In ear molds?

Tom Morris

Tom Morris

Power User
When you got custom In Ears did you have an audiologist do the molds or did you use a self mold kit? I ordered Alienears and was going to do the molds my self with the help of my daughter. Looks pretty straight forward following the video. Just wanted to get opinions.
 
I went to the recommended audiologist for the brand I bought. Considering the price of the IEMs it was $30 well spent in my opinion. I'm sure the DIY molds could work just fine, I simply liked the peace of mind having a professional do it and rule out me mucking something up.
 
These are bottom of the barrel 3 driver IEM's. Not that big of an investment and I really haven't tried to force myself to use in ears before. I do 98% of playing with headphone aside from live gigs. Hoping to lower SPL live and maybe hear what I want of the mix.
 
Custom molds have really changed my experience with in ear monitoring. I remembered a friend who has Alienears and is extremely happy with them. I looked into them when researching IEMs, went with another company though, and the mold process looks pretty simple and virtually foolproof. I don't think they'd do it if they had issues with it. Good luck with them, I hope they work as well for you as mine are.
 
That was my though from what iv read. Most of my live gigs I'm 3 to 5 foot from the drums. Trying to get away from those damn cymbals. I also got a set of 3M peltor 101 -26db muffs. I could care less what I look like.
 
If you happen to have a rather unusual ear canal form like I do then there's no way creating molds yourself. The.molds should reach to and include the second bend of your ear canal and that's a very sensitive area.

Edit: maybe an expert like @Iqdsnddist could chime in ?
 
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Pay to have it professionally done. It’s very affordable and the impression really makes or breaks the comfort and satisfaction with the IEM’s, which even if they are lower end will cost far more than the impression fee.

I’m all about DIY in most cases, but there are a lot of advantages having it professionally done.

Having someone with the knowledge of if you need an open or closed mouth impression, having someone able to look in the ear and make sure there isn’t any pathology which would be a contraindication to doing an accurate impression, and really just being able to make sure what you send of looks right and will perform right.

I have vendors supply my impression guns, assortments of impression materials, etc, so when I create one if there is a void, some wax or hair issues, didn’t look deep enough etc, I just do another. Heck, I usually do 2 just to see if there are differences, cost me and the patient just a couple extra minutes time, right ? Your just not saving much DIY and giving up quality.

Also while rare, there is some small risk of DIY. Don’t have an otoblock in right, or certain ear pathology, and put impression material in there ? You might be getting it surgically removed.

See an audiologist for it.
 
I've had my ears cast four times. The first time Sensaphonics rejected the molds. I would never try to cast my own.
 
lqdsnddist said:
Pay to have it professionally done. It’s very affordable and the impression really makes or breaks the comfort and satisfaction with the IEM’s, which even if they are lower end will cost far more than the impression fee.
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This has been my experience as well since I did the molds myself.

There is a risk that you will have "pockets" inside the molds where it does not truly seal the ear canal if done yourself. With your circumstances @Tom Morris and the cymbals, it'd pay in the long run to have them done professionally so you don't have soundwaves interrupting your clear signal.
 
Sooooo.... I received my alienears AFR3's last Saturday. Just under 3 weeks turnaround time from when they received my molds. Gotta say they sound kick ass. first thing I did was plug my favorite headphones (Sony MDR7506) into my computer for a good comparison to what I'm used to listening to. Then tried out the Alienears and holy cow do they sound great. Really good bass mids aren't honky and not to much sizzle on the top end. I must ad that the level of output of these compared to the Sony headphone is double if not more. Plugged directly into the headphone jack of the AFX III I had volume set at 1-2 compared to 4-5 with the headphones. Next up was to test with the wireless transmitter-receiver and again they sound fantastic in stereo. My first gig with them will be Saturday and that will be my fist chance at the show to try and get a monitor mix in them. On the plus side we have a Line6 Stagesource PA I can control my mix with from an iPad so it shouldn't be a big deal.
 
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Tom Morris said:
Sooooo.... I received my alienears AFR3's last Saturday. Just under 3 weeks turnaround time from when they received my molds. Gotta say they sound kick ass. first thing I did was plug my favorite headphones (Sony MDR7506) into my computer for a good comparison to what I'm used to listening to. Then tried out the Alienears and holy cow do they sound great. Really good bass mids aren't honky and not to much sizzle on the top end. I must ad that the level of output of these compared to the Sony headphone is double if not more. Plugged directly into the headphone jack of the AFX III I had volume set at 1-2 compared to 4-5 with the headphones. Next up was to test with the wireless transmitter-receiver and again they sound fantastic in stereo. My first gig with them will be Saturday and that will be my fist chance at the show to try and get a monitor mix in them. On the plus side we have a Line6 Stagesource PA I can control my mix with from an iPad so it should be a big deal.
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Where’s the gig?
 
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