Custom-2 difficulties

[foxlinked]

I just got my pair on Thursday and after trying different size plugs the entire day, I could only get a good seal with the largest plugs. The isolation is very good, cant hear hardly anything thats going on around me... but most importantly- the sound... these are... horrible. Any low bass in my music sounds VERY weak and in some cases is barely audible. The only thing i can say is the mid/higher freq's dont seem to strain as i turn the volume up. The comfort is alright but i find it odd that I need the largest ear plugs to get a seal. On my set of Sennheiser CX300s I'm just using the set of typical medium round plugs that came on them out of the box with no problems. The doubles flange seem to be too long and won't seal.

I've been constantly trying to move these things around in my ears to get them to sound good but it's turning out to be impossible. The sound is always very thin and almost somewhat airy. If I push them any further into my ear, the sound dissappears. Surely I must have a decent seal if I can't hear anything around me, right?

Another weird thing about these - they sound worse on my Pioneer receiver's headphone out than they do on my Zen Vision:M. All of my other phone's seem to be the opposite. They get overly bright and the bass still isn't there. The music I'm listening to is typically Nine Inch Nails, Tool, Radiohead - other rock of sorts with a little bit of Aphex Twin or daft punk every now and again... Any sort of bass boost or EQ adjustments just make the issues much more apparent and worse.

This has been a very frustrating experience... not to mention buyer's remorse is kicking in hardcore [:@]

I also gotta ask, what is up with that hiss when they are plugged in
and nothing is playing? I mean, It's not too big of a deal but a little
strange...

Got any tips on what the lack of bass is? Everything I read is it's all about the seal - which I apparently have... Surely I've gotta be doing something wrong...

[Professor Thump]

Dear Foxlinked,

Sorry to hear that you are experiencing issues although I am perplexed by your response.

… what is up with that hiss when they are plugged in and nothing is playing? I mean,... Surely I've gotta be doing something wrong...

Don’t shoot the messanger…Have you heard this cliché?

The noise you are hearing is not the fault of the headphone this is coming from your amplifier source. A headphone can only reproduce what it is given. If you have no signal yet you are experiencing noise then the audio source is producing noise. Although the Custom 2 is very efficient, you are potentially listening at too high of volume levels for the safety of your ears. Do your ears ring when you have used headphones for a period of 10 minutes or more? If so, I would like to recommend that you lower the volume before you develop hearing loss or permanent ringing in your ears. For your sake…Take care of your ears; you only have two…Please.

… I could only get a good seal with the largest plugs. The isolation is very good, cant hear hardly anything thats going on around me... but most importantly- the sound... these are... horrible. Any low bass in my music sounds VERY weak and in some cases is barely audible. The only thing i can say is the mid/higher freq's dont seem to strain as i turn the volume up. The comfort is alright but i find it odd that I need the largest ear plugs to get a seal. …The doubles flange seem to be too long and won't seal. I've been constantly trying to move these things around in my ears to get them to sound good but it's turning out to be impossible. The sound is always very thin and almost somewhat airy. If I push them any further into my ear, the sound dissappears. Surely I must have a decent seal if I can't hear anything around me, right?

Seal Issue:

As far as the seal, it is hard to conclude what your problem is without seeing you in person. Maybe if you could take some close-ups of your ears and ear canals with and without the headphones inserted this may help. Please use the macro setting on your camera for close up shots. It wouldn’t hurt to have a ruler or millimeter stick in the picture for reference your ear dimensions. You can PM them to me if you don’t want to share your ears with others.

You can be semi-sealed and still not have bass. This would mean that the high frequency ambient noises are not present but you have slow leaks. If you are not fully occluded you will experience less bass. The other issue could be that your music source isn’t functioning properly. Do you have an EQ on the mp3 player that is on?

Your description of inserting deeper and losing all sound makes sense. You are closing off the acoustic path in the ear tip as it hits the sidewall of your ear canal. Thus you cannot hear any audio signal. Give it a couple more tries before you give up. We have technical people inside Klipsch that have not heard good bass for a month until they bent the wire just right. Then they couldn’t believe how much bass there was. It is safe to say that the Custom 2 has tons o’ bass IF you are getting a seal.

[foxlinked]

The hiss occurs on every source i use - whether its my Pioneer receiver or my Zen, I dont need to turn the volume up to hear it. And no, my ears dont ring after listening for 10 minutes, I listen to headphones at a minimum of 8 hours a day at work/home combined. The phones are the same ohm rating as my sennheisers so i set the volume to no more than 14 (goes to 25) on my mp3 player. My sennheisers, however, have no hiss whatsoever. Also - no EQ or bassboost is on, I hate using them. My mp3 player is working correctly because everything else sounds fine out of it.

As for the seal thing, that's just gotta be why I'm having the problems... I'll PM you some pics either later today or tomorrow. I'm really hoping to get this sorted out. ++

Thanks for the reply man and happy holidays!

[TheEvan]

I'm thinking the Customs must be considerably more sensitive than the Senns because it should be completely impossible for them to produce their own hiss.

I'm not sure what to say about the seal. Once I found the 'sweet spot' with my Image I was amazed at the sense of bass produced. It makes no sense to me at all how a little thing like that could produce bass like that...

[TheEvan]

While we're at it, I've never had an mp3 player and would like to buy. A friend of mine has and loves the Zen. How do you feel about yours and would you recommend it? (Which model do you have?)

[foxlinked]

I've got a 30gb Zen Vision:M. I've only owned 2 players (the other was a Zen Xtra 30gb) and I've temporarily used a Zune and the credit-card style Zen. Never had any experience with an Ipod... the thing I like about the ZV:M is i can just plug it in, throw some music/pics/movies on it, and I'm set. No need to install any software or anything, it just works. I've had it for over a year and the battery still lasts me at least 8 hours with the screen on with brightness set to 100% (it doesnt always stay bright like that and if you lock the player, the screen turns off). It plays divx movies, so i dont have to do much encoding or anything from what i download off of the net. I'd definately recommend the Zen V:M.

The newer credit-card style Zen is pretty much the same thing - just in a smaller package (solid state storage). Comes in upto 32gb and also has an SD slot for more data if you so desire. If anything were to happen to my player, I'd probably buy a credit-card sized Zen with a big SDHC card.

I havent done much research on newer MP3 players though, so they may have something better out. You can probably get some more help over at head-fi.org.

[Fud]

@foxlinked: When I first got my custom-2s, I faced many of the same issues as the few early adopters and yourself did (besides seal issues). The earphones seemed to be overly bright and dry for my own tastes, however, I'm currently 100% pleased with my purchase. In fact, I'd be comfortable enough to say that these are my favourire IEMs of all the ones I've owned.

Curious as to how I improved my SQ to suit my needs? It was very simple and not at all costly, and its name is the Sansa Clip. The level of detail, warmth, extension of bass and numerous other sonic improvements is totally worth the $45 (on sale at Bestbuy.com =P) I highly recommend switching DAPs, and I really don't how you could lose, just return it if you don't like it but few people do, and I doubt you will.

I had some hiss in between tracks and with certain songs with my iriver clix2 (which is most likely on its way out in favour of the Clip =P), and I'm happy to say that there is zero hiss with the clip. I actually couldn't stand listening to my clix2 without EQ, and even still it sounded a touch artificial with my EQ settings.

The way I see it, it saves you the time and money needed to ship back your custom-2s. All you need to do is stop by bestbuy for a quick purchase.

[Professor Thump]

Dear foxlinked,

In order for me to properly discuss your fit issues please review the attached website for terminology of the ear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragus_(ear)

Hey that is a nice looking earphone in your ear from the picture you PM'd me. Too bad it isn’t fitting the way it is intended.

I appreciate the Evan and Fud chiming in about their issues. Everyone is different but some people have difficulties initially fitting IE earphones to their specific earhorns. Most of the time they figure it out and it is like a light went off when they get the correct seal. Bass galore!

You may be the exception Foxlinked but I would not give up yet if I were you. I have an adult child whose ear is similar to yours. She cannot easily wear Custom 1-3 products because her concha is very small. It is pretty safe to say that if the body of the earphone cannot rest inside the concha then you may experience a poor fit. Custom 2 is quite small, but it needed to be as large as this size to fit a dual armature in the body. If you can get the chassis to fit behind the anti-tragus in the concha you will probably have a good fit. I can’t tell easily from the pictures, but it appears that your concha may be too small or the anti-tragus may be too tall to allow the body to rest in the concha where it was designed. If this is the case I don’t believe you will be able to use this model. My recommendation then would be to use the IMAGE model which will fit the highest percentage of users.

I hope this information will guide you to the perfect fit!

[foxlinked]

oh snap? i think i got it. left ear feels really tight and in place. right ear is kind of goofy... it's in place and stays there alright until i move around a bit, I'll have to see how it does when i goto work later today. thanks for all the help, I appreciate it very much.

It sounds entirely different now. the bass treatment seems pretty similar to my hd 555's (but ive been listening to those the past couple hours so maybe it's just placebo) not overdone - almost just right. I'm just happy that its actually there now, hah.

keep on rocken fellas, thanks for the assistance!

[PeterDLai]

Nice! I'm glad that they finally worked out for you.

[Professor Thump]

oh snap? i think i got it. left ear feels really tight and in place. right ear is kind of goofy... it's in place and stays there alright until i move around a bit, I'll have to see how it does when i goto work later today. thanks for all the help, I appreciate it very much.

It sounds entirely different now. the bass treatment seems pretty similar to my hd 555's (but ive been listening to those the past couple hours so maybe it's just placebo) not overdone - almost just right. I'm just happy that its actually there now, hah.

keep on rocken fellas, thanks for the assistance!

Hey that is great news! Congratulations!

[Professor Thump]

http://www.klipsch.com/headphones/how-to-use/

You might also want to review this video from Dr. Brad Cochlea.

[Professor Thump]

oh snap? i think i got it. left ear feels really tight and in place. right ear is kind of goofy... it's in place and stays there alright until i move around a bit, I'll have to see how it does when i goto work later today. thanks for all the help, I appreciate it very much.

It sounds entirely different now. the bass treatment seems pretty similar to my hd 555's (but ive been listening to those the past couple hours so maybe it's just placebo) not overdone - almost just right. I'm just happy that its actually there now, hah.

keep on rocken fellas, thanks for the assistance!

Now that you have had a day to work with it, does the Custom 2 feel comfortable in your ear? What are your impressions about the audio performance?

[foxlinked]

the fit is fine in my right ear, though in my left ear i've got a small bump going along the bottom of my concha. at first -it doesnt bother but after about 2 hours it became very uncomfortable... didnt notice it until i moved the headphone just slightly. It's barable but definately a bit annoying.

the sound quality is pretty nice, though it really makes the different bitrate of my songs stick out quite a bit. A few songs i've downloaded are around 128kbps CBR and most of what I've ripped off cd was encoded with lame using the extreme preset (192k VBR). The phones are pretty clear in letting me know which I'm listening to. I may have to look around to replace some of my lower quality rips.

the highs are detailed and not grainy/rolled off compared to my other phones. the voices sound spot on. I actually noticed in one of my songs that the singers voice has just a *slight* echo to it - which i've never even noticed on any of my other phones or even speakers for that matter. Guitars have a nice crunch to them and sound pretty much perfect. drums have a much better kick to them now that they are put in properly (whew...). The bass still sounds as if it's treated just like my hd 555- It's just right but couldn't hurt having a little more. Overall, its a very clear and accurate sound that could probably use a touch more bass but I'm satisfied. Pretty good for a first attempt at headphones.

Is there any chance you guys may make some over-the-ear headphones in the future?