I was asked to create a thread, so i’ll be spamming new stuff here once there are updates on my builds.
Ask me anything DIY iem related and stuff in iem marketing.
Also feel free to post cars, smartphones, laptops, watches, iems, headphones, amps, dac, speakers, 3d printing tech, CNC machining and workout stuff etc on this thread
Edit: Also movies, music, Anime, gaming and Whatnot.
Edit 2: politics as well. I guess i will keep adding anything i missout.
@shortbus @Rikudou_Goku Feel free to repost any of your DIY stuff here 
If this movie was made real tho… That would be worth a watch.
Ill follow this thread, super interesting to see your stuff.
I’ve been having a hard time clearing both shells of moondrop’s Mids driver, unfortunately they had to be destroyed
I’m not sure what kinda glue Moondrop uses to stick the drivers in
It wasnt the heat glue type of glue and they were so damn strong I was afraid I was gonna break the shell
Luckily at one or two points only cracks showed up and i got a way of fixing them
Now it is finally time to move on to tuning.
The DD is off by 1.2~1.5dB
The ED is off in the Damper, so need to find a matching damper
The planar is off by 2dB
Also the ED will be getting a High-pass and a potential low-pass (band-pass as compared to full-range by MD from earlier)
The Idea for the tuning is a Variations MK2, Originally the Variations followed Harman 2019 i think upto 3k point and then it followed MD’s VDSF target?
the new tuning is JM-1 based and for the Bass the target right now is a subwoofer cut, shelf around 100Hz ish. Since there’s better low-mids or boost compared to the original, it should do fine in the low-mids. Do note that ED isn’t a good Full-range driver that I recommend for a good low-mids. It is a vocal centric driver, You’ll probably need a basier ED or FED series or a Woofer and Tweeter BAs separately. Speaking of which, In future I’d like to try a Sonion 28UAP and E50 combo…
I was also seeing if I could switch to Knowles Rau for this project but unfortunately the 8k performance was terrible.
Update on the passive tuning, Earlier in the graphs i got a smooth treble, but that was a coincidence and I wasn’t able to replicate it, I usually have two different peaks show up
image 1
I’ve been playing around with the MicroPlanar’s insertion into the shell and a bracket around it.
I’ve finally locked it in.
Image 2
Edit: Just an info on the process. There’s about 6 dampers in total, well more like 8 dampers in my case. Lemme explain. Damper 1 is in front of the DD, on the tube that goes to the nozzle. 2nd Damper is on the Back volume of the DD, 3rd damper is on the vent. The Vent utilizes 2 dampers stacked, so that’s not a simple damper stacking. If you see videos on how polarizer filter or ND filter works, basically if the dampers line up with nets horizontally and vertically parallel to each other such that when viewed from top it looks like a single damper, then it will be back to the same value, Turn the Damper 45deg around the filter net is exactly diagonal to one at the back, so that potentially increases the damper filter value by like 50%? Obviously i cannot see this but only under a microscope and that changes how stacked dampers work for me.
Filter to filter, there can be 0.5~1dB difference. Try combatting that across 8 Filters, That’s where this takes time. And sometimes, if there’s a 1dB difference in one of the measurements, i keep swapping filters until the difference is around 0.5dB.
It took me almost 1 and half hours? and this is still at 0.5dB 
channel matching.
Also if you can’t tell from the Graph in pictures, The Left DD Front damper job was botched, so I had to correct it with the remaining 3 different filters. The Front Damper didn’t do a good job post 500hz, but somehow lines up in the subs? (subs was probably botched too, so the Vent dampers corrected that 
)
Impedance of individual drivers
Huayunxin’s DDs are crazy, Knowles need to get their head straight, 0.03ohms difference is crazy numbers.
ED is off by 0.9ohms, Planar is off by 0.5ohms.
For the Finale, I hope to crush channel difference down to less than 0.5dB, Whole iem impedance down to less than +/-0.4ohms (that’s 0.8ohms btw) will be showing off the custom Impedance correction system soon. It should be more sensitive than super flat iems like Helios tho.
FUUUCCCKKKK!!!
I WANT THIS SOOO BADDDDD
But an R8 would’ve made more sense
Edit:
Add this to list of wants
Use Knowles ED series, their RAF and RAwhatever suck ass. Or Sonions, I forget the model.
I’m using the ED29689 on this one
That’s a staple driver for like 3~4 decades in the iem industry.
Every IEM I’ve heard with them has had good ass mids. It could actually be that they are the BA used in Variations.
In terms of dampers, no they are not like polarizers at all. They also cannot be added in terms of values, simply doesn’t work like that. Don’t over think it. Stack them to your hearts content.
Also fwiw, and I know this is only my opinion: I HATE MICRO PLANARS. Get you some of the magic Knowles Ultra tweeters and I don’t have a clue of the model of them but they are in the Letshuoer Mystic 8 and likely something like the Que. massively cheaper than EST and also good.
Here is a tip having retuned a lot of iems for folks. Get like 10 test tracks from the owner and make damn sure the iem plays em great. Simple but maybe overlooked.
Moondrop had a custom dual unit BA that looks more like a TWFK or DWFK from Knowles. They have a higher resonant peak.
Not too sure about the polarizers part because i did once see a 2dB channel difference or more, it could be they were two extreme different variations of the same mesh type….
The Knowles RAU, i tried using it, it is just the variations is a completed shell, design is fixed, so I can’t go and alter it. The RAU had a massive 8k peak that just overamplified ED’s peak. I don’t have inductors with me, that’s the next on the to buy list, i could have done like a 4th order RLC cut on both ED and RAU to force fit it in. The Micro Planar ain’t as bad as you think it is. maybe it operates better as a neutral target than on a V i suppose.
Edit: Not like a TWFK or DWFK, its like a Stacked RAB so a tiny bit higher than a TWFK or DWFK
Any differences in dampers can be chalked up to bad damper qc and/or bad glue on the edges. It happens, just replace them.
I hate all Knowles WFK anything. Microplanars just sound bad to me, but they do have energy.
This is this last I’ll speak of it because its not objective, but find the drivers/models that speak to you. Tuning aside, each driver has character and I find working around that aspect is more rewarding that hitting a target that isn’t even ultimately correct. For me, I have just had to get enough ears on sets and figure out what was in them to narrow it down.. AND its the hardest thing to do by far.
Almost forgot, when I say ED series I mean it. Freaking both Knowles and Sonion have literally thousands of sub-models and custom shit they do. When I realized this, I cried a little.
