Hey everyone! It's Can Con 4. And I'm here with Matt
and Daniel behind the camera from ACustoms.
Matt first of all I want to say thank you so much for coming out to support the community
at this Head Fi event.
Pleasure to be here man. It's what we do.
Why don't you tell us a little about what you do and what's going on with this huge spread.
Haha! Right. Um. So um.
At Acustoms, we - our focus is really sort on the live sort of
part of things. We work with bands, we work with musicians
I'm a monitor engineer myself so for us
it's always been about getting good in ear monitors into the ears of
the guys that need them to help them do their thing. We actually don't really do much
in terms of the audiophile side of things. But when we got invited
to come up here we thought you know what? We're free that weekend. Seems like you guys are interested
in some of the gear you have. Let's bring it down and give you guys a chance
to listen to some stuff that you might not really get a chance to listen to.
I've always been very curious about custom in ear monitors
never took the plunge myself but for those of you watching who
don't know what a custom earphone is Matt you want to tell us a little about
what that entire process involves.
Sure, well a custom in ear monitor
basically you know you've got your universal in ear monitors that anyone can use, you can put a
sort of Comply foam or a tip on it. Some musicians
use these, they're generally kind of accessible. Then you've got sort of the
pro end of things. Which is the custom made one, you know, only one
if it's made for you only you can use it. You can't really share it around.
we get impressions taken which is a mould of the ear. And we send them off to various manufacturers which
we represent in Australia. To get made into a custom fit monitor.
The benefits you get is you get
added isolation. You've got space to cram up to 12 drivers in if
that's, you know, what you're after. And generally
because of the custom fit you get a very secure fit you get a very secure fit. It won't fall out when you're
jogging around on stage. Again the isolation makes a
big difference if you're on stage and there's a lot of noise. But also if you're
on the train or if you're flying around a lot, you're travelling a lot
they really just help block out external noise so you can focus on listening to what you want to listen to.
We try and make the process easy because a lot of manufacturers are
overseas, international. Unique Melody is from Asia,
we got 1964, JH, Westone, based in the states.
It's been difficult for guys in Australia to get an impression taken to standard
and then send them off and hope that something comes back.
I mean I've read some horror stories on the Head Fi forums
about just, you know, emails back and forth
and that kind of thing. And it's a scary thing because
these are substantial investment. So you guys are there to kind of -
Well that's it! I was in that exact position. That's how we started.
Is that I needed to get some good in ear monitors. And I thought
there's only a handful of companies in Australia that make anything but
it seems like I'm getting a lot better value overseas.
I want to go for something overseas but I was a bit hesitant.
What if my moulds aren't up to scratch? What if I need a refit?
What if something goes wrong with them? What kind of impressions do I need?
How long is it going to take? Etc etc.
We thought, you know what? Here's an opportunity where we could kind of bridge that gap
So that's what we try and do. We try and stay in the middle.
We try and help facillitate a really easy order process.
We've got a network of audiologists in Australia where we can confidently send
clients to knowing that they're going to get well taken care of. They're going to get a good quality
impression the manufacturers will be more than happy to work with.
and significantly reduces our rate of refit.
In comparison to some other companies out there that sort of
send you self impression kits and things like that? I mean you get one set of ears
you don't want to be messing around and stuff. So we always send
our guys to professional audiologists.
we've even had some where some very
difficult cases where audiologists when taking the impression they've
picked up a few things about their hearing or their ears. And it's actually
been a very valuable lesson or experience in sending
guys to professional audiologists.
I had a quite a few of these customs. Or these are the universal demos of the customs.
Obviously they can't make us one on the spot.
But uh, I've really enjoyed quite
a number of them. Especially the Unique Melody... Miracle?
Merlin! Oh Merlin! Sorry. Yeah, the Merlin, yeah.
So that's a hybrid?
So it's got a dynamic driver and four balanced armatures?
That's right. Yeah it's um. That's an interesting in ear monitor. A lot of the in ears on this table are
balanced armature in ears. There's no moving coil or
diaphragm or anything like that.
I'm not sure if you're really familiar with dynamic driver in ears.
You might be, but there's something about the texture in the bass that
the texture in...
I'm biggest fan of like dynamic drivers. I have this thing about, I have this single handed
kind of campaign about saying single dynamic drivers are in
you know, a lot of ways, I do prefer them to multi balanced armature setups
because I feel like... I just don't get that sense of texture or when you listen to the bass...
They're a very natural sound
they reproduce sound in the same way microphones capture sound.
I mean if we think of it as simply as that.
Oh! That's - yeah, that's an interesting way of putting it.
Yeah. So, the thing about dynamics is that they don't tend to
have that high frequency detail. Less detail, clarity,
speed that you get from a balanced armature in ear monitors. Balanced armatures originally lended
to us from hearing aids, which are all about clarity and all about
speech and things like that.
So Unique Melody is interesting, they actually took a
single dynamic driver and they use that for
the bass. You've got a three-way crossover. And then they've got 2 mid drivers and
two high drivers. So basically they use the balanced armatures to address the
deficiencies of the dynamic. But you incorporate that
visceral kind of, really love feeling you can get from a
dynamic. And they incorporated that into a single in ear monitor.
Normally I'm wary about the added complexity but I really enjoyed that.
You know, I was actually helping Unique
Melody a little bit when it came to the design of that. They originally had a
different version which was. How to say...
it was very similar to some of their other in-ears. They have a very specific house sound.
We fed back a bit of stuff to them and encouraged
them down a certain path. For me as a monitor engineer
I was getting a lot of guys saying they miss out on the feel
especially at the bottom end. When they moved to a dynamic -
uh, when they moved to balanced armature in ear monitors. You've got all these subs just
blasting front of house. But their ears, they're hearing the bass but they're not feeling it.
And you guys are based in Melbourne?
Right. I mean, we try and make it as easy as possible.
If you had a warranty issue or something like that, we just need you to send the in-ears
back to Melbourne. We use couriers around the world
it's kind of we don't want everyone to have to worry about that every time they need to do a warranty or a refit or something.
Yeah it is good to have a local point of contact
for this stuff.
Yeah we try and be accessible, you can call us, you got our
phone number, I think it's down there. We're available on
e-mail as well. You can always give us a buzz.
And of course you got your website.
Yeah! Our website - Acustoms.com.au -
we try and keep it up to date but again new products come in
we try and get it up there.
That's what makes it so exciting!
In ear monitors is one of those things where sometimes you just need to chat with someone about them.
They're complex and everyone on the internet these days
has an opinion. And sound is so subjective
what I love today I might not like tomorrow. And it all depends on
the style of music we like listening to. Some people like bass, some people like treble, some people
like detail. Some people like it flat, others like spacious
other people don't like it spacious. It's, everyone has a different feel, so
there's only so much that you can get in terms of reading a review. So
So we we love doing things like this.
It's great to come out to just listen to this stuff
it is good to have that chance. Anyway thanks so much for
coming out and supporting the community!
Pleasure man, thanks very much.
And you might be getting an email from me soon about those
Unique Melody Merlins.
Well hopefully we can kit you out with something
bless all your guys out there that watch your Youtube channel
Feel free to plug us as much as you want!
No worries. Anyway from Can Con 4 -
Sayonara!
See you later!
What the hell? Sayonara? What was that?
Soyonara!