Iem tip rolling / tip advice thread

@ductrung3993

tons of information about the Xelastic tips in their thread here: along with my many attempts to re-form them... too bad they stick so well in the ears. I hope Azla comes out with something just as sticky but doesn't deform. The Crystals are great but as moisture builds up in my ears I have to clean them with alcohol a couple times a day and dry my ears with a paper towel to keep them sticking. It's just moisture, you can't see anything I have very little earwax.

 

Thank you for referring!

This just confirms...no Xelastec for me. Trying to decide between Crystal and Max now (wish they have a 'mixed' bundle instead but wont be surprise if that is intentional!)

 

I have Crystal and Xelastec and Xelastec seals better and hence gives more bass presence. Crystal however is safer and better option as it still gives good seal and doesn’t attract dirt like Xelastec which is dirt magnet. I however use Xelastec with my IEM.

 

Just rolled in some Symbio W Silicone tips and if you feel Azla XELASTEC too sticky and uncomfortable then this one will work much better. The sound is balanced. Xelastec is slightly V shaped but Symbio W is balanced. Works better with intense IEM like FiR XE6.

 

do the Symbol W tips stick in your ears like the Xelastic and Crystal tips do? I can't remember if I tried those but I think they're just regular silicone tips and don't have that sticking power which I need because my ear canals seem to be concave and let iems fall out.

 

Unfortunately they don’t stick like Azla tips. For better seal and sticking capabilities- Crystal and Xelastec are best

 

Anyone try the Softears liquid silicone tips? Think these might be my favorites out of my tip rolling adventures so far. Good comfort, isolation and balanced sound. Sound wise it's like a hybrid between Spinfits and Xelastics. Seems close to spring tips but without the comfort problem of the tip collapsing in the ear causing discomfort. Also a little less bright and better timbre, these kill it in that department.

Will see how they do in the ultimate stress test(walking the dog).

Edit: Isolation is top notch and close to foam. Comfort is also great. Though they still have noticeable footnoise when walking, probably below average for silicone but still there.

Has memory and holds debris like Xelastics but to a lesser degree.

 

I like reversed Comply T-500 with a bit of the nozzle plastic cut out the most

 

Yes, so far a modded comply tip has been my go to regardless of iem as well. The flare of the tip extending too far beyond the nozzle usually causes problems. Reduction in highs due too much absorption, uneven frequency response or resonance frequency due to nozzle distance from the eardrum or a (partially)blocked nozzle due to the flare folding inward.

 

I adore how the JVC Spiral Dot++ tips sound but balk at their price; from more trustworthy local stores, they cost $25 per pair on my end, and given how you can get a really good pair of IEMs like the Salnotes Zero:2 or similar (provided they fall in line with your preferences) I just feel that's quite a lot to spend. Especially after the one pair I had ripped right where the two materials were joined, I've been on the lookout for something that approximates them for a less painful cost.

I recently got hands on a pair of Tangzu Wan'er Studios, and while the voicing still isn't entirely up my alley, the packaging is hilarious (more anime waifus! WHY!), and the build quality lives up to the MSRP, I surprisingly didn't immediately dislike them. Reading up more on the brand I learned that these Sancai tips existed, and that a pack of three pairs here costs less than a third what a single pair of Spiral Dot++es does. I crossed my fingers and placed an order.

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There is a wider-bore version of these Sancai tips that I thought I'd ordered, but my reading comprehension and lack of familiarity with the Tangzu lineup tripped me up and I ended up getting the "standard" Tang Sancai tips. They're still pretty wide bore though which is more to my preferences and have grooves carved into the inside that are supposed to do something to the sound, no idea what. The main thing that caught my eye with these was how the bodies had a texture on it that sort of reminded me of the ishime-ji technique on Nakayas and other urushi pens. I do have really oily skin and, with the JVC tips, sometimes have to wipe them down and reseat them if I'm wearing them while out and about for a few hours; I was hoping that these would help with grip somewhat.

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All impressions with the Andromeda 2020s because at the end of the day I still like them more than the Tangzus. Who'd have guessed

Fresh out of the box, these just sounded like BASS. It was boomy and indistinct with absolutely NO sense of air somehow. I was a bit shocked because I thought these IEM tips would have at least been passably nice. A part of me wondered whether it was a deliberate case of them acknowledging that the treble on a bunch of their IEMs could be more elevated than strictly preferable so they somehow engineered tips that acted as a low-pass filter to modify the tuning in that direction.

After a few hours just using them out and about though, I noticed that things were actually leaning out with more emphasis placed on the treble. This was shocking to me cuz the only other time I'd noticed IEM tips changing sound so drastically over time was the Azla Sedna Xelastecs which I tried earlier this year. Now that I think about it, oh no these also hold their form a bit and seem to be as readily pliable as those Xelastecs were. Given that each pair of Xelastec tips lasted me at best a week and a half, this was discouraging to notice. I'm hoping that these are more durable with the reinforced core.

As things are right now they have a bit less air up top than the Spiral Dot++ while maintaining just a bit more low end grunt (Baldur's Gate III - Main Theme pts. 1 & 2, Nine Blades, The Colors of Underdark; Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Rivellon, Fort Joy). Things seem a bit more focused towards the middle of the stage on the Sancais with said stage being less open and less clear sounding; vocals and instruments have better definition in space with the JVCs, and the treble with them seems marginally smoother even if they sound just overall lower in level with the Sancais. Yeah the JVC Spiral Dot++ definitely have better staging and definition to images, with some really busy material the Sancais sound overly busy, dirty, and low-fi (chorus of Paramore - This is Why, it actually sounds outright crumpled. The same thing happens on Alt-J - Something Good when the verse comes in alongside the bass-- maybe these need more breaking-in time?). Dang it!

At least the Sancais have more kick and rumble to the bottom octaves (Radiohead - Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box [wth is this name], Bjork - Hollow [16 bit remix]), but with the cable I'm currently running on the Andromeda 2020s (much cheaper than replacing the stock Smoky Litz, and this one seems less likely to stiffen over time) which already boosts the low end, it can be very overwhelming.

Ergonomics are good. Like I said these do seem to share some DNA with the v1 Azla Sedna Xelastecs in how they conform to earhole shape, and the textured surface does appear to help with security somewhat, but when I smile or move my cheeks around too much the tips make a mildly irksome crinkling sound.

Measurements of the Tangzu Wan'er Studios with the stock wide bore silicone tips against the Sancais. I was more hoping to get cheap tips I liked with the Campfires so didn't spend too much time with this pairing, but I did get a bit of ear time with them and thought it was funny how, despite sounding remarkably different from the slightly narrower-bore, non-fluted silicone tips (the stock tips actually sound a bit cleaner through the midrange, but yeah the more pronounced treble might be an issue with some ears and upstreams. The Sancais sound like they have better front-to-back layering?), this is how they measure in comparison:

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This is only on a MiniDSP EARS rig instead of a Bruel and Kjaer Type 5128 or even an IEC711 clone, and I could have messed up because I needed to replace the eartips and re-seat them, but I just think this might be a funny to share with frequency response absolutists while having them compare the sound of the tips in question. Noisy lately so no distortion measurements.

(Yes I do notice some discrepancies in the upper treble but I don't see how those could affect imaging clarity, staging and low end perception to such a gross degree?)



UPDATE a day later:

The sound seems to have settled on these. At least with the Wan'er Studios (I didn't much like these with the Andro 2020s so I just slapped the JVC tips back on them), the treble is lower in level relative to the stock tips which does help, albeit there's still just a sense of unevenness to things that stands out if you're listening to balance. The stage on the Tangzu IEMs is deeper with a bit more clarity between images, but said images feel a bit thin by comparison. The one major downside is how there's just a LOT more mid-bass bloat relative to the stock wide-bore tips. I can see a lot of folks liking this sound profile but it's not much for me. Saving grace is that it's still nowhere near as fatiguing as the bass on the Zero:2s was.

I do now prefer the Sancai tips to the stock wide bore ones that came with the Wan'er Studios, but it's not a unilateral improvement for the reasons abovementioned. Ergonomics remain better but I do still have my concerns about the tips' longevity given their similarities to the V1 Azla Sedna Xelastec tips. Will update if anything happens, but for now I'm just knocking on wood.



A FEW MORE DAYS LATER:

Okay I'm beginning to really rather like these tips with the Tangzu IEMs. I'm gonna shelve the stock wide bores now. The low end still has a bit more energy than I'd like with a honky hollow thuddiness somewhere that can be overly pronounced (BG3 soundtrack - Nine Blades), but compared to the stock wide bores they're much less bass-boosted overall it sounds like to me. Sense of space is expansive though still more defined around the edges; things are pushed far forward though front images remain a bit thin and indistinct. Basically, things were still getting refined in the general direction of the prior update; they are now at a point where I think these are solid daily driver IEMs for me despite the voicing still being a bit aggressive-- there's a weird plasticky sense to plucked strings but that's a nitpick; the upper mids are more aggro than I'd like, there's that teethy sense still, but it's much ameliorated.

That said, they're still not quite up to the standard of the JVC tips with the Andro 2020s-- stage is still more pushed to the sides with front stage being murky, lacking breath and openness; front to back layering seems worse by comparison. There's a nasality on the Sancais with the Campfires that I'm not a fan of. Lows are also thicker than I'd like with the aftermarket cable that I'm sticking with cuz the stock Smoky Litz stiffens much too quickly even out of a 1.2R source. Not sure how they're this unpleasant sounding with the Andromedas when I rather liked them with the Wan'ers. Strange stuff.

 

I'm now considering some iems again but traditionally have had trouble due to my large ear canals, just like @rhythmdevils, apparently. Your adventures in tip buying will turn out to be super helpful for my situation - thank you.

Back in 2013/2014, I started down the rabbit hole of buying, IIRC, the old JVC spiral dots - in large - at a premium from Japan - because they were the largest tips I could find which fit the Yamaha iems I was into at the time. I ultimately settled on some Symbio tips, and used them pretty successfully on some Fiio iems. And used them since maybe 2016/17.

I'm now considering either a used Drop x JVC HA-FDX1 or a pair of Hidzis MP145, a planar set that sounds to my liking.

Looks like the Symbio tips are still a good option. Need to go through all the Azla choices too. I remember never having good success with SpinFits on several iems.

 

I have a really hard time lately keeping iems in my ears. The only eartips that work for me are the Azla Xelastic or Crystal, but the Elastic loose their shape and fold over on themselves in very short time. And even with the Crystal tips, I have to take them out and wipe my ears with a paper towel no wax comes out, its' just moisture I guess) every album or so. And then I have to replace the Crystal tips every few weeks or month.

Anyone else have problems like this? Most tips just slide right out of my ears. I think I may have concave shaped ear canals or something that just don't hold tips. Some people talk about going on runs wiht the stock tips with the Letshouer S12's and I can't even imagine getting the S-12 to fit me that well even with Crystal tips I couldnt' go on a run.