Signal To Noise Podcast
The Signal to Noise podcast features conversations with people from all corners of the live sound industry, from FOH and monitor engineers, tour managers, Broadway sound designers, broadcast mixers, system engineers, and more.
Signal To Noise Podcast
285. IEM Start-Up Dark Matter Audio Labs
In Episode 285, the hosts are joined by Tal Kocen and Dave Friesema, founders of brand-new in-ear monitor maker Dark Matter Audio Labs. Sean and Andy were impressed with their IEMs when the company launched at NAMM a couple weeks ago, and knew they had to have the duo on to tell their story. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.
Tal and Dave detail their history in the live audio and IEM manufacturing worlds, and the journey that led to them branching off on their own to start Dark Matter Audio Labs. They also dig deep into the design and mechanics of IEMs, explaining a lot of what goes into making objectively and subjectively good IEMs, the surprisingly tricky task of making generic-fit demo models of custom IEMs, why the frequency response of IEMs might surprise you, and so much more!
As a special bonus for listeners, Tal and Dave are offering a 10 percent discount off any of their in-ears to listeners…just use the discount code “SignalToNoise” when you check out! Also, if any listeners or their artists are interested in joining the DMA Labs artist program, reach out to Rachelle, their artist relations human, at rachelle@darkmatteraudiolabs.com, and tell her you heard about them on Signal to Noise!
Episode Links:
Dark Matter Audio Labs Website
Dark Matter Audio Labs On ProSoundWeb
Episode 285 Transcript
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Signal To Noise, Episode 285 IEM Start-Up Dark Matter Audio Labs
Note: This is an automatically generated transcript, so there might be mistakes--if you have any notes or feedback on it, please send them to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com so we can improve the transcripts for those who use them!
Voiceover: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:
Allen & Heath, whose new dLive RackUltra FX upgrade levels up your console with 8 next-generation FX racks – putting powerful tools like vocal tuning, harmonizing, and amp simulation right at your fingertips. Learn more at allen-heath.com
RCF and TT+ AUDIO.... Delivering premium audio solutions designed for tour sound and music professionals for over 75 years. Hear TT+ AUDIO's GTX 10 and GTX 12 line passive line array and the GTS 29 dual 19" passive subwoofer.... all powered by RCF's XPS 16k amplifier, live in the arena at Winter NAMM 2025. Many other RCF products will be demo'd in Hall A in room #17108. Visit RCF at RCF-USA.com for the latest news and product information.
Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green
Andy Leviss: Hey, welcome to another episode of Signal the Noise. I'm your host, Andy Levis, and with me, the Helmholtz to my resonator, Mr. Sean Walker. What's up, Sean?
Sean Walker: Every time you get me every time with those things. I'm great, man. I'm running around like a chick with my head cut off today from between meeting the meeting, the meeting, the podcast, the meeting. So here I am on Apple heads phones. Hope you can isotope that out later. And, uh, I'm doing great, dude.
Andy Leviss: me is that money doesn't actually print itself.
Sean Walker: No, man.
No, man. I, I'm like trying to plug in the cash machine, turn it on, get the code, right. So you can just keep printing. You know what I mean? It's not on automatic yet. I'm, I'm trying, I'm trying to get it on automatic, but that's, it's tricky, dude. Tricky. Anybody want to run, come run a sound company, send me a postcard.
Andy Leviss: Yeah. Hope you like rain.
Sean Walker: It's right. Totally.
Andy Leviss: Um, I speaking of running around with chickens with our head off, I did want to, you know, we just recently had our NAM wrap up episode and as soon as we stopped recording, you and I were like, oh shit, there was one thing we really wanted to mention that we totally forgot to tell folks about with which, uh, uh, he, who shit.
Well, no, the coffee was terrible.
Sean Walker: Yeah. Okay.
Andy Leviss: damn no, but, um, um, it, it, it was a certain piece of processing gear that he who shall not be named so that we don't have to make people drink today,
Sean Walker: Every time,
Andy Leviss: told us, told us to check out, uh, you want to tell folks quickly about the, the Cranbourne Brick Lane?
Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. So, uh, you know, our studious outboard friend pointed me down the direct direction to the Cranborne audio guys, and we went down and checked it out and they've got a 500 series compressor that can kind of be anything. It's a super clean compressor that you can then flip toggle switches and add different harmonic content.
So it will emulate all of our favorite compressors like 1176, LA2A, 33609, whatever those different things are. Uh, and I'm not reading the spec sheet, so it may not be exactly those, but it's got those vibes to it. And it's like,
Andy Leviss: like all those.
Sean Walker: dude. And it's like five or 600 bucks. It's not like 1500
Andy Leviss: Yeah, crazy affordable. And, and it's even got, it's got analog look ahead.
Sean Walker: dude,
Andy Leviss: things all like I was like, Oh, cool. It's like digital modeling. They're like, Nope, it's all analog. I'm like, you are mad scientists at Cranbourne,
Sean Walker: Every, every time I freaking, every time I go chat with that dude, it costs me a thousand dollars. It's fucking stupid. It's like the most expensive
Andy Leviss: right? Because you
Sean Walker: no longer the most expensive friend. Yeah, obviously it is stereo pair. I'm not going to use one of those when we do one for, yeah, I need two or four.
Obviously
Andy Leviss: Like on the discord it always comes up where folks are because he who shan't be named is such a bad influence in getting us all to build 500 racks for our fly kits,
Sean Walker: that we don't
Andy Leviss: always everybody's looking for like a good comp and like this is a solid like 500 bucks or so drop it in and like whichever comp you need it'll
Sean Walker: uh, it's totally silly, dude. It's totally silly. I don't, I don't. I don't mix a ton of shows for my company anymore. All the, all the, the team goes and does that, but I got this fricking outboard rack that rolls around that I'm like, well, maybe see that once this year. Just cause I'm like, well, I got to fuck, you know, get a hit to the arm.
Right? Like I obviously I need the new cool toys.
Andy Leviss: yeah
Sean Walker: Oh my God. Anybody wants to, anybody want to rent a dope 500 rack for flight dates? You let me know. I'll send you a postcard.
Andy Leviss: But yeah, we, we wanted, we wanted to mention that in the NAMM wrap up, but we totally spaced on it, so there it is now, um, and then, uh, what else, like, just, I'm gonna take total advantage of my position as the host of the show for, like, 20 seconds and throw out, it's funny, actually, one of the guests we're talking to today, was had a kid, you know, about 15 years ago and made a pivot from being like a touring front of house guy for a whole bunch of names you recognize to, you know, I got to switch and pivot over to like the manufacturing side and find something a little more stable.
And I'm going to throw it out to listeners. As you know, I've got a nearly four month old at home. And I'm starting to look into doing a similar thing. Like I'm still going to be doing freelance, but but I'm trying to like solidify my schedule and make it a little more having a baby friendly. So y'all know my background, uh, you know, customer support, you know, sales, like rep relations kind of stuff.
You know, my technical background. If there's anybody listening who happens to be like, I would love to have Andy on my team. I'm totally abusing my position on this microphone right now to put it out there. Give me a shout. Let me know, you know, maybe we can work something out.
Sean Walker: Get it, buddy. Get it.
Andy Leviss: Um, but that being said, I think we've got two guests with us today.
We talked about their company a little bit in our NAMM wrap up episode that y'all probably heard. And if not, it's linked in the show notes and you should check it out now. Uh, and of course, because I had them remind me how to pronounce their names beforehand, I'm like 90 percent sure we're going to butcher them both right now.
But we have Dave, uh, Friesema and Tal Kocen. Did I, did I come close? I, I got thumbs up from both of them.
Sean Walker: Nailed it.
Andy Leviss: All right. From,
Dave Friesema: Yeah. Close enough.
Andy Leviss: uh, uh, who are, who are the, uh, two partners in dark matter audio labs, the new IAM company where you're talking about. So rather than me and Sean blather on and kind of introduce you more than I already have, do you guys want to just give a little bit about who you are, how you ended up here?
And then we'll go from there.
Tal Kocen: Sure. You want me to start?
Dave Friesema: Yeah. Go ahead.
Tal Kocen: Okay. I'm Tal Kocen. Uh, I am one of the co founders of Dark Matter Audio Labs. Uh, I have been in music for, you know, well over most of my life. Um, you know, I started out in band in, uh, elementary school and played trumpet and that took me through college. Um, uh, and, you know, from there, uh, at the time, you know, I also played guitar and I was writing songs.
And so I started doing, it's a little recording here and there on my own. Uh, at the time, this was the late 1900s. I had a, uh, I think it was a Roland, I don't know, a Roland, I don't know, something like a BR 88 or DR 808 or I don't know, some Roland eight track, um, digital recorder. And, uh, I was also playing in a funk band at the time in, uh, it was in Boulder, Colorado.
Um, we went into the studio. And I was just like, you know, was like bowled over by the equipment. I was like, this is what I want to do, you know? And that, you know, like that wasn't even a Neve or an SSL. It was like a Yamaha O1V or something simple. But I was just like, my mind exploded. Like, this is where I want to be.
So I ended up going back to school for audio engineering. Uh, went to the conservatory of recording arts and sciences, a little shout out. Um, you know, left there with a good foundation of knowledge. I definitely was not an audio engineer. Um, but I left with a foundation of knowledge that allowed me to go into studios and know what, what the hell is happening.
Um, and, you know, working, moved to New York City. Working in various recording studios and starting to do some live sound at the time, uh, kind of around town. Um, I was working at a venue in Greenpoint, Brooklyn called Warsaw. I don't know if they're doing shows there anymore. I think I hear every now and again, but, uh.
This was in like, I don't know, 2002, I think, um, somewhere in that area. And I was also doing, uh, some, uh, sessions for a guy who was a touring engineer. Right. And so he ended up, uh, one day coming into the studio after he was off the road. And he's like, he's like, Hey, I got this like two week tour thing. I can't do like, have you ever thought of touring?
And I'm like, Not really, but it sounds fun, you know? Um, so I did it.
Andy Leviss: many of us got into trouble in this business.
Tal Kocen: Yeah, I did it. And I was like, hooked. I was like, it's like, man, like, this is awesome. Like the, you know, like the challenge of, you know, a new venue every night. Uh, you know, it's just like, it was kind of intoxicating, you know, new city.
So that kind of set me on this path to touring with. You know, everybody from, you know, I toured with Toby Lightman, I toured with Amos Lee, Sara Bareilles, Ingrid Michaelson, Mark Broussard, the Waterboys, Julianne Hough,
Andy Leviss: So lots of heavy music.
Tal Kocen: a bunch of, yeah, yeah, you know, I kind of fell into the singer songwriter range, which was interesting to me.
It's just sort of like where I ended up. Um, a lot of it came out of like the LA hotel cafe crowd, which was weird because I was in New York, but somehow. It all kind of came around, but, um, and as you said earlier, like 2010 rolled around, uh, my son was born, he's now gonna be 15 in like a month. And you know, I was like, I gotta get off the road.
You know, like I toured another six months. You know, I knew a lot of guys who were like, you know, in their fifties, didn't know their kids living in hotels when they were off the road kind of thing. And I was like. That's not going to be me. Um, plus I don't look good with a ponytail. So, um, so then
Andy Leviss: Does anybody,
Tal Kocen: not when you're bolding, so sorry, I probably just offended like all of the audio engineers.
No, I'm just kidding. I'm sorry. Um, so, so anyway, I ended up like hooking up with this company that was, uh. Uh, uh, repping different pro audio brands. And so I went, went to his company, worked there a couple of years, uh, and then ended up moving over to one of my, um, one of my accounts. And then out of that, we started a company called decoding audio.
So that was like my first taste of like product development and production, you know, product production, I should say
Andy Leviss: and that's like, that's like ear pads and stuff like
Tal Kocen: Yeah, yeah, it's, uh, earpads, uh, cases and cables for high end headphones. So somebody buys like a pair of Sennheiser HD 800s, uh, they can buy a pair of sheepskin earpads from us.
You know, memory phone, that whole thing. Um, anyway, so that, that business was doing very well and, and that kind of cut my teeth on that. Um, 2019 rolls around. I get an opportunity to move over to this other company and run product development for, uh, this brand called Edemotic. And at the time, I was like, Oh my God, Edemotic, like I had a pair of VR4s in like 2002 when I was doing mixes and I'm walking around New York City, uh, you know, with, with.
ER4s in my ear because summertime in New York, like trying to wear like Sony 7506s. It's just disgusting. So that was, so I was like, Oh man, like, this is awesome. Like I'd love that opportunity. And so that's where I met Dave, my partner. Um, and. That's when I sort of like dove into the world of, of, I'd say the world of in ear development.
Right. I had been, of course, familiar with in ears since my, my first pair of in ears. And like, I don't know, it must've been 2005 or six. I think I had GH audio 13s, I think. Um, yeah, but this was sort of my first foray into like the design of them. Right. And I think maybe we can get into this later, but there is definitely a disconnect between.
The, the audio engineering world and all the tools they use and the technology behind the tools they use and why they, why they do what they do and why they sound the way they sound. And so this is all stuff that I learned. And it was another one of these, like, you know, moments in my life where I'm like, wow, you know, this is a, there's all this stuff happens over here that I had no idea about, um, And so, you know, with Dave, I mean, Dave taught me so much about it.
Um, you know, and then at the time this company I was with, we acquired Westone audio and, um, you know, with Westone came, that's when the custom stuff really came in and we built out a custom lab down here in Texas, uh, moved it from Colorado and, um, you know, fast forward a few years and I left, um, I left that company and.
Uh, Dave left not too long after that and Dark Matter Audio Labs was born and we did our, we did our launch actually at NAMM. So we had started selling in September, uh, to some of the artists that we already had sort of on our roster. Um, But, you know, Tuesday of NAMM, I think it was what the 22nd, maybe, um, we launched the website. And then the first day of NAMM was like the first day of our public exhibition. So I think maybe even the day I met you guys was literally the first day that we had ever shown the world
Sean Walker: Day one, bro. That's us. Day
Tal Kocen: got in, you got
Sean Walker: floor, bud.
Tal Kocen: Yeah, that's right. So, uh, that takes me up to today. I came home.
I didn't get sick and here I am on this podcast.
Dave Friesema: All right. Well, I'll go into my history a little bit. Probably a little bit shorter. I don't have as many interesting things to talk about, but, uh, so for me, it's always been music. You know, my, my mom was a professional musician. She sang with the Chicago symphony chorus and orchestra, uh, lyric opera, stuff like that.
So she started dragging me to shows when I was. I mean, too young to remember. I remember seeing one at two and I'm sure that wasn't my first show. Um, but I was always around music growing up. And then, you know, when I was in junior high school, I, you know, I think that was my first real show when I saw Metallica on the Damage Justice tour as a 14 year old, which is great.
Um, but I started playing guitar as well. So, you know, it kind of tracked through all of this, where it was a mix of making music and listening music. To music as well. Cause I was always kind of an equipment junkie as well. Um, and that's never really abated, but so that that's what I've been into for a long time.
Um, and then eventually I got into the, you know, I've sort of long reconciled that I'm more Q than James Bond and the chances of me going on tours, guitar player are probably not great. I mean, I'm not terrible, but. You know, it's just not, not where it's going to be. Um, so I, I got into the engineering side and in 2005 I was hired on at automotive as an R and D engineer.
Um, you know, I, I knew, you know, more the electrical side of engineering, but you know, they really, it was a very kind of, it was a smaller place back then, you know, it was a family owned place and it was. It was great as far as kind of fostering and encouraging knowledge and learning. It was not a competitive corporate environment.
Everybody taught, everybody shared. In fact, the owner, Mead, the founder of it, Mead Killian, taught audiology courses for Northwestern University, uh, on campus there for us. So we are off campus, but. We had our own classroom, so it's always been about learning and about teaching. Um, but, you know, and I worked on a lot of different things.
I think when I first started there, I was working on, uh, tuning, uh, hypercardioid bikes for a hearing assistant assistance product. Um, And then of course, working on the earphones and within a few years, I was the project manager for all the earphones. It was just something that I loved. I used the air force before I worked there.
I had custom hearing protection before I worked there. Um, you know, I was really into it. So within a few years I got to be project manager. You know, I'm not gonna pretend that I was the sole designer on all that stuff because it was definitely a team. And it would be selling other people short to not give them credit as well.
Um, but that's what I did for a long time is, is I just, I worked on IMs and you know, the edemotic stuff was all single driver for a long time. You know, it was all crossover lists. It was. You know, I mean, I think the air force is still the most accurate one. If you're talking about, you know, testing to the diffuse field curve.
Um, but, so I did that until, and then I think we were acquired in 2018. Tall came on board shortly thereafter. Um, and then we acquired Weston audio and then I was put in charge of both of those brands, you know, from a technical director standpoint. And it was great. Um, I love both of those brands. I, I have, I will always have kind of a soft spot in my heart for them, but You know, they both have their kind of design ethos that they've had for a long time and, you know, Dark Matter is, is ours.
This is our design ethos. So it's kind of a, it's, it's an exciting new branch for us to get to do what we want to do and how we see fit. That's
Sean Walker: cool. How, uh, in that design ethos, what are, what are you guys thinking about, focused on? Like, what, what are you doing that you're thinking sets you apart from the other bazillion ears companies that are available right now? Uh, we've heard them, so we already know, but like, you know, if we can tell the listeners kind of what you're thinking about, that'd be sweet.
Dave Friesema: yeah, no problem. I mean, look, I will probably always have some element of the etymotic in my brain. And it was an R& D based, you know, everything for them was fidelity and accuracy. Right? It was, it was adherence to a specific target curve. And, you know, I don't quite hold the same belief that that's what everybody needs.
You know, we sort of had a, you know, people will understand what they need once we explain it to them right. which I don't believe is actually the case. Um, but for me, it always kind of starts from a point of accuracy. Like you have to know your starting point to know where you want to deviate. Right? You know, if, if you start from a random position, you don't know where you're going to end up.
So, you know, I,
Sean Walker: at that point, right?
Dave Friesema: right. So I always, you know, I always approach everything from a point of science and a point of understanding what is flat and then it's where you want to deviate from flat. Um, because yeah. You know, different people, you know, particularly in pro audio, when you're talking about ears, different people have different needs and you know, most people want some level of bass boost.
I tend to try to keep the corner fairly low, um, because it gets muddy pretty quick, particularly in a live setting. If you let that corner sneak up too high. And then, you know, I, I look at it kind of fundamentally go ahead.
Tal Kocen: a sec? I think you should explain like what a corner frequency is to the audience. I think, I think this is. One of the things that I think is important for the audience and engineers to know is a lot of these technical things and what they mean and why they mean what they mean
Sean Walker: Yeah, our audience will totally care about that and want to know what that is because I was that was gonna be my next question is what is the corner frequency
Andy Leviss: Yeah, I was gonna ask about that and you had mentioned the the was it the direct field response earlier I
Dave Friesema: Okay. So, yeah. Stop me. Stop me whenever you want. So, so basically, let's go back to the beginning a little bit. Um, when you're talking about an in your response and you're talking about an accurate response, it starts with the diffuse field response and what that is, and, you know, stop me if this gets boring.
Um, but it actually started with testing that the founder of animatic did in the seventies when he was researching high fidelity hearing aids. And basically he took probe mics and put him at the eardrum of a number of listeners and. Took the response with a diffuse in a diffuse field with no directionality with sound coming in with a flat sound source coming in.
What is the actual frequency response at the drum? And it turns out there's about a 15 db bump at 8 kilohertz because of the resonance of the ear canal mixed with, you know, the pinna of your ear, you know, the, you know, you know, the pin of the ear and like your shoulders, all of that. All of it factors in to the acoustics.
That is your head, right? That is the human brain. And it varies a little bit from person to person, but the average is roughly 2. K. And there's a bump of roughly 15 DB.
Sean Walker: So, in your design, are you taking that into account and taking that out of what you're What your curve is. So it ends up more linear. Once you get it,
Dave Friesema: You put it back in actually, because the thing is, is that your brain, when it hears a flat signal is, you know, you're actually seeing that bump. So when you put an in ear in your ear, You're taking out the pinna, you're shortening the ear canal, you're changing the quarter wave resonance of your ear canal.
If you put a flat signal out of the earphone, your brain will perceive a suck out at 2. 7 kHz. Like you're, you're losing Because even though, you know, you hear flat, so you want to see the flat line, you know, we used to present it as the actual response versus the perceived response and the perceived response would, we'd apply an EQ curve called a diffuse field inverse, a DFI curve.
And basically that would show you that it looks like this, but it's flat. And, and the key is, is that you want it back. Now, Does do people want the entire curve back? We actually ended up backing off that a little bit at an emotic. The first earphone we released the air for what ended up becoming the air for be later.
Um, people liked it for binaural recordings, but they found it a little bit bright. For commercial recordings, because a lot of time there's a little bit of high frequency emphasis added in in the mastering process. So we, we, there's some, yeah, so, so we ended up basically doing an experiment coming up with an average and modifying that curve.
And that curve actually is almost identical coincidentally to what THX uses for their X curve, which is validating in its own way. Um, but basically that's the starting point is that if you have ears, you need, if you want flat. You need to put that peak back in. So the starting point is that is a flat base.
With that reference peak in there and then there's a taper down like a pretty smooth taper down in the high frequencies now from there you have to get to the practical practical reality of what actually works for an end user, you know, the etymotic single drivers are great. They sound great. You know, we used to do a test to prove fidelity.
Um, basically we used to use these recording dummies, these old Keymar recording dummies, and we used to take a song and we'd put it in and then we'd make a recording and then we'd take the recording and we'd play it through the earphones again and it was like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy and we would let anybody bring up their own earphones and we would prove that This is high fidelity and you can prove the accuracy because the recording of the recording of the recording fundamentally sounds mostly the same.
Nothing's a hundred percent perfect, but it was pretty close. Um, and that's fine and that's great for music listening, but there's different considerations for a pro audio situation. One, most people want a little bit more low end, right? So that's when you start getting into bass boosts, you start getting into multiple drivers, especially if you're going to, you know, do a two or three way crossover.
You know in pro audio people care a lot about headroom. So like our a driver has a quad bass package And really the main purpose of that is that there's a ton of headroom So you can eq it without running into issues with the drivers Maxing out on you, um, you know, sometimes like on the six, I backed off the mid range just a little bit because some people find the full mid range to be just a little bit too, you know, mid range for lack of a better term,
Sean Walker: that was me. I fell in love with those sixes, man.
Andy Leviss: Yep Same
Dave Friesema: we got probably the most compliments about those. And it's just, you know, the goal of that one was just to be a generally pretty balanced. Even sounding thing that somebody could listen to someone could mix on An engineer could take it know where their starting point was and they could cut Slice and dice and do what they need to do to make it work for the artist.
Sean Walker: mission accomplished. You that's exactly what I, that's exactly what I got out of it. Having listened to a bunch of recordings, those that I made, those that others made, uh, on a loud floor, like the NAMM show, which is not a lab environment by any means with 97, 000 DJs behind you going thump, thump, thump, thump, thump.
It was, it was stunning to listen to, you know what I mean? Yeah.
Dave Friesema: Awesome. Well, I, I will say thank you. I really appreciate that. Um, I will say, I think the customs are actually better than the universals that you guys demoed. So I can't wait for you guys to get the customs in your ears and, and, you know, and check them out. You know, the, the universals were adapted specifically for the show and that was a design process all in, in and of itself.
So, um, you know, we're, we're cool with where they ended up, but I think the customs are better.
Andy Leviss: is that basically like just like taking it and modding it like in your own ears to like get it sounding as close to The customs as you can
Dave Friesema: no, I mean with that. You know, I, I mean, I always have the customs made for my ears during development. You have to listen, right? Um, but we have pretty nice test equipment here too. So I do it with ear simulators. Um, basically we have a bunch of grass and a bunch of, uh, if you guys are familiar with Bruin care, B and K and grass, we have a bunch of ear simulators here and torsos and, you know, hats and stuff like that, that we, we actually use for verification because you got to listen, but you also got to measure.
So, I
Sean Walker: So, are the, are the, um, I guess just, just fundamentally speaking, are the universal fit of probably any manufacturer, not just you, versus the custom of the same kind, they're going to sound different just because of the, the way it molds into your ear.
Dave Friesema: mean, it depends on how well the universals are implemented, you know, and it depends on a lot of factors. You know, the thing about customs is When you insert them, there is a very defined insertion point, right? You can't push them in further. You can pull them out, but you know, they're going into the same spot with universals.
There is a quite a big variance in high frequency performance, depending on insertion depth. So within a same, within the same user, if you push them in deeper or pull them out more shallowly, You will get different high frequency performance So you'll get more consistent performance always on a on a custom because it is always in the same position in your ear Universals vary a little bit but as far as matching universals to customs it can be a challenge You know, particularly on like some of our three board designs you have a little bit more Real estate to work with on the bore.
Um, you know, the, the ear canal portion of it that goes in your ear, you have a little bit more real estate to deal with. Whereas in universal, sometimes you need to shrink it down a little bit and that changes some of the acoustics of it. So it, it just depends on the particular design. If you, if I was, you know, taking a custom that was a single board design, I could probably convert it to a universal pretty easily.
Um,
Sean Walker: So it's not necessarily as cut and dry as customs will always sound better. The universals can sound. Just as good. They're just not as consistent because of the placement options really is the, the boiling down to the basics.
Tal Kocen: I
Dave Friesema: Yeah, I would never, sorry, go ahead.
Tal Kocen: I was going to say, I think it also depends. And I think we should talk about this a little bit is what happens within the earphone from, from the exit tube back, right? Cause there's very specific. You know, uh, diameters of the tubes inside. There's very specific lengths that have to be done, uh, because all of that affects everything.
And, and that is also where you can have deviations between a custom and a universal, if you're not careful.
Dave Friesema: Yeah. I mean,
Andy Leviss: Dave you were like mentioning like single born triple born Maybe is this a good spot where we should like zoom out for a second and we can talk about Types of drivers and then explain what those are and why you would use one or the other for folks
Dave Friesema: sure. Yeah. Yeah. We can do that. No problem.
Andy Leviss: so Yeah, go ahead.
Dave Friesema: mean, do you have a specific question or do you want
Tal Kocen: what's a
Andy Leviss: I mean, give us, yeah, I mean, I would say just if we want to start with the basics, just like dynamic driver versus balanced armature and why use one, the other mix, and then, yeah, if you want to explain like the bores, I think that would be a solid
Dave Friesema: Okay.
Andy Leviss: for folks to understand what we're talking about.
Dave Friesema: I mean, so, so balanced armatures are, I think what a lot of people have historically associated with customs, right? I mean, those were originally. Born out of hearing a design and you know The thing about balanced armatures is that they are very high precision devices They're actually only a handful of companies around the world that even make them Tooling up to build them is very difficult.
The tolerances involved are very very tight um They're they're great in a lot of ways. You can get a lot of output in a small package Um, you know, I think a lot of people view them as pretty clean sounding. Um, you know, it's that's not a Particularly technical answer. Um, you know, but it's, it's just a different implementation than like a moving coil is more like a typical cone driver that you would see on a speaker at home.
There, there, I don't really, you know, know of a comparison for a BA that you would see on a speaker, but you know, it's, it's basically a diaphragm that's trapped in between kind of a U shaped. Magnet and you know, there's a pin that kind of pulls it in both directions as it's excited with with ac voltage and you know, they're from a practical standpoint They're useful because they're clean and they get high output and frankly you can package a lot of them and fit them You know, these high driver counts are much harder to achieve with moving coils Um, typically I think people mostly like Balanced armature is better for mids and high frequencies the area that people Really like moving coils and really the only area that we're currently deploying a moving coil Is in the base And you know the base with the moving coil is a little bit different It's a little it can be a little bit more impactful.
I think people find it. It can also be a little bit more I mean it sounds like a terribly lame way of putting it. It sounds a little bit more organic sounding, maybe. I don't
Andy Leviss: tactile is the word I've heard people use a
Dave Friesema: Yeah,
Tal Kocen: I think there's also a, there's a distortion component, like kind of a natural distortion component. And I don't mean like guitar amp distortion component, but a harmonic distortion that you get with a dynamic that you don't get with a balanced armature because of the precision of them. That I think people's ears kind of get
Dave Friesema: it's funny though because moving coils actually can And often are really, really low distortion. Um, you know, we actually had to use them at automotive for a hearing test device because we needed to get the lower distortion than we can get. Now, we're not, you know, we're not talking about huge distortion and BA's either.
I mean, people get hung up on distortion numbers sometimes, but, you know, at 100 db, your ears are distorting more than the driver is. Um, so, you know, We don't need to be too hung up on that, I think, but, uh, but yeah, the BA sound cleaner, I think, especially through the mids and the highs and that's what people like for that generally.
Um, but you know, the base of a, of moving coil is cool. And you know, people still like BA bass as well. I mean, the six driver you guys liked, that was a, uh, that was a dual bass driver. Um, and it, you know, it can bring impact as well, but there's a, there's a slight, like you said, Andy, there's a little bit like a textural or a tactile difference I think
Andy Leviss: Yeah. That was actually one of the things that pleasantly surprised me about the DMA six was cause I kind of having, having been with brands that were not like there were more dynamic driver based in the past. I've like, I sort of had this idea of like, Oh, I'm not going to get the base I want out of, out of a BA.
Like I need a dynamic driver. And like, look at your line. I was like, Oh, like I've only got the one that's a hybrid. Well, let's all listen to them all. And I was really, really surprised how punchy it was. Kind of taught me that I, I, my preconceptions were not necessarily accurate there.
Dave Friesema: And I think some of that goes back to what we started talking about, which is the corner frequency thing. And basically, you know, in engineering terms, the corner frequency or the cutoff frequency is the point where it deviates from flat by 3dB. So if you have a bass boost, The point, you know, if you're looking at the flat section of the curve, the point where it's 3dB up or the point where it's 3dB down is the corner.
And, and basically, the reason why it's relevant in audio is, you know, usually when you're talking about kind of a sloping bass boost, which they are, you know, there's varying types, right? You can have one that's more of What I call like a loping bass boost, which, you know, it's kind of more mid bass heavy and then it kind of dips down towards the end.
What I typically prefer is something that slopes up towards the end until, until you hit the natural roll off of the driver, which. It's unavoidable because BAs have what they call a barometric pressure relief, just a tiny, tiny hole. So it always rolls off a little bit towards the end and the really, really low frequencies.
But you want something that kind of ski slopes up with a lower corner. You know, ideally it kind of has to be under one 50 often. I think the six, I want to say it's at like 83 or something like that. It might be wrong. Don't I'll fact check myself on that one later. Um, but it's like, you know, the thing is, is that I like to keep the mid base clean, but I like to have it roll up towards the sub base because that's where you feel the impact.
And that's where it, it kind of, you know, leaves its mark on you. I think,
Tal Kocen: And I think I'll say for me, you know, sort of, this is where, you know, the live sound piece of it, monitor engineering part of it comes in and that, you know, if you've got, you know, you've got a full mix going in your ears. You know, for me anyway, you know, sort of between like 120 Hertz and like that 200 to 50 Hertz is sort of, I call it my enemy, right?
It's like when I'm mixing. Yeah, it just, it, it, it, it makes everything. Makes everything just sort of like blend together in a, not a good way. Um, and so, you know, sort of one of the things Dave and I were talking about, and I think, I think it was on the sixth, we were discussing it where I was like, ah, it's just, there's still too much mid base.
And so he actually slot slid that corner frequency down, uh, which I think ultimately actually lowered. The, the base content a little bit, but it, but it took out some of those frequencies that we don't like and that, and that, and that helps sort of all the way up the spectrum, right? Because those low frequencies will mask some of the high frequencies.
And that's where some of that, um, that's where some of that detail that you hear that you were like, I've never heard this before, right? That those, it just sounds. You know, like a, uh, it's like you go from looking at an eight bit picture to looking at a picture. That's got, you know, 15 million colors. Um, you know, it's just like, it looks real, right?
It looks holographic. And that's where the imaging comes in. That's where the depth comes in. And I think that's important for a musician on stage. And I don't think that anybody else, and I could be wrong, you know, that yeah, That anybody is really focusing on that as much in the IEM world in that, you know, the, the thought is, at least on my side is that I wanna start, you know, as an engineer, I wanna start with a flat, uh, sort of palette, right?
Um, because me personally, and again, I'm just speaking from the I, but I don't like. To EQ, like I, I try and EQ as little as possible, right? It's like Chris Mitchell's the king of that, right? Um, you know, I, and if I'm going to EQ, I want to cut, right? Cause I've always. Was sort of raised with like the, you can't boost what's not there.
Right. But you can always cut what is there. And so, but I want to start with a flat palette so that I don't have to cut unless I need to. Right. Um, but I think some people get in ears. Maybe they get the wrong in ears. You might have a singer that's got some bass heavy inner because they liked the way it sounded when they.
You know, listen to it, but then their monitor engineer is always, you know, cranking all the base out or, you know, really having to adjust a bunch of different things that if you had a good starting point, you wouldn't even have to do. Um, and I think that's important and I think it's important for the engineers too, so that, you know, a, they're not overworked, right.
And that like, you got to EQ that, you got, you know, it's like you, you kind of, you end up, you know, with a, with a really complicated mix to where you could. ultimately have something that puts a little less stress on you, you know, you get a cleaner signal because you're not putting it through a ton of stuff.
Um, you can kind of take some things out of the chain and, you know, and again, it's, it's all about just starting at a good base point. And that is sort of where that ethos that Dave talked about of etymotic kind of comes in at this accuracy, right? It's like you want to start there so that, you know, the musician, when you turn on their mix, it's like, Yeah, that's a good, that's a good starting spot.
Right. And they don't go, man, you know, every time we start, it's like, there's all this muddiness to it. Right. It's like, it must be the gear, you know, it must be the console or it must be the compressor or something. And it's like, well, it's, it starts, it starts here. Right. This is where, you know, the musician's ears are where it starts.
And everything behind that is just one more thing added into the mix, um, that can, you know, that can make things, you know, can, can degrade things across the chain.
Sean Walker: Totally. And I'll, I'll say that, uh, You know, to speak from the end user or kind of engineer standpoint, uh, you audio engineer, not the manufacturing engineer side, but like they are different tools for different jobs or use cases, right? Where, uh, I would, I would think about them as in what do, how, what is my mixing style?
Like we're talking about like the fours or the sixes or the whatever, or, or different options that are around the world, right? Like, what's my mixing style. And then what. What, how's that going to work and what does my artist need right to, to kind of just take that into the kind of a real world application, because some of them are brighter than others, right?
The four that you guys make. Is sounds brighter to my ear than, than the six does. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. If you have an artist that is hard of hearing or has hearing loss, or you've got a super loud bass heavy stage, and you as a mixer are not a bright mixer, that would actually be a huge benefit to you to have something that's a little brighter presentation already that you're like you were saying, not having to do as much work to already to get there.
Right. If you're more like me, where. I'm a booster and I'm going to get some at the desk and it's coming out fucking lightning bolts bright and impactful already a more net neutral presentation like the six is going to be way more beneficial for me so that I can gauge like, is it too bright? Did I do this or whatever?
Right? Uh, and. It was pretty cool as we listened to the different ones to be able to think through that, listen to it and go, it's not just like a tilt brighter or darker or whatever. It's like, it still sounds great. It's just got a little more emphasis in one place or the other, but I didn't lose detail in one or the other.
It wasn't like, Oh, well, they took all the high end off this. So now it's not as bright, but I don't hear it. It's like, I still have all the detail. I needed all the reverb tails that were still deep and the delay throws and the detail of each instrument halos around things that I had created in my own mixes were there on both, both things.
It was just a little, a little different. Perception of what that was. And it was, it was pretty cool to listen to. And having listened to a ton of ears in that same scenario over the years, I was blown away at the detail I got. And it was cool that when I put the sixes in and started listening, it was like having little studio monitors in my ears.
It was fricking unbelievable for me because there's only. One other manufacturer that has accomplished something like that, all the rest of them I thought were too bright over the years and their, their set of ears is four times the price of yours. So I think that the six is just the absolute stand out, unbelievable value in ears right now, in IEMs.
They're absolutely stunning and I, I can't imagine a scenario in which those did not work for somebody compared to other options, right? Unless you were like, I know I mix dark, I got a super loud stage with no cardioid subs and it's all based on stage. In which case maybe the fours would be a better fit because it's already brighter.
You know what I mean? But, um, I just wanted to like. ramble for a second, I guess. But when you were talking about the mid bass and other things, I was thinking like, oh man, they're going to think there's no mid bass or it got really cut or, you know, I, that's not the case. It was like, it probably had too much mid bass when you first started.
And now it's correct rather than, Oh, we're going to lighten it up to make it extra light. Right.
Tal Kocen: Right, that's not what I meant. Yeah, you're right.
Sean Walker: it's come to correct right now. When I listened to records I've made, I'm like, yep, that's the record I made. And I listened to other records that I've heard in recording studios and home and car and every other ear I'm like, Nope, that's exactly the record that I was listening to.
So it gave me a really good, uh, representation of what was coming out of the desk or, or in this case, you know, iPhone, but I, I would be really confident making. Choices on that for a wide range of ears, because a lot of times we're not all on the same brand of ear, right? A lot of times, somebody's on UE, somebody's on JH, somebody's on Dark Matter, somebody's got the Shure 215.
You know, they got all kinds of different things going on around stage depending on the artist. And so if you had a neutral presentation like the 6, you'd be really well versed to be able to tell what those other ears sounded like. So you're like, cool, I'm making this mix. It sounds great. And somebody's like, God, this is a little, this is a little bright.
You're like, Oh, your ears are dark. Oh, this is a little dark. Oh, your ears are bright. And you'd have to get this neutral point to start with. It would be pretty sweet. You know,
Andy Leviss: Yeah. And
Sean Walker: I talking weird
Dave Friesema: No, no, that's
Tal Kocen: No, it's
Andy Leviss: yeah. And I was gonna say like, cause I know like in both headphones and ears, there's always like, there's like overly neutral to the point that it's like unflattering. And then there's like neutral to like, this is just an even like balance of what I'm going to see it. And, and yeah, I feel like they definitely struck that balance there.
Like I have like with over the ear headphones, I have ones I mix on that. I'm like, I can listen to an enjoy for enjoyment and also mix on them. And then like, I've got ones like the audio technical, like M 70 Xs that are great, but like, I can't listen for enjoyment on those because they show you every flaw in every mix.
And there's a lot
Dave Friesema: Right. It's like,
Andy Leviss: releases. Yeah,
Dave Friesema: listening on gentle X sometimes, you know,
Andy Leviss: they're a tool for a certain purpose, but like these are and that's I think what I came up to you guys when when Mike brought me over and introduced me and I was listening. I said like what I'm looking for is exactly what Sean was saying. Like I'm not touring with an artist to like I can get everybody on the same brand.
I'm doing like special events and stuff where there's five different bands coming in with 12 different brands and I want something that I know is going to give me a Solid basis to build for everybody. And it did that well. And the, the other conflict is like you were mentioning before, like hearing details and recordings you've never heard.
And even listening on the show floor, like not only was I hearing like details that either I hadn't heard of that are like, are the details I knew it'll listen for, but there was one point where I. Stopped and look, cause I thought the amp I was listening to, like, I'm like, there's something weird with the noise floor here.
This is not what this recording sounds like. And I like paused and played and paused. And I was like, I'm hearing noise in this recording that I've never heard in this recording before, but it is in the recording. So. Props for that.
Sean Walker: on the loud NAMM floor?
Andy Leviss: Yep.
Sean Walker: Cause it was loud AF there, bro.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, and then there was a, a couple of the like my go to reference tracks I go to that are like pretty clean recordings, but like I could make out noise floor that I had never noticed in it before.
It was pretty wild.
Tal Kocen: Yeah, I mean,
Sean Walker: job, fellas. We're, we're pretty blown away. Thanks for making something that's totally ripping at a price point. Most people can afford
Dave Friesema: who appreciate that. But
Sean Walker: because the other options like. Darn near 5, 000 and,
Dave Friesema: I mean,
Sean Walker: something most people can swing, right? Like there's a, there's a few of us that are like, no man, it's gotta be whatever it's gotta be. And you can figure it out. But most people don't have five grand for a pair of ears, you know,
Dave Friesema: I mean, pricing is always a challenge with stuff like this, but we did want to have available options for everybody at every level. I mean, you know, they, they go well down below what the six costs, you know, for people that are just starting out, you know, it's, you know, nowadays, and you've, I've heard you folks comment on this on, you know, on, on your podcast about how more and more people are using ears.
It's not just the big tours anymore. You know, it's your, you know, your local, uh, you know, bar players, as much as, you know, people can get bar gigs
Andy Leviss: Yeah, there's bands with their
Dave Friesema: people are on,
Andy Leviss: package with a rack mount mixer. Like even if they're not touring in front of house or an engineer, they're controlling their own mixes off like iPads or iPhones now.
Dave Friesema: yeah,
Sean Walker: have a, like a two or something down there, right? That's fits that price point a lot better. Is
Dave Friesema: oh yeah.
Sean Walker: what does that present? We didn't get to hear those. So what does that presentation sound like compared to like the fours and sixes? We did get to hear tonally.
Dave Friesema: So, tonally, I would say it's a little bit warmer and it's pretty big sounding. I mean, that's the two, the DM 2H is a, uh, it's a hybrid model. So, basically, it has a single BA that covers the mids and the highs, and then it has, uh, a 7. 4 millimeter. Moving coil that covers the bass. It's, it's got a slightly higher corner frequency, um, just because we kind of, we, we kind of embraced the moving coil bass presentation a little bit on that one.
Um, you know, I, I made a set for someone who, who actually said it was the most resolving pair of in ears he heard, which kind of, he hasn't heard the sixes yet. So I, I think he's. I don't know if I agree with his assessment, to be honest, I think the sixes are more resolving. They have a dedicated tweeter and a three way system, a dual tweeter and a three way system.
But I would say that, you know, our goal is not to make something passable at the low end and then scale up to stuff that's great. You know, the goal is to make the best sounding thing you can get. At whatever level it is compared to what else is out there. So
Sean Walker: Absolutely.
Dave Friesema: I feel pretty confident that if someone tries the hybrid or even the next step up, which is the, uh, which is the dual base, you know, the dual base BA with the single BA mid, that it's going to be a very good, I am for them at that price point.
And it, it, it's going to present something that's clean and clear, you know, fundamentally reasonably accurate. You know, we're not trying to make everything sound identical. But there definitely is a thread through them, I think, um, just from design style. So, yeah, I mean, go ahead though.
Tal Kocen: I was going to say, I think that actually brings up a good point in that, you know, more drivers doesn't always mean more better. Right. I think there's, there is sort of a myth in the industry of like, you know, more drivers, it's better. Right. It's, it's, uh, you know, I had a conversation when I was at Westone with a, with an engineer for a very, very, very prominent artist at the time.
Um, and you know, he was like, yeah, more drivers better. And I was like, well, No, not necessarily, you know, um, I think that, that that's, you know, again, something I want to try and do with this company with, you know, take the knowledge that, you know, Dave has and be able to educate people on sort of how it works, why it works, um, so that they can make more informed decisions and not drop.
You know, let's say 4, 000 on a IEM when they could get a similar thing or something more, um, relevant to what they're doing or what they're, what kind of music they're playing for a much lower price, right? Because they could get something that, you know, look, our six driver probably sounds better than, you know, other companies, 16 driver, right?
For me, from a resolution standpoint, um, you know, from an EQ standpoint, you know, I think, and Dave, correct me if I'm wrong here, but. But, you know, what the, you know, instead of more drivers, more better, it could be more drivers, more headroom, right? Like Dave was saying, and it's, and it's a, it's a lever that the engineer, and I mean, the development engineer now can actually use to increase, you know, uh, change the, the sonic landscape of the earphone, because, you know, there's only so many levers you can pull in an IEM to get the frequency curve you want, um, right?
Dave, you want to, you could
Dave Friesema: I mean,
Tal Kocen: That's, I know enough to be dangerous
Dave Friesema: Well, like the EQ thing, you know, there's, there's a series of cuts when you're, when you're trying to fit, when you're trying to design a crossover to fit a bunch of drivers together. Right. And sometimes you have to cut sensitivity on one of them because you need to match up the sensitivity with another one.
You know, sometimes you have to cut to change the shape a little bit. You know, it can be part of the filter design that you're running. I mean, so sometimes, Adding drivers in order to take away sensitivity and and still leave a reasonable amount of sensitivity is is one of the advantages to having more drivers and ultimately more headroom in the system can help.
So there are reasons for the higher driver counts like, you know. We're not doing more drivers just to have higher priced bottles and have more drivers. Um, I used to joke that buying IMs by drivers count is like going into a restaurant and buying by the number of ingredients on a dish. You know, it, it, it's not, it doesn't always make sense.
Um, because there's time,
Tal Kocen: and unless you're getting fried shrimp,
Dave Friesema: unless you're getting fried shrimp. Um, but it, it
Sean Walker: Lots, lots of ingredients in that.
Dave Friesema: Sometimes it matters and sometimes it doesn't. I mean, it's really application specific. You know, we talked earlier about the automotive stuff, which was always a single pretty small driver, you know, and you know, it was a crossover list design and it was totally flat, you know, the flattest thing out there.
You know, adding drivers to that won't likely make it more flat. I mean, it could, you know, maybe I can come up with something that's a better design over time and a multi driver set up, but I don't want to back myself into a corner here. But you know, the point is, is that there's, there's reasons behind things and you know, there's different solutions for different people with different needs.
Sean Walker: Totally, dude. That's awesome.
Tal Kocen: Can you, Dave, I think, can you just explain, I just want to back you up a second, maybe just for the audience, explain like what sensitivity means? What does it mean at the, at the end of the day when, when you're talking about an IEM or a headphone or?
Dave Friesema: mean, sensitivity is, you know, at the end, it's fundamentally a pretty straightforward concept. It just means the output level. With a given drive voltage, you know, some people quote sensitivity and wattage I always like quoting it in voltage because to me it's a much more straightforward thing If it's wattage you have to take the impedance of the earphone You have to back out and figure out what your drive level is if it's just voltage.
It's just voltage,
Sean Walker: Like, how much power to get this thing to full output kind of a vibe?
Dave Friesema: Yeah, I mean it no not even necessarily full output. It just means at any given level like for example At a tenth of a volt, which is a common specification for it. So at 100 millivolts, you might get 105 or 102 or whatever it is. And you know that, you know, if you bump that up to a volt, it's going to be 20 dB higher.
Because that's just the basic conversion of it. Um, you know, and at some point you run into, you know, the headroom limits of the drivers, and again, you have a little bit more headroom in, in some of the multi systems. Um, but I mean, nobody should be running at 120 DB anyways, because you'll all be. Stone deaf.
I mean, you know part, huh? What? I mean Part part of the advantage of ims and part of the reason why they've taken on is because they allow you to listen at sensible Volumes because you're getting the attenuation from the stage
Sean Walker: Challenge accepted.
Tal Kocen: Well, I think you're getting the, right, you're getting the attenuation in the high frequencies. You're not, you know, the low frequencies are still going to penetrate your skull and get to your. Get to your inner ear that way. And I think that's also an important thing with, right. Especially with monitor mixing is, is taking that into account, you know, is that if you had a bass player standing in front of a giant bass amp, you know. That's going to compound with what they're hearing in their ears to
Sean Walker: And that might be a good use case for those brighter ears that had a little less bass, that they're already getting smashed from their bass amp, they might just need a little lift on it, right? Where it's not, like, it's not as easy as a one size fits all, you know?
Andy Leviss: So, I did want to zoom out, like, we kind of dug into the technical area a little bit, and there was the one question that I don't even know if anybody else cares about, but I want to know the answer to, which we had said we were going to get into, and then we just got off on other cool stuff, which is just, as we're talking about drivers and crossovers, can you just give us the real quick overview on, like, the, on single bore versus triple bore, and how or why?
Dave Friesema: Oh, I see. Yeah, no problem. Um, so basically I would say it's easier design with multiple, like if you have a bore, like if I have a three way system and it's a three bore design, that means that every driver or driver pack, you know, or, you know, sometimes if we use like in the case of the quad base, we have to, you know, make a, a manifold that kind of combines everything.
But it means that everything has its own, its own sound channel. Okay. Cool. Exiting to the world. So if it's a three bore, that means there's three, three exposed holes coming out of, of the mold. And there are some definite advantages with them. I mean, one, you can isolate the drivers from each other. Um, you know, BAs are different than moving coils in that they don't have a flat impedance.
Their impedance rises at higher frequencies. So. You know, you can run into some weird interactions if you run them all into the same bore. Um, I mean, I've done it. It can be done. It's just, it, there's challenges behind it. Um, and, and there are some advantages sometimes to doing single bore. I think that the presentation with a multi bore system sometimes sounds a little bit better to me.
Um, but the other fundamental advantage is that there's, you know, when I'm sitting here tuning an IEM, I, like Tal, Tal referred to levers, and there's multiple levers, right? I, I have, bore diameter, which matters. There's bore length. Um, there's damping, there's acoustic damping material. Um, it's this mesh. You can buy it as mesh by itself or in plug form, but basically it's, it's an acoustic, it terminates it and it, it damps it and it also serves as a secondary function of protecting.
from getting back up into the drivers. Um, but basically, you know, you have, you have the tubing size, you have the tubing length, you have the location of the dampers. Um, you know, Tal talked about tubing length mattering and it actually can vary a little bit from custom to custom because ear sizes are different.
You can actually cheat it a little bit pre damper, but once you terminate it, You know that post damper tubing length. This is critical and really changes things significantly so that that becomes sort of You know an important thing but with a multi bore design you can actually use different damping on each bore As opposed to if you combine like the mids and the lows into the same bore you're stuck damping it at the same point Um, you know, and then of course there's also the electronic Element of a two, you know, we have an electronic crossover and all of, you know, all of these designs, they're either two way or three way designs.
So, you know, there, there's frankly just a bunch of different pieces that, you know, I can put together to get to the end result that I'm looking for and, you know, that I've just been doing it for such a long time that. You know, it, I kind of know where my starting points are and what, what to move around at this point.
Um, you know, but, but that's what the thing about the bores is more bores allows you a little bit more control, but it also becomes more challenging. The more you have to fit them in ear molds too, because you, you end up with some physical constraints. That can be challenging.
Tal Kocen: so Dave, can you, so just real quick, I think it'd be interesting for the audience that, um, so when, when we were working on the six, uh, I had some comments about it, you know, I felt that it was a little too bright. There's a little, you know, the, the low, the low mids were a little too high. What did you physically do to the design to actually make those changes?
Dave Friesema: So I will start by saying that I think the custom was always in a much better spot that that was a problem converting it to the universals on the six. Um, in that particular case, I was able to do everything with a combination of changing the crossover. And I changed the damping on the mid range specifically, I don't think I ended up having to change the treble, but you know, as we've talked about multiple times in this podcast, it's, it's about that balance and you know, I think you hit it earlier tall when you're talking about masking is, you know, when the, when the drivers are balanced, you know, Sean, you were talking about this earlier, how it all kind of felt like you could hear the detail.
You know, you could hear the mids. You could hear the highs. You could hear the bass and the mid bass was clean That's a balancing act more than anything else because you know, nothing we're doing is killing all the treble Or boosting all the trouble. You know, sometimes the differences on a curve are actually pretty subtle.
Um, and I think that, you know, with the four, it is a little bit brighter sounding, but it's actually pretty neutrally tuned. The six is actually tuned a tiny bit down in the mids and the highs, but it strikes a good balance that I think is what is seems to be working. I mean, that was, I think, by far the most popular one at the show.
Um, so I think that the balance is there and that's That's the main thing. Um, but yeah, tall to answer your question. It was a combination of crossovers and damping. I don't think I changed. I had to change any of the tubing links for that.
Andy Leviss: So the other thing, like digging into y'all's website, like we've talked about, like the internal design and it feels like you're calling out in some of your marketing, like some of the stuff you're doing to like with taking digital scans of the molds and like the stuff you massage to just, I guess I may be oversimplifying to say make them work better.
Do you want to like talk a little bit about that?
Tal Kocen: Yeah. The
Dave Friesema: I, I will talk about it, but I'm going to give credit to Alex, the guy who does our digital sculpting. Um, because it's important to acknowledge the people that are, yeah, shout out to Alex. Um,
Tal Kocen: the mad scientist.
Dave Friesema: yeah, he is our mad scientist. He's great. Um, but basically. Every every ear mold we get whether you know, we can get them two ways We either get physical molds which is by far the most popular way where people go to the audiologist and they have the The play doh style goop shot in their ears and it's you know, it's a weird process the first time but harmless
Andy Leviss: It's a weird process the fourth time.
Dave Friesema: yeah, or in my case probably the i've probably had it done A hundred times and it's all maybe not that many but a lot.
It's weird though um Yeah,
Sean Walker: I'll, I'll send pictures to the discord of Andy. I get our molds taken. It was pretty fricking funny, dude. With the bite blocks and the pink goop in the ear.
Dave Friesema: always do the bite block is my recommendation particularly if you're a
Andy Leviss: question is bite block versus like jaw exercise versus
Dave Friesema: Yeah, I'll get
Sean Walker: whoa, whoa. This is a family friendly podcast, Andy. Jesus.
Dave Friesema: the jaw exercise is a personal choice,
Sean Walker: Yeah.
Dave Friesema: but but the But the but the bite block I I always recommend a bite block and the reason is is that it It basically it, it actually opens up your ear canals with the bite block and it, it makes the molds a little bit more full and it does actually tighten them a little bit when your jaw is closed.
So if somebody finds them really uncomfortable, you can do a closed jaw. The problem is, is if you are a singer or you're going to be talking, you can actually break the seal on a custom by moving your jaw, whereas if you have a bite block in there. It's, it's kind of, it's set for an open state, which is the wider state.
And that way it tightens when you close, but it doesn't break when you open.
Sean Walker: Plus, if you don't have a bite block, you don't get the best part of getting molds done, which is drooling all over yourself on a show floor while everybody's watching. It just walks, rock stars walking by. Yeah, dude.
Dave Friesema: it's not just
Sean Walker: by. You're just drooling all over yourself and they're like, what the fuck?
Dave Friesema: Yeah, it's not just a show. You drool everywhere with a bite block.
Tal Kocen: That's like, you know, that brings, it makes me, it gives me an idea. You know, I always had this idea of making a, uh, like a coffee table book. Nothing to be reads anymore, but a coffee table book of like. You know, famous musicians like behind, you know, hanging out next to like grease traps because, you know, everybody leaves through the back and then you're waiting for the car.
It's here by like the, you know, I can't tell you how many grease traps I've stood behind. Um, you know, with, with all kinds of people, but maybe that's another one as a, uh, of famous musicians having their impressions taken like a bite block.
Sean Walker: Totally.
Dave Friesema: you'd sell dozens of
Tal Kocen: Right, maybe.
Sean Walker: Both copies would be fricking hits,
Tal Kocen: Yeah. Yeah.
Dave Friesema: so as far as the ear impressions, basically they come in, they're either molded or they're digital, but they come in or they come into us and we have a 3D scanner here. That is designed for that. So basically we capture them digitally, we store them that way. We have them on file. If you know, if anything happens and someone wants either backups later or they step on them and they need to be replaced, we can, we can replace them.
We do recommend.
Sean Walker: and I'm like, Hey man, take my money. I want to try the twos and the fours and the threes and the eights. And then you can just start making them in all those and set charge of my card.
Dave Friesema: Yep. No problem. I mean, we, we keep them. We do recommend after, you know, three or four years getting fresh impressions because your ears continue to grow, uh,
Tal Kocen: if you, if you gain, what is it gain or lose more than like 15 to 20 pounds, it actually can affect your, your, your size as well,
Dave Friesema: know, but for,
Tal Kocen: found that interesting
Dave Friesema: For most situations, we, you know, we can work with what we have on file for a few years. Um, so basically we bring them in and then what we do is, is there's a program that we use, uh, called Syfex that is designed for this sort of thing. And then we go in and that's when we basically, we core them out.
You know, we hollow out the insides, we run the bores through them. You know, we as in Alex, just to be clear, but, uh, I'll be doing it too. But, uh, anyways, um, you know, it's set up so that it basically it's prepped for install. And if it's two bore design, we put two bores in. If it's three bore design, we put three bores in.
We make sure that, you know, we're putting the damp, the termination dampers in the end, we're putting them in a fixed location so that we can help maintain our. You know, the acoustic response consistently and like basically all the parameters we need to build it out. And then from there, what we do is we 3D print it on, uh, basically it's, we use a 3D printer that is a medical grade printer that runs biocompatible material because you You care about biocompatibility when it's sitting in your ears.
So, and you know, and then from there, I mean, honestly, that part, isn't that, you know, time, the, the really time consuming part is installing them. And then all of the polish they're all hand polished, they're all hand buffed. You know, the, the, the face plates are built up, you know, it's, it's a. It's an art and it, there's a lot of process to that part of it that that's the time consuming part, but you know, and then of course I'm in here matching drivers, building out driver packs and testing them, making sure that they, they match well before install.
And then we check them multiple times along the way to make sure that, you know, if it's not, it doesn't, you know. When you install it, if it doesn't sit exactly right, you know, you can lose some of that. So basically we're just checking along the way to make sure that our acoustics meet our, you know, we consider fairly stringent requirements.
Um, and then of course we test them end of line and then we usually give them one final buff and then try not to touch them after that. And then they go in the case and we, we custom print cases for everybody. So, um, you know, everybody's case has their name and serial number on it and our logo and, you know.
I
Andy Leviss: And I feel like and I feel like between both the conversation on the design side of it and what we were talking about about the difference between generics and customs and What you've just talked through this answer is a question that came up in our discord server the other day of just oh like is our customs really worth that much more like what are you getting for that extra money other than just Like, you know, marketing.
And I feel like we've done a good job of explaining like both why they cost more and what benefit you do arguably get from that. So like, that's, I think, useful to some folks listening as well.
Dave Friesema: mean, for most people, the primary advantage of comfort of customs is comfort. You know, you're sitting and you're wearing them for three to four hours. It's, you know, on show day, you know, you just want something that's going to be comfortable. You also, you know, you don't have to constantly buy your tips for them.
I mean, look, I'm a fan of having a backup pair of either customs or a backup universal. Just sitting in your case, you know, stuff goes wrong. You know, you, you know, the show, the show has to happen. You have to have monitors, you know, they're, they're. There's nothing wrong with universals either, really. I'm not, I'm not bagging on universals, you know, we'll probably have some at some
Andy Leviss: I was going to ask if,
Sean Walker: I was going to say
Andy Leviss: might be in the cards.
Sean Walker: and, and, and if you're not opposed to it from a customer standpoint, that's a great option to have some universal options because it does help with the price point and maybe people aren't, I don't know, they're just maybe not into it or that gives them the chance to test different things where they're like, cool, let me just buy the universals of different things at a lower price point, find what I love and then have some customs made out of that.
Right? Like, okay, I love these. That's And then you got a billion backups, or in my case, I can just put it into all our IEM kits after cleaning them up. And now I got, you know, a whole bunch of great sounding universals to deliver with our PSM racks or whatever, you know?
Dave Friesema: Well, and it's a backup for everybody, right? It's, you know, it's not specific to one person. So yeah, that is in the cards. It's just we're starting with customs because that's where we wanted to start. You know, that's, that's,
Andy Leviss: I, and a little birdie told me they're most likely, uh, earplugs in the cards as well, coming down the
Dave Friesema: yeah, we are planning on adding custom hearing protection at some point as well. Um, you know, for us, it's all just about scaling and figuring out when the, you know, the time is to add that stuff. Really?
Sean Walker: Totally.
Andy Leviss: Yeah. Well, I'll say like you got, you have my molds on files now. And as soon as you were doing those, I'm due for a new set. So I will be customer number one when you have them. That's
Dave Friesema: Oh
Tal Kocen: they're coming.
Dave Friesema: Yep.
Sean Walker: Rad. Dude, thank you so much for taking this hour to chat with us and hang out and nerd about ears and audio. We really appreciate you guys. I know you got a new business to run and you're cranking like I am. So thanks for hanging out.
Dave Friesema: Well, thanks for having us because this is great. It's been it's been a blast talking to you guys
Sean Walker: Yeah,
Tal Kocen: And I just, I just want to say, you know, first of all, thanks for having us on here, but I've, I've been a fan of your podcast for a few years. And, uh, just, just to be able to be on here and talk about this stuff and, and, you know, know that we're able to help educate the audience through your podcast, I think is, is super cool.
And, and, you know, I'm a fan boy and, uh,
Sean Walker: Oh,
Andy Leviss: how Sean and I started too. So.
Dave Friesema: I will add that i've heard Tal talk a lot about this podcast and he's holding his shit together. Really really surprisingly. Well
Tal Kocen: no, I got a, I got a tattoo. I won't show you, but I got a, I did get a tattoo the other day.
Sean Walker: For those of you not on video, nice ass, Tal. Nice ass. Yeah.
Tal Kocen: Thanks. Thanks. Yeah.
Sean Walker: Well, thank you guys for hanging out. Thank you to Alan and Heath for letting us nerd about audio. Thanks to RCF for making ripping speakers that everybody can afford to go make some money with. That's the pod y'all. We'll see you next week.
Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green
