the earphones themselves. If you don't like how they sound like this, then anything else you add to the signal chain won't help.

Next, add in the PSM200 (which, unfortunately, is mono). Now how does it sound? If it sounds fine, then you know your Axe patches are the culprit.

- John
 
Deltafit said:
Hmmm, i was thinking of getting the Shure PSM200 or the 400. Having second thoughts now! :shock:
Click to expand...
You're talking about implanting speakers directly into you ear canal. This is not the place to skimp on quality. Having said that, I've mixed my monitors for countless people who were using the units you're talking about, and they said it sounded great. Lower-end units frequently come with lower-end buds, and sometimes just replacing those makes enough of a difference that you no longer feel like the better transmitters/receivers are worth the extra cost. Of course it's also possible that they just don't know what they're missing. (The only in-ears I've personally listened to are E5s plugged straight into the consoles headphone jack, so all I can really tell you is that the mixes sounded good to me.)

Oh, BTW, when you're shopping for this stuff, keep in mind that a transmitter that does a good job with one stereo mix does just as good of a job with two mono mixes. You can save a lot on transmitters that way, then upgrade to stereo for everyone after more gigs. If the packs lack a way to pan, you can just make a small custom cable to go between the pack and your buds.
 
I won't have a chance to test them again until Sunday.
Today I tried at home with a pair of Sennheiser Cx-500's which are good hi-fi earbuds.
It sounded quite good so I guess it must be as some folks suggested due to the earphones not being correctly inserted.
The were hard to insert into my narrow ear-canal as well ;-)
I was using the Radley PEQ trick but noticed, with the earphones, that the sound of my guitar together with the keyboards was not sitting well in the mix.
So I cut experimented a bit and cut a bit at 400Hz and a bit at 2000Hz with a Q of 1.05.
To me, it sounded a lot better.

I was used to playing alone but now with the keyboards, I have to make sure my sound blends well with the keyboards.

I'm convinced I must not skimp on quality since these things go directly into my ears so thats why I want to gather a s much information as possible.
I'll definitely look into the Varitones as well.

Meanwhile, all tips and experiences are welcome.
Thanks.
 
One neat trick I've learned about In-Ear Monitors is to put an EQ between the board Aux and the IEM Transmitter. This makes all the difference in the world. I've band members (Drummers, Bass Players) that swore they would never use In-Ear Monitors rave about the bass response, by setting up and EQ in their mix and pushing more low freqs into their ear. I am using cheap Behringer Feedback Distroyers to act as the EQ. Using this technique, you can adjust you Axe-Fx to sound great on the FOH mix and then adjust you're IEM EQ and Mix to get the optimal from both.
 
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