Does anyone actually like those silicone tips vs a solid body?
I personally cannot wear the silicone ones. they either fallout, or don’t fit/hurt my ears.
it’s just a royal pain finding the non silicone ones for cheap. it’s just for dog walking. I also don’t do wireless because well… they fall out.
photo examples.
I like the silicone ones when they fit. I have some round the ear ones for jogging and they’re great. Never budge.
Silicone ones don’t fit me. Tried all sizes and they all fall out. I also don’t want the noise blocking they do. I also walk my dog and I want to hear bikes coming from behind or car noises and such.
Mine pass the surrounding noise through the microphone and back through the buds so I can hear my surroundings much better than if I wasn’t wearing them.
I have never found an in-ear style design that both fits and is comfortable. I have, however, found what works perfectly for me. It stays outside the canal, but remains in the ear because of a slight pressure caused by the silicone wing tips. The brand I buy is “Bose Soundsport Wired”. Cheap, sound fine, never fall out.
I got the same ones they came with my cheapie Dime 3 earbuds
I find foam ones preferable over the silicone ones
I only like the old style earphones that sit in the ear. Those bottom ones look way too bulky to be comfortable or not fall out, and the silicone tip ones - sod stuffing something like that in my ear.
I currently own the Sennheiser MX365 (looks like the MX375 is the updated and still available version) and they are great!
I have met a single digit number of people who prefer hard plastic earbuds over the soft tips. There’s a reason why they’re pretty much the only thing you see in “nice” earbuds.
Have you tried different tips? Apple offers like 5 different sizes because it’s so important to have the right fit. Initially they didn’t fit my ear well, but after a while of trying my ear adapted and now they fit perfectly. Foam is also worth a shot, but they get gross fast.
I like IEMs with a wrap around design like KZ EDX pro
I hate silicon tips usually but these are my preference too. I have ccx brand ones though.
I think it’s 50/50. Reading the comments pretty much confirms this. Interesting question!
I accidentally put my earbuds though a wash cycle and borrowed some airpods for the gym while waiting for replacements. I don’t understand how a solid one-size-fits all approach can be so popular. With silicone tips you can have different sizes. I actually use a different size for each ear.
Silicone tipped are so much better. They’re easier to clean, they’re more comfortable, and they block out outside noise much better.
I do. The soft silicone ones are much more comfortable in the long run, provided you’re using a size that is right for you.
I détest the silicone ones. They’re uncomfortable and I always lose the tip. I only use the hard plastic ones
I did a diy cast of my ear canal using diy silicone… Which I fo not recommend, but look for sugru. It’s silicone type I mixed with talcum powder to expose the water trapped in talcum to the silicone over a large volume in a controlled way… Then I scanned the casts and I used a DSLR to take photos of the parts at various angles and used an open source app to get 3D models from the images. Then I used freecad to cut the models with areas to mount the tiny speakers and such. Finally printed them in SLA resin. I made earplugs, IEMS and headphone adapters using the same geometry. They are very comfortable. The plugs are great for swimming.
They sell kits to make your own custom-fit silicone plugs. They’re like $10 on Amazon.
Work great. Push the goo into your ear, wait a few minutes and it’s cured enough to take out. Wait another hour or so and it’s fully cured.
Yup, I learned about it later. Its called radians. There are other companies. I did try the material and works okay. The key design factor is that it won’t stick to your skin or eardrums. Well there are kits that are like that, do you gotta test the material before you go stick it up your ear holes. Even I wasn’t that dumb. I practiced several times before committing LOL. You would not LOL not hearing anything anymore, so again, just go to the audiologist. It defeats the purpose if you hurt your hearing while trying to hear better.
It only goes in your canal a small amount. The instructions are really good.
And like you I tested it first.
For those who don’t want to go through this, you can get an audiologist to make the molds and there are companies that will do the rest for you.
It’s pricey, though. For me it was $200 for the molds and $200 for the plugs, but the $200 for the plugs includes a one time charge for processing the molds, so subsequent orders are much cheaper. They also shipped my molds back so I can use them with a different company if I choose.
They were worth every penny for the music festival I had them made for. They offered great noise reduction while not impacting the audio clarity, and I could wear them for 12+ hours with absolutely no discomfort.
I totally second that. You don’t want silicone not curing over your eardrum and then having a nurse pull it off carefully. Sometimes I do stupid things. But don’t do what I did. Once you got your molds you are golden. Meshlab.net, and blender.org for mesh manipulation and modeling. Alicevision.org for meshroom, the 3D reconstruction from photos software “photogrammetry”. Finally freecad.org for the cad software. You can just buy IEMs by sending them the model from meshroom or the actual silicon impressions. Those can be pricey. My goal was to just print various versions as I needed. So I got a low profile for swimming, I got one that you just insert a plastic headphone into. I got one with armatures and a set without anything just for ear protection. I SLA print these and then polish them before use. Super comfortable and if you’re not a demanding audiophile, these are like all your music was a musical monalisa.
Yeah, I think what you did was a pretty cool project. I appreciate you acknowledging the risks associated with it.
I just love recommending custom molded ear plugs any chance I get. They let me stand in front of the speaker stack at a Tech9 set with absolutely no discomfort from the volume. I actually had to take them out to make sure the volume wasn’t just low and the difference was staggering. Immediately my ears started hurting, so I quickly put them back in.
Silicone, 100%.
Neither, really. I much prefer the open ear headphones that sit on your ear (not the ones like Sennheiser has with the mesh).
They stay in place and are light enough that after a minute you don’t even notice them.
I use some apple 3.5mm earpods for all-day some-nights work, and calls and music. They’re cheap when I catch them in something and they wreck, and no fn batteries.
I haven’t noticed I’m wearing them, not in years. I think it took a week to get 100% used to them.
