Foam Ear Tips - A whole new world

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Just spent the last day, listening to my IEM’s using foam ear tips. For about 18 months, have invested in IEM’s which predominantly came with silicon ear tips, and I had done my fair share of tip rolling, then completely out of the blue, while doing some research to compare my silicon ear tips, on my favourite IEM’s, slipped on foam ear tips.

Seriously, I was shocked, truly shocked, At first it all sounded rather bright, but because I was doing this in a procedural manner, taking notes in a spreadsheet, about each aspect of the sound, like a proper experiment, it was obvious, from my listening, and the notes I had taken, that with foams, I was experiencing a level of clarity that I could NOT approach with silicon ear tips.

The clarity of vocals was startling, and it was like another level of “insight” into the music/audio. My mind keeps repeating the word clarity, like a veil has been lifted. I do not understand why, but cannot deny the observation, especially with planar magnetics, everything just became tighter, as if silicon ear tips created some kind of “echo” or reflections which smeared the audio (muffled it a bit). But with foams, that smearing has been removed.

Shocked because I have not read about this improvement in clarity using foams. I had planned to invest in a couple more silicon ear tips, just to see what further improvements were possible. but I can no longer justify such an investment.

Please if you can explain this improvement that foams introduce, kindly add your opinions to this thread. Thanks

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They seal better. By its nature memory foam is a material that conforms better to the shape of your non-cylindrical ear canal, makes good contact all around the edges, and has higher density which blocks (reflects back in) more of the sound trying to pass through it. With better seal comes higher acoustic impedance and more tightly controlled movements, shorter decays, snappier sound. It’s sort-of like the difference between a ported sub and a sealed sub with the same enclosure and driver size.

But another thing to keep in mind is since foam is a porous material it will keep accumulating biological debris and dust in those pores and/or need to be constantly washed, so it will degrade incomparably faster than silicone, and drive up your cost and hassle with constant replacements. If I were looking into getting a better seal through the use of memory foam I’d go for hybrid models made mostly of foam but with a silicone outer surface - those supposedly get you the best of both worlds. (Just this month I found out our man Zeos is responsible for one of the better known hybrid models on the market, the HiFiGo x Zeos Render, but availability might be dwindling since they were discontinued this summer.)

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𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕❜𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒊𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒈𝒐𝒆𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒎𝒆…𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑰 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒓 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒐𝒇 𝒂 𝒔𝒖𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒊𝒐𝒓 𝒊𝒕𝒆𝒎, 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒇𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝒉𝒊𝒈𝒉 𝒆𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒉, 𝒆𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝑰 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒂𝒏 𝒖𝒏𝒆𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝒑𝒊𝒈 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒃𝒖𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎 𝒐𝒖𝒕, 𝒐𝒓 𝒋𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒔𝒊𝒕 𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 ❝𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒈𝒐𝒐𝒅 𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒅𝒂𝒚𝒔❞ :rofl:

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What you describe is so true. Snappier, drier, shorter decays, kind of like listening near field rather than have room reflections dominate, when listening to speakers or in a hall. What puzzles me is, I have been avidly involved in this hobby for at least 18 months, reading all that I can find online, but somehow never came across this important truth about the improvement foam ear tips deliver, in comparison to silicone ones.

I had to post my experience and hope others become aware.

We spend so much money on earpieces for IEMs when for what are really much smaller investments, rather than try all manner of silicone ear tips, foams are the next step up.

It is impossible for me to, with a good conscience. go back to silicone ear tips. Now I’ll invest a small sum in trying out a few different kinds of foam ear tips. Ordered some last night, cos I lost the foam tip in one ear, while pulling out my IEMs in a hurry, and have no idea where it fell !!

For the improvement in clarity and sheer enjoyment of the music, I think the occasional outlay to restock foam ear tips is worth the while. Sad that so many are invested in more and more expensive IEM’s when a small investment in foams, could improve any IEM.

Makes me wonder how much of an improvement custom IEM’s would introduce, but that is definitely out of my current budget/priorities.

The other experiment I’ll try to do someday is examine double or triple flanged silicone ear tips, like the kind used by etymotics, just in case there could be any benefit.

I appreciate your response. Thanks. Good to know I was not imagining things. !

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@OK1 𝒘𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒔 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒕𝒐𝒍𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒂 𝒕𝒐𝒊𝒍𝒆𝒕 𝒑𝒍𝒖𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎, 𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒄𝒌 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒕𝒓𝒊𝒑𝒍𝒆 𝒇𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒆 𝒋𝒐𝒃𝒔; 𝑰❜𝒗𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒆𝒏 𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑪𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒚 500 𝒐𝒗𝒂𝒍 𝒇𝒐𝒂𝒎 𝒕𝒊𝒑𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒘𝒊𝒅𝒆 𝒃𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝑰𝑬𝑴𝒔, 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒔𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒄𝒂𝒎𝒆 𝒅𝒆 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒖𝒆𝒓, 𝑰 𝒘𝒂𝒔 𝒎𝒚𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒇𝒊𝒆𝒅 𝒃𝒚 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒂𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒍, 𝒃𝒆𝒚𝒐𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 𝒍𝒐𝒏𝒈𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒕𝒚 - 𝑵𝒐 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒔𝒐𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏 𝒂𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒍, 𝒔𝒐 𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒑𝒖𝒍𝒍𝒆𝒅 𝒐𝒇𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑰𝑬𝑴 𝒘𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒆 𝒊𝒏 𝒖𝒔𝒆, 𝒈𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒊𝒕 𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒆𝒂𝒓 𝒕𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝒕𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒛𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒂 𝒔𝒖𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒐𝒏❜𝒔 𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒅 :rofl:

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Silicone is durable and easy to clean. Vendors like to distribute easy stuff.

Foam will harden or compress after 1 to 3 months of heavy use, but is far better while it lasts.

I’ve used and recommended these basic tips for years. They “fix” most IEMs.

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Thanks for the warning about the flanged ear tips. Point taken. Will steer clear of these then, wont’ bother any more. Having experienced the unanticipated unprecedented improvement using foam ear tips, I was just curious about other things, I may wish to try, which may improve the quality of audio. Which was what led to the thought of flanged ear tips. One never knows until one tries. But I’m pretty enthused about foams, so will most likely not bother with any other kinds of eartips, until I can afford custom moulded IEMs.

The terrible thing about any audio improvement, is you wanna go and listen to all your music again, all of it, cos you hear things you never heard before in a way that has never happened before.

It’s my 2nd or 3rd day listening to foams. And the improvement applies to ALL IEM’s I use with them. Getting much easier to get the insertion right. And one does not have to reach pain level, like with some silicone tips, where I had to use the largest XL size to get a proper seal !.

I appreciate your comment. Thanks.

Wondering why there is so much more info about silicone ear tips, and so many options, brands, products, and so many claims about these. My discovery eroded my trust in humanity. Why all these effort with silicone eartips, when obviously someone somewhere knows, these are NOT ideal or the best. Just thinking of thousands of other people who have been misled, like I was hoping and praying that the next silicone ear tip I tried would be an improvement, and all the while I was wasting my time.

So for now, it’s about trying out a small and relatively inexpensive range of different foam ear tips, t to understand the impact of each of the following key parameters, on audio quality and possibly also comfort, and over the next few weeks, narrow this down to the ones, which give me the best results :

ExternaI diameter (bore size)

Internal diameter (bore size of hole above the IEM nozzle) - unfortunately most manufacturers do NOT quote this in any of the diagrams/product descriptions I have seen.), so one can only estimate via visual inspection/guessing from images, or measure (or visually inspect) when I receive an example of each ear tip.

Length of ear tip.

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Thanks. Will look into these or similar.

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Easy to clean/disinfect, last way longer, and most importantly, they’re more comfortable in most cases, for the same reasons they don’t seal as well: not as much force against the walls of your ear canal (I mean if you’re not purposely picking them oversized). Maybe a lot of people just like to listen longer rather than cleaner (quantity over quality lol).

Myself, I’m continuing to use silicones even after I found out foams/hybrids exist because I just wear TWS as noise protection when I’m around town, and their ability to play music is just a nice-to-have for me, I don’t take them seriously for ‘real’ listening - that’s what my planar and electrostatic over-ears back home are for. :slight_smile:

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I 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 , 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒔𝒐𝒎𝒆 people 𝒘𝒉𝒐 𝒉𝒂𝒗𝒆 acute ability to discern narrow ranges 𝒐𝒇 frequencies, 𝒔𝒊𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒚 𝒊𝒏 fact 𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒑 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅 reproduction,𝑰 𝒃𝒖𝒕 𝑰❜𝒎 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝒐𝒍𝒅 𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒕𝒐 hear 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒆𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒆𝒏𝒔𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒚 improvement.

Regards,

Gary E. Barnett

7361 E Cascada Circle
Tucson AZ 85715-3420

(520) 310-3813 — text and/or voice messages only please :glowing_star:

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Indeed, I also was having to use oversized silicone eartips, in an effort to get a guaranteed seal. Which was not the most comfortable. Actually painful.

The current foams I have with me, are probably a bit undersized, for some IEMs. I find that the nozzle diameter also has an impact on the ideal size of ear tip, which fits best. Cos the ear tip at the point of contact with the ear canal or the earpiece nozzle, is somewhat compressed, and for my ears, IEM’s with a larger nozzle outer diameter, tend to provide a better fit., with whatever kind of or size of ear tip, I attach to them.

If only one could have adjustable nozzle sizes, or exchangeable nozzles of different sizes, or some kind of adapter that changes the nozzle size, e.g an add on. This way the effective nozzle size, becomes the primary factor for fit in the ear, and one is not relying too much on the ear tip to “fill in the gaps between the nozzle and the sides of the ear canal.

I’d love to have headphones (over the ear), planars or electrostatics, but can’t afford any decent ones at this time, which is why I bother with IEM’s, especially planar IEMs. Pretty surprised how good they sound, relatively inexpensive ones like the KZ PRX or the ARTTI T10, both I bought for under $50, each. And they sound miles better than my once cherished AKG K702 over the ear headphones, which I have since retired. And now with foams, the planar IEMs, just sound phenomenal, in spite of the fact that I expect even further improvements, especially in the bass, when I get slightly larger foams, that fit hopefully even better, than what have now.

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Having spent hours trying to resolve the key choices, in foam ear tips, of :

  1. Size of internal bore, the hole in the middle
  2. Size of foam tip, i.e the external diameter
  3. Length
  4. Shape of ear tip, (indeed there seem to be two main variants, some foams are sort of spherical in shape, while others are straighter, with a slight taper and narrower at the point of insertion, into the ear).
  5. Quality of product
  6. Price
  7. Supply chain
  8. Support
  9. Reviews
  10. Where to conveniently buy from

There are three key “manufacturers” who seem to be on top of their game. Comply, InAirs, and Sonicfoam.

My initial order, before discovering these, was to get some more cheaper items, from AliExpress for two kinds of KZ foam ear tips, cos I was kind of a bit desperate to recover from the loss of one of my foam ear tips.

I have since ordered another set from Sonicfoam, via Amazon.

The 3 “manufacturers” I mention above, seem to have some of the best information on actual measurements of their ear tips, and have ranges based on the bore size, and within each range, you can select a small, medium or large, to choose the right size of outer diameter.

Their info on their web sites, as well as some placed on the Amazon product descriptions, further helped me in my decision making. I did measure the nozzle size of my most used IEMs, so hopefully in a few days from now, I should hope to have sorted out the issue, with the best fitting foam ear tips, that also fit easily. What I have now is a bit too small and difficult to get a proper fit, which has compromised the bass end of things.

Special mention also goes to Westone, who also seems to have a good selection of foam ear tips, but some measurements such as the bore size is missing on their site, so I could not based on the available information, choose any of their products.

So depending on one’s budget, there are options out there in various price ranges, and thankfully unlike the products advertised on Ali Express, there is sufficient information, if one patiently goes through it all, to choose ear tips which are likely to be the best fit.

Can’t wait for the ordered products to arrive, and I’ll leave some impressions here, further to extensive listening.

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What @donjoe0 and @generic said. I use the same tips (generally) as @generic except on AirPods, where I use xelastic silly cone.

With many IEMs, the seal also produces better bass, notably the Audeze line of iSINE 10 or 20 and LCDi3 and LCDi4.

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Just received the Sonicfoams - I ordered the SF1-Large. You can find them on Amazon.co.uk, and Sonicfoam.com

TLDR, they are excellent.

  1. The foams I had used as my initial entry into this universe were bundled or were a bonus gift with one or more of my IEM’s. Cannot remember which one it was, but pretty sure it was one of the KZ or CCA IEMs. The other IEMs I own, from 7Hz and ARTTI definitely did not come with foam tips. I previously paid foam tips no attention, guess cos every IEM comes with silicone tips!, so I thought these were the way to go.

  2. The Sonicfoams, are softer, and comfortable, in the ear, very comfortable, not a single impression of discomfort, in spite of the fact that I’m now using a size which is about 1 mm more in the diameter of the outer tube, at the base, compared to my initial foam tips. The Sonicfoams take a few seconds to fold back to normal size, when compressed, while my “trial” foam tips, decompress within 2 seconds.

    1. The Sonicfoams provide a fantastic seal. I cannot hear easily the click clack of my computer keyboard, when music is playing.. Bass is now very pronounced, and as others have noted the high frequencies are attenuated. I may no longer need EQ to attenuate the high frequencies, at least not as much. The harshness compared to the ill fitting eartips is gone. Now I will experiment with adding as little as possible or nothing at all, to attenuate the high frequencies. Gone is any supposed planar harshness, just clarity, comfortable and SMOOTH effortless sound. I can sleep with these in my ear. Very happy I am.
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