On 08/13/2011 08:01 PM, Les Cargill wrote:
Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 08/13/2011 07:44 PM, Les Cargill wrote:
RichD wrote:
I have the standard earpod set, which came with my
armband MP3 player. It pops out every 2 minutes.
How did these things become the standard design?
Kids these days...
They suck.
Yep. The cheap ones tend to sound bad, too.
So now i'm looking for the earbud style, i.e. inside the
ear. They range from $8 to $40, and Shure offers a set,
over $100?!?
They have sets over $400.
For something so small, how can there
be such a range?
It's a micro machined (or cast or molded) thing.
It's a transducer.
Is there really such quality difference?
Yeah, there apparently is. They are, as you note, a total
pig in a poke.
I would tend to resort to brand name choice, mainly Shure,
because Shure get used as in-ears by people who perform with
them for a living. We're down to what amounts to folklore,
since you can't try them on.
They are all sealed in blister packs, there's no chance
to compare. Even if there were, differences in
environment, time of day, etc. swamp perceptual
discernment.
How would you go about testing these things, in the lab?
--
Rich
I am not Shure 
I'd estimate my ear canal geometry, use
a model of that to connect them to a measurement mic or
a standalone, Panasonic omni electret element, and run
an impulse ( and maybe white noise and maybe swept sine
tones ) through 'em. That's got to be fraught with
error - my tympani is not much like the back of an
electret element.
What would be interesting ( and might even be worth $20
or so ) would be a subscription service where people do
empirical reviews of these items. Problem is: how do
you establish credibility? Do people even care? If I
were considering such a purchase, and I could hedge 10:1
a purchase error, I'd probably do it.
I don't see one, so I figure there's a good reason
for the lack of them.
--
Les Cargill
One approach would be to make a casting of the outer part of your ear
canal with something like ShapeLok. I've been meaning to try that myself.
I never stick anything in my ear smaller than my elbow. There's
obviously the Etymotic thingies, but they cost too much.
A piece of surgical tubing seems close enough. It'd
be like making measurements at the end of an organ pipe, so it
all sounds eminently futile
I've been using Koss PRO35A on-the-ears for more than ten
years now. Good known quantity. And I don't want to
play music loud enough to justify earplugs any more.
It isn't _my_ music that justifies the earplugs. Properly fitted
earplug headphones are far safer than ordinary ear buds in noisy
environments such as airplanes (I just got to gold frequent-flyer
status, so I care about that. If business continues to be good, I may
make platinum this year.)
You have to crank up the volume so high to get any S/N ratio that you
can easily damage your hearing. Give me the occasional case of diver's
ear any day.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics
160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058
hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net