Custom In Ear Monitors

[yourgrandma]

I know this may be a little out of place, but theres nowhere else I could think to put it.
I am looking into having some custom earpieces made. I absolutely require at very minimum 26dB of sound isolation, but outside of that, I'm not that picky. I assume any of these will sound very good, so beyond the base model, I would probably be wasting money with my totally blown ears.

The ones Ive been looking at are made by Starkey Labs, a respected hearing aide manufacturer. They have many levels of product, but the only ones with a noise rating are their pro monitors. They come in two models, the "low end" are $380 single driver units that from what I'm told sound very very good, and then there's the $800 two way option that must be fantastic.

My question is whether anyone on here has any experience with this type of product, and can anyone lead me to a less expensive option.

I would primarily be using these at work and while riding my motorcycle, so again, the protection factor is of utmost importance.

A cool thing about Starkey is that they have a 30 day guarantee. If you don't like them, they'll take them back and re use the actual headphone part.

[eugovector]

yourgrandma wrote:

I know this may be a little out of place, but theres nowhere else I could think to put it.
I am looking into having some custom earpieces made. I absolutely require at very minimum 26dB of sound isolation, but outside of that, I'm not that picky. I assume any of these will sound very good, so beyond the base model, I would probably be wasting money with my totally blown ears.

The ones Ive been looking at are made by Starkey Labs, a respected hearing aide manufacturer. They have many levels of product, but the only ones with a noise rating are their pro monitors. They come in two models, the "low end" are $380 single driver units that from what I'm told sound very very good, and then there's the $800 two way option that must be fantastic.

My question is whether anyone on here has any experience with this type of product, and can anyone lead me to a less expensive option.

I would primarily be using these at work and while riding my motorcycle, so again, the protection factor is of utmost importance.

A cool thing about Starkey is that they have a 30 day guarantee. If you don't like them, they'll take them back and re use the actual headphone part.

There are companies that will make molds for your existing equipment. There was one company at AES, I'll have to look for their pamphlete that would create molds for $200-300 that could fit anything from your cellphone earbud to a pair of etys.

Also, I would use them while riding your motorcycle unless you ride an obnoxious straight pipe. Being able to hear oncoming traffic, ambulances, honking would be much more important,

[yourgrandma]

I believe starkey makes a mold for earbud style phones to fit in, but they offer verl little in the way of protection.

As for being able to hear ambiant sounds, I do have a loud exhaust, but there is a muffler there. While riding, the primary sound is wind noise. I wear earplugs now and I find that they block out the white noise and make it easyer to dissern those sounds that represent a danger. I wouldn't be riding around with the music so loud I couldn't hear the road. I'm a very safety concious rider, and I know the importance of using all your sences while riding. Its just nice to have a little bit of music on the way to the twisties, once there, I need to hear the bike, so I'd probably turn them off. Some of the places I ride are a couple hours away, and often I'm relegated to the freeway. With no turns, the boredom will mess with you.

Oh, about my exhaust, I guess I wouldn't be able to comment on whether its obnoxious or not, but from the compliments I get, it must sound pretty good. I custom built my muffler, as the aftermarket one I had was badly damaged, and I didn't feel like buying one when I could make a new one.