In Ear Monitors..

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xXDaveyJonesXx

xXDaveyJonesXx

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I'm open to suggestions if y'all have any. Probably more for personal use than live stage work. Managed to break my shure's.. And I'm hate'n myself. I can't hear anything the same anymore. The dynamic in life just seemed to disappear. Man, they sounded so good. Lookn' into their se535's now. But those of you audiophiles who rock IEM's, I'd love to hear out your recommendations.

Thanks!
 
I got the Carvin system. Its the first inner ear monitor system I've ever owned. I should have gotten this 15 years ago! The Carvin cost $370 shipped, and they are worth every penny to me. A soundman that I was working with let me borrow his for a gig and I went and bought my own the next day. I have nothing to compare them to since I've never had another system, but for the money they're great! Its nice to play gigs and not have my ears ringing like crazy afterwards. Check them out: http://www.carvinguitars.com/products/s ... duct=EM900
 
Oh, yeah? Best buy, eh? I'll check em out. I didn't know carvin was in the game too. I'll be looking them. I love their guitars! Thanks, guys. Great start here.
 
I think one guy is actually talking about in-ear monitors (Carvin) and Best Buy is simply talking about earbud headphones--TOTALLY different...
 
If you're talking about just the earbuds, I got Westone UM2's that work awesome. Found a website that sold them for $265. As for the system, I use the Audio Techinca M2. This system is great if you mix it yourself or have a good sound guy.

The UM2's are awesome. I use them for live stuff, but I also use them for ipoding (jogging, jamming, etc.) and they sound great. The dual drivers put out a better bass sound that I couldn't get with regular buds.
 
racerevlon":37d7rqwk said:
I think one guy is actually talking about in-ear monitors (Carvin) and Best Buy is simply talking about earbud headphones--TOTALLY different...
Click to expand...

Ops...my bad. Sorry about that!
 
sideshowsmitty":3jpc2p5p said:
racerevlon":3jpc2p5p said:
I think one guy is actually talking about in-ear monitors (Carvin) and Best Buy is simply talking about earbud headphones--TOTALLY different...
Click to expand...

Ops...my bad. Sorry about that!
Click to expand...

I'll look into em regardless. If they rival shure at a fraction of the price, I'm down. Thanks alot, guys. Now, if I could just get off this island..
 
+1 on the carvins, had them for a few years now, very reliable, long battery life, metal not plastic. buds are cheap, i have custom triple drivers.

dave
 
The thing you need to remember about wireless in-ear systems is the frequency response. Even the "step up" Audio Technica M3's that I use have a limited bandwidth, so investing a bunch of money on super high fidelity ear buds is somewhat (not totally) useless. About the only game in town that's truly offering a real, full bandwidth system these days is Lectrasonics, but you'll be poying out the nose for them. Even the super high end Shure systems top out at about 16k. The biggest difference you will notice in higher end ear buds is going to be in the mid range, which IMO is the best reason to give for getting multi-driver systems. The more separation you get between the different passbands, the more intelligible the mid range will be.

All that said, the Westones are good. Also look into the Future Sonics, and Ultimate Ears. Most sound guys that I get to talk with this about prefer actual driver based systems vs. armature based systems.
 
Now, there's something to consider, mboogman. I'm not sure my ears can pick up much past 16khz, but that's good info I didn't know a moment ago. Yeah, a great midrange is what I'm after. I love the triple driver technology I've experienced so far. I'm after a nice wide range capable of hitting the lower end stuff when called for.. Without bringing it to the fore front all the time regarldless of music genre and dynamic. Man, I miss my shure's. Haha. Thanks for the suggestions, guys. I'll keep an ear out.
 
Although I have a Sennheiser EW 300 I have just been using a cheap Behringer headphone mixer. I zip tie a cable to my guitar lead and plug my earpiece into a socket near the guitar input jack.
Now the earpice is where it's at, I've been through a heap and the best I've used so far is a moulded pair with 3 drivers I bought from "Alien Ears". These have so much deatail and isolate from the band so what I'm hearing is at a very quiet level.
 
supersonic":39guwwqm said:
Although I have a Sennheiser EW 300 I have just been using a cheap Behringer headphone mixer. I zip tie a cable to my guitar lead and plug my earpiece into a socket near the guitar input jack.
Now the earpice is where it's at, I've been through a heap and the best I've used so far is a moulded pair with 3 drivers I bought from "Alien Ears". These have so much deatail and isolate from the band so what I'm hearing is at a very quiet level.
Click to expand...

Sweeeet. I'm all for get'n on this custom moulding train. Man, that'll be lovely..

And thanks for that introduction to IEM's, Scott. They actually used the shure's I've been prospecting as an "over the counter" example. Their stuff sounds great! But they also tend to come with a custom price tag minus the custum fit. I wouldn't imagine moulds would cost a whole lot more than their SE-535's. I love em, but it seems like if you put a $ in front of their model number, you'd be in the ball park area of their price tag. They do sound phenomenal though.
 
You can definitely get custom IEMs for just a few hundred dollars, but off-the-shelf IEMs with better drivers might have better audio quality. That's why combining the best audio drivers and the custom molds costs so much damn money :-p. But it's a worthy investment -- you won't grow out of them even if you put on or lose weight :-).

If you buy nice Shure IEMs for now, you can get custom molds made that work with them... replacing the generic tips with the custom molded piece.

But any way you do it, once you adjust to working with IEMs, it really changes things. Keep in mind though, that your guitar tone is only going to be as good as your miking technique, unless of course you're an Axe-FX user :-p.
 
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