00formulahawk

there are certain things that should never go near a set of premium IEM's.. I would think a freezer, glue, and a dremel tool would be among those.. I sometimes wonder if people just like to make things more difficult than they need to be =P anyway, glad to know the guide is still getting some use =)

just did some quick looking on google.. did the tips you tried look anything like this? http://headphones.com.au/psingle?productID=157 if so, were they as coarse and stiff as they look in the picture? the ear plugs I use are VERY soft and can be reshaped with very little pressure at all, so they tend to form fit to your ear canal when they get in, making a very good seal (for me any way) without putting much pressure on the ear canal itself.. just a thought as I've never had any experience with manufactured foam tips on IEM's before.. if you haven't been over there yet, check the pics I posted, you'll see what I'm talking about.. -Alan-

lol, I've yet to have a problem with one coming off.. even after a few months of use when I'm ready to swap em out, they're still stuck on there pretty good.. the actual hole that gets made by the pencil through these is only about the diameter of a small paperclip.. so it stretches a LOT.. which means when you get it back behind the bump in the nozzle of the IEM, it holds on for dear life and as far as using ear plugs like they're supposed to be used, I've never been able to get them to stay comfortably in my ears.. on the custom 3's though, they don't bother meat all.. just make sure the ear plugs you pick up are the real soft ones.. as you can see from the pictures, these compress quite a bit and still expand back to their original size and shape..

If I'm understanding you correctly, I say BRING IT ON!!! Love to see it. ask and you shall recieve http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/t/116584.aspx

There seem to be a lot of people here on the forums that either have trouble getting a good seal with the original ear gels, or whose ears get sore after wearing the gels for very long. I used to have the same problem and Prof. Thump suggested I try some 3rd party foam ear tips instead. Sounded like a good idea and I thought it was worth a shot, but after shopping around the area some, I couldn't find any stores around here that sold the foam tips, and I really didn't want to spend as much in shipping as I did on the tips themselves, so I let the idea go for a while. A week or two later I was over at my girlfriends house and somehow we got to talking about how the birds were getting noisy in the mornings and waking her up, and how she wanted to buy some ear plugs to help keep the noise down. This got me to thinking, and so I went to the hardware store with her and picked some up for both of us. After a couple failed attempts, I got things fitting the way I wanted, and WOW. I went from having the bass turned all the way up and thinking it was just shy of where it should be, to turning the bass down to about 60% and thinking it was more than enough. Not only that, but my ear canals used to get sore after a few hours of use with the gels, and with these, i was wearing them all day long at work and they never got even mildy irritated. So I figured I would share with the rest of you guys and see if it helps anyone else out. Supplies: Foam Ear Plugs (I think I got a package of 80 of these from Lowe's for like $10 or $15) Mechanical pencil with a tip similar to this: An exacto knife or something else to cut the ear plug with Step 1: Cut about 3/8 of an inch off the back side of the ear plug and disgard it. Edit: Depending on the size of your ear canals and the size of the ear plugs, you may need to cut off more or less to make a good fit, less for a larger ear canal or less for a smaller one.. Step 2: Push the tip of the mechanical pencil through the front of the ear plug, the cone shape of the tip should compress the center so it will get trapped behind the bump on the base of the IEM. Step 3: GENTLY insert the tip of the pencil into the opening on the IEM and slide the ear plug off of the pencil and onto the base of the IEM and remove the pencil. The pencil I use doesn't touch anything inside before the cone is too wide for the nozzle but BE CAREFUL! If you're worried about sticking something inside of your expensive IEM's, you can slide the ear plug completely off of the pencil and then push the IEM base through the ear plug. It's a little trickier, but probably safer. You should end up with something that looks like this. After a few minutes the foam will expand and it should end up looking something like this. That's it, you're all set. Mine usually last a few months before they start getting old, dirty and covered in ear wax and I have to make a new pair. Hope this helps, feel free to send me any questions. -Alan-

have you tried using foam tips instead of the gel ones that come with the custom 3's? my ears used to get sore with the gels (though not as quickly as yours, I was usually tender after around 4-6 hours..) but since I switched to making my own ear tips out of foam ear plugs, I can wear them comfortably all day at work every day and never know there were ever there after I take them out.. personally, even though I thought they sounded superb with the ear gels, I think they sound even better with the foam tips.. if you want to give it a try, let me know and I'll see if I can't snap a few pics and explain the process..

just something to consider as far as fit goes.. I've found that I can make my own foam tips out of cheap ear plugs for the custom 3's that fit worlds better than the gel tips that came with them.. I tried all of the gels that came with them and though they sounded good, was never real impressed with the sound isolation, and by the end of an 8 hour day at work, my ear canals were sore.. with the ear plug tips, I get considerably better sound isolation, I noticed the bass coming in stronger, and I can wear them all day long and my ears never get even mildly sore from it..

I work out of a hangar at the local airport and use the custom 3's and while the gel inserts weren't overly impressive (maybe my ear canals are a wierd shape or something and I just never got a good seal, i don't know..) I found that with a little work, I could make my own foam inserts and those work great.. more comfortable too.. I can wear them 8 hours a day and my ears never get sore, and even when the jets are running up their engines just outside our hangar, it can barely hear them.. they're easy to make.. just take a pair of foam ear plugs (got mine from the hardware store..) and cut them in about half.. use a paperclip to make a hole through the center of the front half, then push the nozle at the base of the headphone through the hole in the ear plug.. makes a nice, comfortable seal in your ear.. and I actually get a lot more bass than I ever did with any of the gel inserts that came with them.. hope this helps

having the same problem myself.. cables have been VERY stiff ever since I got them.. seems every place they bend frequently they bunch up on mine.. been using mine 45+ hours a week for about 6 months and just had the left ear start cutting in and out..

I'm actually in the market for the same type of thing.. I use my mp3 player at work all day.. long story short, I have to wear it on my arm and run the cables up my sleeve to keep them out of the way, which is all fine and dandy during the summer when I'm wearing short sleeves, but come winter when i'm wearing long sleeves, I won't be able to see the screen to switch songs, etc.. something like that would mean I could have it transmitting from somewhere accessable and still have the cords tied up and out of the way.. not to mention I wouldn't mind not having to worry about bumping my mp3 player into things as I'm climbing in and out of airplanes been doing some looking and so far, all I've found is this: http://www.engadget.com/2006/11/28/princeton-technologys-bluetooth-headphone-adapter/ more or less what I'm looking for, too bad it only works with ipods =( if you find something that works with a stereo jack or stereo inputs of some sort, let me know will ya? -Alan-

the endeverafter CD I'm thinking was a problem with the recording.. my CD's hardly been used since I bought it (took it out to rip it and use it on the computer, and a few times recently to test it..) and both encoded music and the original CD in any of my CD players crackle in the same place.. tried downloading a few of their songs to see if maybe I'd just gotten a bad copy.. all of those did it in the same place.. some of the others though, like bullet for my valentine, I think it's an encoding problem somewhere that I haven't nailed down.. listening to the original CD's in the stereo sounds fine, same with plugging my custom 3's into the stereo and listening that way.. every time I rip it though, I get crackling where the music really starts to pick up the pace.. burning the ripped tracks to CD and playing them in the stereo w/ or w/o the custom 3's gets me the same crackling noise.. tried downloading a few of those songs.. found one copy of the CD that crackled just like mine, and another that sounded flawless (both ripped to mp3 at 320k CBR) so now it's just a matter of trying to figure out why things aren't ripping right.. tried a few different programs, and tried a few different types of encoding (mp3 and ogg) and it doesn't seem ta help.. so we'll do some research and see what google can tell us

played around with the endeverafter cd a bit.. it's definately embedded in the original CD.. my stereo, desktop and laptop all crackle at the same spots even when playing directly from the original CD with or without the cusom 3's.. <sigh> oh well.. as for my cowon, I absolutely LOVE it! if crystal clear audio is what you're after, this is it.. plays most audio formats (wav, mp3, ogg, and flac off the top of my head..) and comes with a 5 band equalizer.. also has a nifty bass enhancing feature that lets you tweak the low end frequencies even more.. allows for nice, deep, sharp bass with no distortion.. also one of the few mp3 players I know of that doesn't require ANY software at all to transfer media.. just plug the USB cable into the computer, it shows up as a USB harddrive, transfer whatever you want to or from it, tell the computer to unmount the drive and you're good to go.. other features include line in recording, line out, FM radio reciever, and FM radio recording.. the x5 comes in a few flavors.. 10, 20 and 30 gig for the standard, thinner, lighter version, a thicker 60 gig version, or the x5l, a thicker 30 gig version with a 35 hour battery (the other x5's get approx. 14 hours..) now, as much as I love the player, there are a few downsides.. first off, the x5 series is no longer in production.. should still be able to find them on amazon, but some replacement parts (like the sub pack) may get hard to find in the near future.. secondly, the sub pack.. as much thought and effort as the engineers seem to have put into developing the x5 series, for whatever reason (probably to save on cost or space) they decided to make a "sub pack" that has the AC jack, USB jack, and line in/out jacks.. without it, you've only got the headphone jack, USB host jack and the remote input jack.. add to that the fact that the sub pack itself feels rather flimsy (just a little plastic adapter with a short plug sticking out of it that goes into the bottom of the player, nothing to keep it from getting bumped and breaking off..) and if it breaks, you're SOL.. also more of a nucence than anything, for whatever reason every time you plug it into a computer and disconnect it, it resets the play boundry to default (any media on the harddrive) and resets the programmable buttons.. if you're looking for more of a media player and don't mind spending some extra dough, I've heard loads of good things about the q5w (though they did load an old version of windows on it).. large screen, built in bluetooth and wireless, same sound quality, component vodeo out, s-video out, composite video out, stereo out, the works.. the o2 is soon to be released too, which may leave that in the dust.. check out www.cowonamerica.com and have a look around, they've got something for everyone.. very detailed and well written review here: http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2007/02/cowon-iaudio-x5-review.php do some looking at the reviews they have there about any of the other players you're considering too.. they usually do a pretty good job of giving fair and spot on reviews and comparisons.. hope my rambling didn't bore ya too much, and good luck!

I'm starting to think it's an encoding problem or something that happened during the recording or burning process of the original CD.. tried listening to some avenged sevenfold since it has a similar sound to bullet for my valentine.. it comes through crystal clear, no crackling at all.. I guess at this point it's a matter of trying to find out what's botching up the ripping process.. <sigh> oh well, at least it's looking like it's not a problem with the mp3 player or the custom 3's []

I doubt I'm listening to it too loud.. the volume control goes from 0-40, I usually listen around 10 or so, occasionally venturing to 12 or 14 for the odd album that was ripped at a lower volume level.. and the crackling seems to be just as consistant at quieter levels too.. or put another way, I listen to it 8 hours or so a day, 5 days a week at work, and my ears don't feel fatigued or sore at all from it (occasionally the canal gets a little irritated from the gel insert pressing against it for a few days in a row, but that's about it..) I'll keep browsing through the forums and elsewhere online and see what I can't find out..

ok.. so after fooling around with my custom 3's enough, I finally got my previous problem solved.. since then, I've been expanding my library and have run into another bump in the road.. it seems certain songs (or certain types of songs anyway) produce a great deal of crackling.. seems bands like metallica and disturbed come through almost crystal clear (just a hint of distortion if you listen closely) while others like bullet for my valentine or endeverafter, crackle horribly whenever the music picks up.. I rip everything as a 320k mp3 or full quality ogg (around 400k if memory serves..) so I don't think that's the problem.. though I guess if all else fails I could try flac or wav and see if that makes a difference.. everything's being played on a Cowon iAudio X5L (which as far as i know should be able to handle this kind of quality output..) at a low to medium volume level, so I wouldn't think that it should be pushing the armatures too hard.. anyone have any similar experiences with their custom 3's? any suggestions? think an amp would help clear it up any?