Every universal tip worth trying?

General IEM Discussion
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So I’ve been on something of a quest for the best eartips - I’m lucky, at least, in that my daily drivers can all take the same size of tip and the ER2XR is…itself. I’m wondering if I missed anything in this list?

  • Foam
    • CFA Marshmallow
    • 64 Audio Foam
    • Comply (too many variants to list)
    • Dekoni Bulletz
  • Silicone
    • Final Audio Type E
    • 64 Audio Silicone
    • SpinFit
    • SpinFit double-flange
    • Spiral Dots
  • Hybrid
    • Symbio W
  • Not yet tried
    • Spiral Dots++
    • Shure Olive

While I’m here, quickie impressions!

CFA Marshmallow

Soft, porous, fast-rebound, foam; slightly sticky, but not in a bad way. Wasn’t up to the weight of the Solaris; works well with lighter IEMs although proper sizing is critical. L too large for my ear, M too small. Decent tradeoff if you want fast insertion and foam.

64 Audio Foam

Rigid, smooth, fast-rebound (slower than the Marshmallow) foam. Ripped relatively quickly.

Comply

Soft slow-rebound foam. Requires a bit of squishing before insertion. Fragile when removing.

Dekoni Bulletz

Very similar to the Comply but more durable. Faster rebound.

Final Audio Type E

Thin, light, and five sizes. Becomes slippery quickly with sweat. Seals great with my BA IEMs but not with my APEX/DD IEMs.

64 Audio Silicone

Fits almost flush with 64 Audio nozzles; good for a shallow fit but ultimately kept shifting in my ears.

SpinFit

Comfortable but never quite sealed perfectly for me.

SpinFit double-flange

As the regular SpinFits with the added bonus of irritating my ear - the inner flange is too small relative to the outer flange, I think, because it’s annoying in a way that the Etymotic tips aren’t.

Spiral Dots

Denser than the other silicone options (besides maybe the 64A); ultimately a little too shallow for my ears.

Symbio W

I really wanted to like these and can’t stand them. The outer coating becomes slick very quickly causing the entire tip to slide back out due to the pressure of the foam.

Currently I’m using the Dekoni Bulletz on my 64 Audio gear and trying to find the new pack of 64 Audio tips that I lost almost immediately after returning from Vancouver, WA. :slight_smile: The Andromeda Gold is doing well enough with the Final Audio Type E tips.

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(No sonic impressions yet because so many of these tips clearly aren’t fitting right / shift enough during a single song that I lose many dB of bass.)

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I went through a number of different tips myself before finally shelling out money for a pair of customs. Granted, it’s an expensive route to go and definitely not feasible if you’re someone who likes to swap between multiple IEMs or constantly cycle through new ones (like I used to). It does eliminate the need to hunt for the perfect tip, though.

Maybe I can wait for your impressions and go back to some of my old IEMs and see if your perfect tip works for me :slight_smile:

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4

Yep! The craziness drove me to CIEMs. I got the A12t very recently and I’m honestly disappointed - they don’t sound nearly as good as the U12t. Much, much darker - 64 Audio says it might be a fit issue so I’m waiting for a refit before I do impressions.

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5

Thank you for this list.
I like your comment about the Spinfit vs the Ety double flange.

The comfort of tips is one of the main reasons I tend to dislike IEMs. I’m not sure if it’s my old ears, which I should probably shave with a Roto-Rooter, or if it bothers everybody.

Sometimes I have reverted to my own home-made tips. Go to the hardware store and find some foam earplugs that aren’t bad. As people have to wear them at work, many are pretty comfortable. Then I cut them to length, bore a center hole with a Dremel, and insert a bit of aquarium tubing of the right diameter - slightly smaller than the IEM mouth, aquarium tubing is meant to spread a bit. Go to the aquarium superstore (That Fish Place is headquartered in Lancaster, PA) and pick out tubing that is most flexible. I’ve had pretty good luck with them, but haven’t made any recently because I became lazy.

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The sony hybrid tips are great. Cheap, but smooth and soft at the flanges, yet really hard on the nozzle.

The only complain people might have is that the tips make a swallow fit

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7

Interesting, I’ve been looking for a must try list of tips. I also heard the AET07 and AET08 from acoustune and Azla Sednaearfit light is great too.

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These have by far the best isolation I have experienced, but by GOD they are uncomfortable in narrower ear canals. Being super firm and short, not only do they give your ear canals the prison treatment, but they also have sharp upper edges that grate. Just went with cheap foam tips that are $6 for 10 pairs on amazon. Use them till they harden and swap out.

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9

So I used them on a friend’s Z1R and they were…fine, which is to say I don’t remember much. :slight_smile: Didn’t realize you could get them independently - wish the Z1R cable was a separate purchase too!

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Yeah, got em for 2$. I did buy them in Vietnam tho so idk how to acquire it outside.

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11

Two eartips that you might want to add to your list are: Sony Hybrids and Azla Sedna tips.

Sony Hybrid

Azla Sedna

I have had a lot of issues finding the right fit for IEMS.

I have had two custom IEMs made and refitted multiple times, but still too painful to wear for very long. I have concluded that when the silicone was injected into the ear canal to make impressions, a portion of the canal was less firm, and so, under pressure expanded larger than it was under normal circumstances. This gave me impressions that were too large in certain areas.

My ear canals are oval rather than round, so this provides another challenge for fit; to get a good fit with foam tips, they are either uncomfortable being too large, or they don’t make a good seal being too small.

Finally, my ear canals are different sizes, so I have no problem getting a good fit with the left ear, in both custom and universal solutions, but the right ear is a constant problem. Eartips tend to fall out of my right ear, or to lose the seal.

I have evaluated all of the different universal tips you describe. My current solution is Spiral Dot in the left ear, and SpinFit CP240 (double flange) in the right ear. This seems to be working fairly well.

I wonder if others have similar challenges finding a good fit.

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12

I have some Jabra wireless IEMs that are very annoying to keep fitted. I dont do anything but walk around and they start to fall out. Finding replacement tips is difficult as they have to be small enough to allow recharging in the case and I have so far only found one company that makes a replacement, but they seem overly expensive to me so I have so far held off.

Its exceeding annoying to have an ill fitting IEM.

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13

Amazon seems to have quite a few replacement eartips for Jabra wireless.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=jabra+eartips&ref=nb_sb_noss

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The issue has been whether they will ship to canada so I tend not to look at .com and go to .ca. There is a strange amount that wont. But I will look into the .com though. Thanks for the link.

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15

When it comes to ill-fitting, slippery silicone tips failing to seal or falling out, RHA’s double flange tips fixed that for me. They come with the package to products like their T20 or MA750 and others, but you can also buy them separately from their web site.

Comply foam tips fixed the deep insertion comfort issue I had with my Etymotics. I can wear those things all day now, no problem.

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Thanks for the “tip”. I have ordered some, in the endless search for the perfect eartips for my weird ear canals.

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17

Do you have Final E’s, if so how do they compare? I use Sony Hybrid Ls for most iems, but need bigger ones for my Blons. Should I get LL Final E’s or LL Sony Hybrids? Happy birthday by the way!

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the biggest issue for me is how fast silicon tips become, tried them all nothing is perfect. maybe they should make tips with cloth material

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The Right Fit in Eartips

Like some of you, I have had a really difficult time finding the right eartips for my IEMS. Because I am 6’3" and 200 lbs, and because I wear XL and L sizes, I have only been trying out the large and medium sized eartips. So I stuffed them in my ear canals and they sounded great, but I had this “underwater pressure” feeling and after 20 minutes, they became quite uncomfortable.

This was getting discouraging, as the acid test for me regarding audio gear is whether I reach out for it often - regardless of specs, SQ, etc. Do I use it? And the answer was getting to be no for my uber-costly IEMs. I even considered selling them.

So, in an effort to make the decision on whether to put my IEMs on the block. I revisited my robust bag of ear tips one last time. Almost all of the tips in my collection were large or medium, but I did have a set of Sony Hybrid eartips which were in large, medium and small. So I mounted the small size on my IEMs and WOW! what a difference! The sound was fantastic, with no “underwater pressure” feeling, and with solid bass as well. They were very comfortable, even for hours.

So I have learned an important lesson in my audiophile education: don’t assume that because you wear “large or extra large” in your clothes and shoes, that you would not wear small eartips in your ear canals. I could have saved a lot of trouble and expense if I had realized this.

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So very true. My left ear canal is a lot smaller than my right. So back in the 2010 I had a pair of customer molded IEMs from JH Audio in Orlando , best investment I ever made back then. Now I’ve been told few other IEM manufactures are doing custom molding. Well at least they fit, right.!

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