Tips are extremely subjective, so sizing is absolutely going to be up to you. However, I can rec some of my favorites for your to consider! These can be all found on AliExpress if you have access in your country.
-TS400 Foam tips for an excellent and cheap foam tip. Literally the only foams I’d recommend.
H570 Latex tips. These are fairly neutral sounding but they are latex rather than traditional silicone, latex can sometimes irritate skin on some individuals.
Azla SednaFit short for longer nozzles, non-short for shorter nozzles. These are matte finish tips which to my ears, helps clean up mid bass and emphasize upper mids if that’s your thing.
whizzer SS20. My go to short, wide bore tip. Slightly firmer than usual wide bore tips, these help emphasize mid bass and open up vocals nicely. They’re also very cheap!
Double flange tips are hit or miss for me. They’re usually very long so keep that in mind. The only ones I can confidently recommend are Spinfit CP240s. Give ‘em a shot and see if they work for you.
Spiral dots are incredible tips. They diffuse sound in theory, so they smoothen treble response and they really truly work for my Mangird OG Teas. They are wonderful tips BUT - they are stupid expensive. I was lucky enough to get a pair of smalls for free from @ctjacks336. But I could not justify paying for them personally.
In this hobby there are hype train people and tree chop people. I’m a sit on the edge and dip my toe person.
The Kiwi ears Quintet was on the hype train rails for at least a week before the tree chop people were writing of its “huge disappointments”
Well having lived with the Quintet the Swiss army knife iem I can say its a fabulous arounder that after 60 hours burn in plays across all genres with aplomb.
I have iems that have better bass or smoother mids or more sparkling treble but they all have weaknesses in other areas where as the Quintet is just a wonderful cohesive A+ across all frequencies.
Yes, I’m working on a Project Butastur which made head-fi mad and asking me to pay money or shut up.
They deleted all related posts and dedicated thread and locked my account.
It’s funny a guy joined head-fi on 2011 is now acting like a boss, with “TV producer” tiled on his account and if you actually see head-fi TV on youtube only has few hundreds playback😅
I joined head-fi back in 2008, back then it was a good international forum, where people exchanged useful information . Now it’s full of paid reviews and those reviews barely get lifetime 300 views.
I’m not feeling anything for what head-fi did to me, but it’s very disappointing to see they have become suck a lowlife ransom website.
There’re a lot of good tips around. My personal favourites:
KBear 07 - best universal tips
TRI Clarion - great for wide nozzle IEMs
Dunu S&S - provide best seal on my EJ07
Spinfit CP100 and W1- quality universal tips that seal well
Newest entry in my tip box is the Tangzu Sancal: first impression ist that they prevent pressure and moisture build up in the ear canal. May also be due to wrong matched size. Have to test more.
Added micropore on rear vent which is wide open - even on the Serials this hole has a miniature filter to control subbass levels, I personally prefer with a coupe dB less subbass which I imagine this small mod provides, and reduces a slight dryness I’m sensitive to when subbass overtakes midbass.
Unexpected good result but followed my intuition - despite wanting to limit treble and these being wide bore tips I wouldn’t image they’d help with that goal - BGVP W01 tips are sounding good on this.
A very large stage, but intimate vocals on tracks so far.
Bass is still very full bodied, and the higher end of the V seems more mellow to me.
This and the Eru are making me realize that mods and tips aside, sometimes it’s just time of day or mystery “x” variances between listening sessions that can add or remove slight hotspots to the FR.
I expect I’m listening at different volumes each time too.
Some very neat imaging effects are worth mentioning with the Aphex too. On tracks you wouldn’t necessarily have dog-eared as “imaging testing tracks”. Case in point “Worry Rock” by Green Day’s opening: Guitars are in one place, but then vocals are much closer and from a different direction, in a very “oh I didn’t know you were in the room” surprising way.
Oh let me know what variances you want graphed when you send it down to me. It’s always nice to see how the changes we hear are interpreted into a graph.
Wow that’s insane! Recently been lurking over there more and I’m constantly reminded why I don’t like that place. The environment is way more friendly here and seems to be driven much more by our true opinions and not outside pressure or influence.
Will your IEM be available for sale or is it just a personal use project? For those of us not are informed is there any details you can share on it? Like possibly what sound signature you’re aiming for.
