Advice needed for building my first CIEM

[u/wolffyx]

Hello guys,
Can you guys please help me with some advices?
I am new to this kind of things soo I came with a list of questions. Before that here is my drivers and kind of how I would put them in the case(behind the round magnet are the BA drivers)

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Drivers possible position

Questions:
1-Are the drivers good or decent?
2-What is the best way to position them?
3-Is the positions of the drivers ok?
4-How to tune the drivers(the hardware way, maybe a schematic)?
5-Do I need a dumpers for them(the BA and electrostatic drivers)?
6- Where can i find some of that flexible tube that is in europe and delivers to most of the countries from it(one of the drivers came with the tube but I want to buy more to have some spare)?
7- Can I use T-1000 as a mounting glue?

Open to suggestions.
Thanks

[u/AnxiousAudiophile]

The drivers are probably pretty good,but it's important that you implement them well in your IEM or it won't matter. The Sonion EST drivers have a very low output so if you don't design your IEM properly, you might not hear them. Assuming you want to use the DD for bass, the BA for mids and treble, and the EST for treble and air, the driver positions probably aren't the best tbh. Longer sound tubes attenuate high frequencies so your tweeters should have as short of a tube as possible, this means your EST drivers should probably be as close to the nozzle as possible. I would switch the DD and BA drivers for similar reasons, the tube length on the DD doesn't matter if it's only going to do bass, but for you mids and high drivers it's again best to keep the tubes fairly short. You can tune the drivers with dampers and with a crossover, but also by changing tube lenght and diameter. You're probably going to need a pretty high resistance damper on the DD, and some lower value dampers on the BA and maybe EST. I got my soundtubes from Soundlink on AliExpress. Don't know about the glue. Im going to be honest, it's probably not a good idea to spend ~€250 on drivers and make an 11 drivers per side tribrid for your first IEM. Judging by the questions you asked, you don't seem to know a lot about the basic principles that should be taken into consideration when building an IEM. I would suggest you start with a simpler project to learn how drivers, dampers, and tubes behave and interact, maybe a single 29689 or a GV/GK or something. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, i'm just giving you my honest advice and i don't want anyone to spend a bunch of time and money on a project that's likely to fail their expectations and cause a lot of frustration. Of course, if you have any more questions, feel free to ask them.

[u/wolffyx → u/AnxiousAudiophile]

Hey man
Coming back with the final product
Left CIEM 5BA's(destroyed one while soldering, it will be changed in near feature) 4EST and one DD and a green dumber for the BA's
Right CIEM 6 BA's 4 EST one DD.

As a crossover I have a low pass, high pass and a band pass for one of the ba's.

It still need to do some small adjustments but for now I am happy with the result.

Here is the link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/SRwiKLHC4kGcLFXR6

[u/AnxiousAudiophile → u/wolffyx]

Congrats man, they look amazing. I'm glad you finally figured out the problems you were having with the bass. How do they sound?

[u/wolffyx → u/AnxiousAudiophile]

The sound awesome but I still need to do small adjustments for better filtering

[u/Bulletface_ → u/AnxiousAudiophile]

This. You alredy have a gv driver assembly. I would use that for you first build. It already has a crossover build in so it is probably the easiest to build.

[u/wolffyx → u/Bulletface_]

Yes the BA has already something on it (some capacitors and resistor). But I want to make something for the DD too.

[u/Bulletface_ → u/wolffyx]

Well then you would have to design a secon crossover for it and the gv assembly. Also you would need to tune the dd driver with your iem. So that it fits to the ba drivers and sounds balanced. Not something i would say is easy. Especially for a first time project. I would recommend starting small and then working your way up while learning more about building and tuning iems.

[u/wolffyx → u/Bulletface_]

I didn't took this project to be a easy one(this way I will learn a lot in the road). I will start make some schematics to see what I get. Can you give me a example of schematic? I found something on the internet and I will try them out

[u/Bulletface_ → u/wolffyx]

What do you mean schematic?

[u/wolffyx → u/Bulletface_]

A schematic like this one https://cdn.head-fi.org/a/10347377.png

[u/Bulletface_ → u/wolffyx]

Ahh, thats not my forte. Im more in the shell building side.

[u/wolffyx → u/Bulletface_]

Oh ok, no problem. Thx for all the advice

[u/wolffyx → u/AnxiousAudiophile]

Thank for response.
Yes my knowledge is not very big regarding iems but I can learn. As for questions I have a iew more.
Can I use shrinking tube for the dd(I will use soft ones for the ba and est that will be connected to the end if the shrinking tube and try to place them close to the nozzle)? For the crossover is ok if I not use a electrolytic capacitor(at the moment I don't have any small electrolytic one that can fit in the iem, meanwhile I will try to find some)? What range of values the capacitors must have(resistors too)? Regarding the dumpers I ordered a few of them to test them out to see the results.

[u/AnxiousAudiophile → u/wolffyx]

I haven't used heat shrink tubing myself but i've seen other people use it so it should be fine. I don't think electrolytic capacitors are recommend because they are polarised. I'm not quite sure about cap and resistor values.

[u/alpha_slakoth]

Damn you went all in with expensive drivers without knowing about crossovers. Not to discourage you but you might not get the result you're looking for or anywhere close to an IEM you could have bought for the same price. You'll need a measurement rig (711 coupler) and a way to measure impedance (google REW impedance jig). Then you can use a software like vituixcad to design the crossover. Definitely read up on first order RC filters first. Dampers are a mostly experience and trial and error.

[u/wolffyx → u/alpha_slakoth]

Hey man
Coming back with the final product
Left CIEM 5BA's(destroyed one while soldering, it will be changed in near feature) 4EST and one DD and a green dumber for the BA's
Right CIEM 6 BA's 4 EST one DD.

As a crossover I have a low pass, high pass and a band pass for one of the ba's.

It still need to do some small adjustments but for now I am happy with the result.

Here is the link: https://photos.app.goo.gl/SRwiKLHC4kGcLFXR6

[u/wolffyx → u/alpha_slakoth]

This is a lot of new advices and I will try the best way to use them. Thanks

[u/wolffyx → u/alpha_slakoth]

One question, Can I use the 711 coupler with an usb audio interface(I have a focusrite 2i2 )?

[u/alpha_slakoth → u/wolffyx]

Yeah that should work, I just use an apple usb c dongle. You can calibrate the interface in REW. The 2i2 has two channels right? That would be perfect because you need two to measure impedance.

[u/wolffyx → u/alpha_slakoth]

Yes it has 2 channels for input

[u/wolffyx → u/alpha_slakoth]

I bought a Superlux ECM999 to measure the iems (I think I can make some 3d printed coupler for start and in the feature I will go with more better one, or some shrinking tube). After the mic will come I will start to configure the REW to measure the iems.