earbuds

You have to get somebody with ears that suck, to wear the earbuds that suck..... You might try reading the reviews to find a set that is generally well liked, but otherwise, you just have to risk the hundred bucks and take a chance on quality vs. scam.... Good luck!

Etymotic used to be really expensive, but I think the patent expired. Lots of clones now. I really wouldn't advise getting the top of the line. They are cheaper from 3rd party vendors than the factory website.

I suspect you are talking about "ear buds" which sit inside the pinnae, but do not have tips that insert into the ear canal.

Those aren't ear buds, those are earphones, or more technically IEMs for in-ear-monitors.

Shure offers about 5 different kinds, and the top of the line run close to $600. And, they are not alone. I suspect there are some really golden IEM's that run up to $1 large, and beyond.

For you today I have the usual answers: quality and hype.

Yes and no. Surprisingly, IEMs are a bit like speakers in that in all honest truth, we don't know what quality *really* means.

It is worse than that - local stores as a rule don't even cary the really good ones. And, they are personal items like toothbrushes. After you stuck them into your ears I don't want to buy them.

Yes and no.

The standard tools include a measurement microphone (small diameter, omni, very flat and wide response) and an acoustical coupler.

Here's an example, for headphones:

On a sunny day (Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:18:58 -0700 (PDT)) it happened RichD wrote in :

I bought some Sennheiser for maybe it was 10 Euro. The sound quailty is orders of magnitide better than the other crap. Also they do not fall out, to the point where they can rip the cable. The other never lasted longer than a few month, these I have had for more than a year. They are my reference when I do audio editing.

Ear infections come standard, at a cost of intense pain. Never put anything in your ears.

A doctor got it right. Never put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear.

Actually,Shure had a set for $500 at one time.

What they are, from an engineering standpoint, is a closed cell audio environment, which wouldn't be much different than the engineering behind the old, "acoustic suspension" speaker systems, where your inner ear is the "speaker box" side. The transducers can blow out your eardrum if they are made (read engineered) incorrectly. They have to be limited, but the limitation cannot cause any dampening either.

Of course, you can blow your own ears out by cranking some amp though them, but most headphone amps (battery operated) are limited.

Any of the good speaker makers would probably be a good choice. Klipsch, Shure. I wouldn't pay for any hyped company like Monster or those rapper 'products'. They only prove that 'sucker born every minute' thing.

Mine cost $12 (JVC), and they sound great! I am sure something 2 or 3 times that would certainly sound better, I just do not have the cash for something I do not use that often right now.

Epoxy works well.

Jamie

You would have to make an artificial ear canal and place the microphonic transducer at the 'eardrum'end of it, and the earbud transducer at the test point end.

With that keeping each test on the same set-up, the results should all track, even if the numbers are off or 'uncalibrated'.to a specific measure. Until you calibrate it (the input to the mic), of course.

That would be dealing with the position and angle of the mic transducer at the 'eardrum' end of the channel.

"Never put anything into your ear, OTHER THAN your elbow." That said, I do wear ear buds (with over-the-ear hooks) and a MP3 player when I mow the lawn.

Several million men and women in this nation alone, wear ear protection 'buds' every day, and I am quite sure millions more around the world.

Several million men and women in this nation alone, drink or smoke cigarettes, every day, and I am quite sure (there are) millions more around the world.

Just because it's done by "several million men and women" doesn't make it a smart thing to do.

Ya wanna be stylish or ya wanna be practical?

H. :)

Kids these days...

Yep. The cheap ones tend to sound bad, too.

They have sets over $400.

It's a micro machined (or cast or molded) thing. It's a transducer.

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.

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

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.

-- Les Cargill

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

Bose noise-cancelling headphones. Well worth the cost if you spend more than 20 hours a year in aircraft.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Are they the around-the-ear or the mash-the-ear-flat kind? I have some Panasonic ones that work fine but squash my ears hard enough that they hurt after an hour or so.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs