Not In Ear Monitors

mwd

mwd

Power User
Been undergoing some depressing hearing issues this past year. Lost a significant frequency range in a real short time in one ear which shifted my stereo spectrum to 2 o'clock. IEM's became real uncomfortable and ultimately I wound up with a dual inner ear infection after using and enjoying IEM's for a decade. Couple of Dr.'s later and nothing is going to change (except infection gone) but I may not be ready to throw in the towel.

Does anyone know of a quality monitor that is 'not' in ear that might be acceptable. Maybe not just a 'headphone' as I have those. Any high quality bone conductive types or other ideas. Has to be wired to go to our Sennheiser receivers.
 
I'm kind of going through the same thing with my hearing, left ear rings 24-7 and has got worse over the last year. I went IEM and it's ok but I wish there was something else like the Inductive systems that are coming out.

Problem with those systems is they are bluetooth only so that's a no go and aren't going to work with standard IEM transmitters.
 
unix-guy said:
Maybe I'm not following, but why no more IEMs? Are they still uncomfortable?
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Yes just tired of fighting them. I've always had a bit of trouble. I guess I have very small ear canals. Always fighting to get them in, then keep them in. Had custom molds made and they had to do them twice and they never were comfortable so $$$ just wasted. Just wanted to know if there were any quality options anyone else knew about that were not the in ear.
 
Would memory foam tips be acceptable? The Etymotics come with them as an option (ER4SR, etc.)

You won't achieve the isolation needed for non-IEMs to work properly at stage volumes with over the ear phones of any kind in my opinion.
 
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jeffgoobs said:
You won't achieve the isolation needed for non-IEMs to work properly at stage volumes...
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You made me realize I left out critical info. We are 3 piece hybrid band. We go into studio and play bass and accessory tracks to a MIDI drum layout then send it off to my buddy to replace the MIDI drums with human MIDI drums. Then we play a couple of guitars via Axe III's and vocals to that backing track. So we use a silent stage.
 
Try going with headphones. Live, studio, whatever. Jeff Baxter was decades ahead of the curve on this, and he credits his preserved hearing to it.

You may even be able to scrounge up the right adapters to plug them into your IEM pack.
 
mwd said:
Yes just tired of fighting them. I've always had a bit of trouble. I guess I have very small ear canals. Always fighting to get them in, then keep them in. Had custom molds made and they had to do them twice and they never were comfortable so $$$ just wasted. Just wanted to know if there were any quality options anyone else knew about that were not the in ear.
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Just an FYI, I had a similar experience with my custom molds. Almost gave up on them, they were very uncomfortable. Struggled with ear infections and skin peeling in both ear canals. On a whim, I tried some lip gel/balm just inside the ear canal and the IEMs were instantly much more comfortable, been using them weekly ever since - been over 5 years. There are in-ear manufacturers that sell and 'ear gel'.

https://www.64audio.com/products/ear-gel
https://alclair.com/product/ear-gel-lubricant
 
Been using olive oil for the ears for a long time. I have to in order to get a good seal. I am super careful about cleaning the IEM's off each time but I may have run out of cleaners for a time or two and just wiped them off. May have caused the infection or the Doc told me water has been a villain. It goes in and doesn't come out of my ears easy. It may have been the culprit. Have some swim plugs ordered for that and he recommended baby oil over the olive oil I was using.

I've used headphones before and it's not bad. Have some Sennheiser HD 650 but it takes a lot to power them. Have Sony 7560 but too shrill. If I could find just the right size and sound to replace the IEM's I don't mind headphone use. It's just not there yet. After the past year I just have an aversion to sticking anything in my ear again. Might sound trivial but it takes me forever to get seated and prepped with IEM's. I've done it for over 10 years but just searching for 'possible' new methods.
 
mwd said:
Have Sony 7560 but too shrill
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Have you tried looking up your headphones on https://autoeq.app? It's a data repository for basically every type of headphone out there, and it gives you the parametric EQ settings in order to "flatten out" the frequency response of your headphones. Adding an EQ block to your headphone output and inputting the data points from that site will make the headphones sound much more aligned to what one would hear while listening from well-tuned speakers.

Anyway, just something you can do in the meantime in order to give new life to headphones in which you had lost faith previously.
 
You did give me an idea. We had no use for personal monitors with 3 members and a backing track. But with my hearing loss and HF slope I could see a personal monitor mix help out without torturing my bandmates.
 
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