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On Aug 13, 4:47*pm, 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.

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 nethttp://electrooptical.net

http://www.etymotic.com/customfit/index.html
Etymotic will do custom fits too. I find their off the shelf stuff is
fine, but note the noise isolation can be too good. I certainly don't
recommend walking around the city with 40db of attenuation. They are
great for air travel.