319. Hearing Protection & Safety With Dark Matter Audio Labs

The hosts sync up again with Tal Kocen and Dave Friesema of Dark Matter Audio Labs in Episode 319 to see what they’ve been up to as they start off their second year as Dark Matter with a bang — albeit a safe and quiet one, thanks to their new hearing protection offerings. Hearing protection and safety is a subject we come back to semi-regularly on Signal to Noise because it’s so important, so we’re excited to see another great option, and hear about what makes these different.

The gang didn’t stop at earplugs, though–they also learned all about the “hows and whys” of Dark Matter’s new ambient IEM offerings (and what they have in common with earplugs), as well as an overview of what their different models sound like and who each one is best suited to, why to choose custom models over universal-fit (or why not to), and more.

Dave and Tal also let us in on some late breaking news, that they’re starting to offer universal-fit versions of their custom products. Finally, they shared a special bonus offer for Signal to Noise listeners of 15 percent off any purchases from Dark Matter with discount code “S2N15”.

NOTE: If you’re in the NYC area this weekend — March 7-8 — Dark Matter and sibling company Dekoni Audio are sharing a space at the CanJam headphone show, where they’ll have demo models of all their IEMs, and be taking impressions for custom models right on site! You might even catch Andy stopping by to visit on Saturday…

Episode Links:
CanJam NYC 2026
STN Episode 297: Healthy Ears, Limited Annoyance
STN Episode 285: Dark Matter Audio Labs
STN Episode 177: Hearing Health Matters
STN Episode 152: Dr. Heather Malyuk, Soundcheck Audiology – “All Ears Are Famous”
Episode 319 Transcript

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Transcript

Episode 319 - Return to the Dark (Matter) Side

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 

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Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

[00:00:58] Andy Leviss: Hey, welcome to another episode of Signal Noise. I'm your host, Andy Leviss. With me is always the balance to my armature, Mr. Sean Walker. What's up, dude?

[00:01:07] Sean Walker: What's up dude?

Those

[00:01:09] Andy Leviss: look, I even looked up to make sure that's not what I had used last time we talked this subject. So I was like, that's too good. I had to have used it already,

[00:01:18] Sean Walker: uh, fair

enough

[00:01:20] Andy Leviss: through transcripts, like

[00:01:21] Sean Walker: and appropriate, I guess. And

appropriate. Yeah.

[00:01:24] Andy Leviss: So, uh, yeah. What, what are you up to?

[00:01:26] Sean Walker: Um, you know, same thing. I'm always up to doing, getting shows done for our clients and, uh, you know, trying to take over the world. You know how it is.

Just, just doing the thing. Business owner stuff. You

[00:01:37] Andy Leviss: Uh, you know, the same, like, I've mostly got the voice back, a little, little congested as I just, you know, coughed in all y'all's ears right before we hit

[00:01:43] Sean Walker: all right? All right. Fair enough. Fair enough.

[00:01:45] Andy Leviss: no doing that, you know, and, um, helping, helping get everybody else's shows going. You know, doing, doing the support thing.

[00:01:51] Sean Walker: Sweet.

[00:01:52] Andy Leviss: Uh, yeah, no.

[00:01:54] Sean Walker: fully took advantage of the Yamaha rebate

and, uh, sorted out some, some

DM

[00:02:00] Andy Leviss: more, few more days left on that,

[00:02:01] Sean Walker: totally, dude.

Totally. That was

[00:02:04] Andy Leviss: folks. For folks, or actually by the time folks here, this, it'll be over. So I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna tease folks with what they missed, but, uh,

[00:02:10] Sean Walker: totally. But that was dope. So what, uh, what do we got lined with today since you're, uh, you're the, the liner upper of people,

bruh.

[00:02:19] Andy Leviss: we have a, a couple of good, good friends. Old fr now old friends. We can, it's been over a year. I think that's

[00:02:24] Sean Walker: I mean, I see the, homies, bro. I

[00:02:26] Andy Leviss: for old, for old friends,

[00:02:27] Sean Walker: I see the homies waiting in the wings to

say, what's

[00:02:29] Andy Leviss: Uh, we, we got a tall and Dave from uh, dark matter audio lavs are back to hang with us again.

[00:02:34] Sean Walker: Hell yes.

[00:02:35] Tal Kocen: Hello

[00:02:35] Andy Leviss: uh, this is about the time of year we catch up with them for a, a state of the inner, state of dark matter.

They've got some cool new stuff, uh, they've been showing off at NAMM and otherwise, and we figured it was time to catch up. Uh, we talk a little bit of hearing protection, ear safety. 'cause again, that's another one of those topics we'd like to hit every once in a while for folks who are new or folks who have like, yeah, yeah, I'll worry about that later.

So, uh, why don't we, why do we hit it running? What are you guys up to?

[00:03:00] Sean Walker: Yeah. What's up fellas? How are you?

[00:03:01] Tal Kocen: Man. We're good. I'm good. Uh, it's been a, it's been a whirlwind of a year. It's been, uh, you know, last year NAMM was our official launch and we just passed. We're about a month out of, uh, NAMM 26. And, you know, everything that happened between was. You know, just a, a whirlwind. It was just a lot, a lot happening. Uh, but it's been good. It's been a lot of, you know, I mean, from a backend standpoint, you know, a lot of process improvement. A lot of development, uh, a lot of, uh. You know, just reaching out and meeting new customers and meeting new people and, you know, explaining why dark matter. Right. Um, and one of the things we've been working on, as you just mentioned, was hearing protection.

So custom hearing protection to be exact.

[00:03:51] Sean Walker: Oh sweet.

[00:03:52] Tal Kocen: So, um, that's a thing that we've been wanting to dive into and now that we are divin dove, now we dove into it. Um, you know, I thought, uh, I, I gave Andy a call, was like, Hey, let's talk about hearing protection 'cause it's important. Um, you know, I don't know about you guys, but I ever since I like. Went to, you know, I, I initially got into this business. I wanted to be a recording engineer, right? And this goes back now, like almost 30 years. Um, and one of the first things that I was told was like, get earplugs. Um, I was like, okay. Um, and I think it's something that, you know, from, I think from an industry standpoint, people tend to use them more than not, I think. Um, but not from an audience perspective. Uh, and I think that's, that's something that's important to try and spread the word about, but also hard.

[00:04:53] Sean Walker: totally.

Guys from the hell, guys and gals from the Hella Initiative on a while back to talk about the same kind of thing. You, you guys hip to them?

[00:05:00] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

[00:05:01] Sean Walker: Yeah.

they, they were great. That's, uh, it's important man. 'cause you know, not everybody can walk around going, huh? Like the rest of us, you know, old timers do sometimes, so they should, you know, totally get on that. Hey, for you guys. Is the hearing production thing, do you keep people's molds? So if I've got ears with you, can I just call and say, Hey dude, uh, thanks for the sick ears. That sound baller. Can I also have some hearing production? You can sort out some custom hearing production, or do we have to get molds remade?

[00:05:29] Dave Friesema: Now that we, basically, when someone sends us molds, either digital or physical molds, we scan 'em in. So we've got 'em digitally stored in their initial raw state. Um, so we keep 'em indefinitely, uh, in digital. I mean, we keep the, the physical forms as well and we store 'em. But really we work with the digital. Um, so as long as they're not too old, we can continue to use 'em. So typically after. You know, four years or so, you know, anywhere between three and five years depending on the person. We recommend new impressions because your ears keep growing even when you're old. So eventually they won't seal anymore, and if they're not sealing, they're not doing what they need to do. Um, but, you know, and it can last a little longer than that, but typically it doesn't. So, you know, if it's within a few years, yeah, just give us a call. We've got 'em on file. We could just knock 'em out.

It's easy.

[00:06:20] Sean Walker: Dope.

That's awesome.

[00:06:22] Andy Leviss: I'm, I'm remembering from when we've had, I, I forget whether it was you guys on or if it was talking to, um, audiologists. There was also like weight loss. If you've had significant weight loss, that'll change it.

[00:06:31] Dave Friesema: Yep.

[00:06:32] Tal Kocen: I have brought that up in the past, but yeah, if you, I think it's, if you gained like more than like 10 or 15 pounds, or lost more than 10 or 15 pounds, that also applies to your, your ear canals. You know, it's like, uh, the, the fat kind of goes everywhere. Um. And yeah, as you said, like your ears and your nose are the two parts of your body that continue to grow throughout your entire life.

That's why like you see old people that got these giant ears, you know, and you're like, like, what happened to everybody's ears?

[00:07:01] Sean Walker: Satellite dishes, bro, we just bolt them shits onto the side so we can still hear the tv.

[00:07:05] Tal Kocen: right. Maybe that's why, maybe that is like they keep growing to account for a hearing loss. Um. But yeah, so, so yeah, every, every few years you gotta get, gotta get some new molds and um, you know, keeps things, keeps things moving.

[00:07:23] Sean Walker: Yeah. Sweet. Well, that's cool that we can, like, once you buy one thing, you've got the molds on, so you can kinda just get the other products going. You don't have to keep getting molds made. That's, that's awesome.

[00:07:31] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

[00:07:32] Andy Leviss: I, I.

[00:07:33] Tal Kocen: molds are the biggest friction in this business. You know, it's

sort of like if, if the holy grail would be, if there was a way that somebody could get accurate, good, safe, uh, impressions at home. But you know, so far nobody's cracked that yet.

[00:07:49] Sean Walker: Having gone through it, sitting on the NAMM show floor, the amount of goop in your ears I would not wanna try to do at home. And I certainly wouldn't want my kids to try to help me with

[00:07:58] Andy Leviss: Look, man. No kink. No kink. Shit. See, I had that coming outta my mouth before you said kids. And then I was. Like, I can't stop the train.

[00:08:05] Sean Walker: a weirdo. Yep. Just train wreck right there, buddy. Totally.

[00:08:10] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

[00:08:12] Sean Walker: But like, yeah, dude, I, I, uh, I'll, I'll share the embarrassing as picture Andy took of me getting my molds done, but it was like just pink goop everywhere. You know what I mean? It Yeah. It's fucking horrible. I

mean, it was

[00:08:23] Andy Leviss: you should, you shared the picture of me at the Neuman demo, so.

[00:08:26] Sean Walker: Fair, fair. We can, we can have an embarrassing photos channel in the Discord server, man.

[00:08:31] Tal Kocen: the, sound of silence too. When you have those things in.

[00:08:33] Sean Walker: Totally, totally. So tell me about these earplugs, man. Why, why yours rather than Foamies or anybody else's, or, you know, what's, what's awesome about yours?

[00:08:42] Dave Friesema: Well, I mean, foamies have their place, right? Um, you know, if you're, if you're exposed to a lot of industrial noise, foamies actually give you the best overall protection. Like, if you just wanna block everything out, I mean, that's the way to go. You will give yourself, you know, the best that you can get in that regard.

However, they sound terrible for music.

[00:09:01] Sean Walker: Okay,

[00:09:02] Dave Friesema: They attenuate.

[00:09:03] Sean Walker: I'm following along here, there's nothing wrong with foamies. They're just hard to work in if you need to work an as an audio person, but just for saving your ears, they're, they're just fine for saving your ears.

[00:09:13] Dave Friesema: They're amazing. If you're working

with a jackhammer, wear foamies, you know, if, if you're shooting wear foamies or, or something that is more structured for that, like, you

know,

[00:09:22] Sean Walker: if I'm doing both at the same time? Jack hammer in one hand, 10 mil in the other by definitely foamies with your ear

[00:09:27] Dave Friesema: pairs of foamies. Just keep putting them in.

[00:09:29] Tal Kocen: And, and, uh, headphones.

[00:09:31] Dave Friesema: man.

[00:09:32] Sean Walker: Copy that. All right, great.

[00:09:33] Dave Friesema: a,

[00:09:33] Andy Leviss: Sean, Sean

[00:09:33] Dave Friesema: a pair of chopsticks. just keep pressing.

[00:09:36] Andy Leviss: impression and he can use that as a.

[00:09:37] Dave Friesema: Yeah.

[00:09:40] Sean Walker: just keep pressing. Just two pho,

[00:09:41] Dave Friesema: Yeah, just keep going.

Yeah. Yeah.

I, this is probably a good time to say that I'm not an audiologist,

[00:09:48] Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Totally,

totally.

[00:09:50] Andy Leviss: not medical

[00:09:51] Dave Friesema: um,

[00:09:51] Sean Walker: All right. Before we derail that

[00:09:53] Dave Friesema: medical

[00:09:53] Andy Leviss: Even if he was an audiologist, he's not yours.

[00:09:56] Sean Walker: Totally. All right, before we derail that train you were talking about Foamies are good for killing the audio, but yours are cool.

[00:10:02] Dave Friesema: foamies work just fine for that foamies, you know, if you have, you know, earmuffs can work well too. You know, the really tight ones like the Howard Light ones and things like that can work just fine. Um, the problem with all of those, particularly the foamies, is that they attenuate unevenly, so they will give you more attenuation at high frequencies than low frequencies, which is fine when protection is your only concern if you're in the wood shop. You actually might want a little bit more at the high frequencies. Uh, the problem is, is that music doesn't sound like music. It sounds like you're underwater. So people tend to take 'em out. Um, you know, and if you wear them for a little while and then take 'em out to listen to music or to talk to somebody, because it's also hard to hear somebody when they sound muffled. You know, you're not really protecting yourself. So your better bet for those types of scenarios is a linear attenuator that blocks the frequencies more evenly. So it still sounds like music and it still sounds like people just at a lower level. Um, and. The nice thing that I think sometimes people don't understand, you know, that people feel that wearing, you know, musicians, earplugs, either as a performer or as you know, an audience member or a crew member or whatever they feel it's subtractive that we'll take away from the experience. But the problem is, is that when the level gets high enough, your ears really distort and. That takes away from the experience and a lot of, one of the revelations that a lot of people have when they start using good linear attenuating earplugs is that the music actually sounds better and clearer because the level has been brought down.

You know, if, if it's 105, 110, which as we all know is not that unusual for a big show and you're wearing, you know, even 15 DB plugs, bring it down to 90, that's a huge difference as far as the distortion of your ear itself.

[00:11:48] Sean Walker: Man, I gotta, I gotta just tell you, it's interesting getting older because if the show's one 10, I have already made an about fucking face and walked outta the venue, like, get outta here.

[00:11:59] Tal Kocen: Right.

[00:11:59] Dave Friesema: Yeah. No

kidding.

[00:12:01] Sean Walker: there's no, not a

[00:12:02] Dave Friesema: You know, The other thing to understand, and I, I probably should look this up instead of going by memory, so I might be off exa a little bit, but if you look at the NIOSH noise exposure charts, basically, you know, let's say you're listening at, I believe, 85 or 80, I think 85 is saved for four hours.

It's either 85 or 88, so you know, you can double check me, but basically every time it goes up by 3D, the exposure gets cut in half. Uh, you know, so we can kinda walk it up. So if it's four hours at 85, it's two hours at 88 it's an hour at 91, half an hour at 94, 15 minutes at 97, 7 and a half minutes at a hundred up and up and up and up.

Like again, I might be off by three db. But the the point is, is that even cutting 15 DB can give you drastically more safe exposure time. And that stuff is cumulative so you know it, it can keep your safe noise dose in a level where, you know, with a 25 DB Attenuator, even if it is 110, you know, and you've knocked it down to 85, you can basically listen all day safely.

[00:13:09] Sean Walker: Perfect. So those of us that are working for sound companies or house festival person, that's super helpful to not just be absolutely wrecked by band three.

[00:13:22] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

[00:13:22] Dave Friesema: and you know what? Every, you know, not everybody at a show needs. Ims and you guys know that, right? You know, a lot of people are on belt pack and they need ims, but you know, there's just as many people that don't, but are still in the environment. You know, crew members, security in particular, security, you know, they're work.

A lot of those folks are working shows constantly.

Multiple shows a week. Yeah.

They're getting blasted.

[00:13:51] Sean Walker: Not. No, not not at

[00:13:56] Dave Friesema: I guess that's a little obvious.

[00:13:58] Sean Walker: Our listeners are trying to make it even in low variance,

[00:14:01] Tal Kocen: Yes, of course.

[00:14:02] Sean Walker: wink, wink, nudge, nudge

[00:14:05] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

[00:14:06] Sean Walker: until the client cuts the budget, in which case that front row is getting lambasted. Screw 'em.

[00:14:11] Dave Friesema: Right, and, and look, we'd love people to buy our customs, but even if you don't, you know, I've worked for E Modic for years Tall, worked for, at E Modic, they sell 15, $20 universals. That also work.

You know,

[00:14:23] Tal Kocen: there are

[00:14:23] Dave Friesema: the main thing is.

[00:14:24] Tal Kocen: response.

[00:14:25] Dave Friesema: They're also flat frequently. They're just not frequency, they're just not custom.

You know, the main thing really, whether you're getting 'em from us or from somebody else, is, you know, save your hearing. Because once it's gone, you know, it's, it's not, it, you can't get it back. And, uh, and I have a tendency to go off on tangents. This is a slight tangent, so you guys can reel me back in if it's too much of

a

[00:14:46] Andy Leviss: you listened to our show before?

[00:14:48] Dave Friesema: that's true.

Okay.

Yeah,

Fuck it. Okay,

[00:14:50] Sean Walker: we are a tangent, bro. Like get it, get you some.

[00:14:53] Dave Friesema: Yeah, so you know, a lot of people assume that when you lo when you have hearing damage, people know it's your hair cells, right? You have your outer hair cells and your inner hair cells, and people just assume hair cell damage. And you know, if I lose it, I can just get hearing aids and I can amplify it and then I'll be able to hear normally again.

But that's not always true. So you have your, the outer hair cells. Are different in function from the inner hair cells. The outer hair cells basically are responsible for amplification, and the inner hair cells are responsible for translation to the brain, which is a totally different function. So in theory, if you only had inner hair cell damage, which is really, really rare, but occasionally happens, you would hear everything in a normal volume, but wouldn't be able to understand a word of it. That's a weird thing. And it, it's why a lot of times when people, you know, as they age and have hearing damage, it's not just amplification. They have this other hearing damage, which is why they can't hear in restaurants, because the signal to noise ratio, which ties in nicely with the title of this podcast, um, you know, the signal to noise ratio is lessened.

Um, it, it's compromised basically because of that inner damage. So you wanna try to protect yourself from any damage because you're not likely only to get. The outer cell damage, which can be fixed with amplification. A a lot of times it gets more complicated. And then you have to look at stuff like directional mics and things like that to give you, um, you know, a better, what they call A-I-D-A-D-I, which is the articulation index and directivity index, which allows you to hear better and noisy environments because you're, you know, you're focused more on what's in front of you and stuff like that.

So that's. You know, again, a little, a little divergence, but it, it just underscores the point that it's important to protect your ears, um, because it's, you can't get it back.

[00:16:37] Tal Kocen: Yeah, and it's also something that it, it's hard to get the message across to people because, uh, you know, it's not a necessarily an instant, uh, damage, right? It's like, well, it is because you might walk away from a concert with your ears ringing, but it's not something that's. Always gonna be noticeable, uh, in the long term until it's gone.

And then you're like, why do I hear constant ringing? Um, you know, which is why it is important, you know, uh, for those of us who were, who were mixing to, to look out for the ears of the audience as best we can. Um. know, I know when I mix, I try and mix as, as low as possible with as much fidelity as possible so that they still enjoy the concert.

And I've heard some amazing concerts that are not loud. Um, I think some people think like it's gotta be loud, if it's gonna sound good. Um, and that's not always the case. And, and you know, as Dave was saying, I wear my earplugs to concerts, um, and I find, I find that. It also helps filter out a lot of the, the room sound, so you hear more of the direct sound. Um, and it could also be used by musicians on stage who be using wedges. You know, you would think if you put in earplugs that you're gonna have to turn your wedges up, but that's actually not the case because you're gonna be hearing more directly from that wedge. Because you're getting more of that in your face and you're not getting as much of this stuff, uh, you know, uh, non kind of directional.

Right. Uh, so like Dave isn't, uh, who is it that uses Animo earplugs on stage or the, or? The, the me. The electronic hearing protection. One of the guys from Springsteen, right?

[00:18:24] Dave Friesema: Yeah. Um,

[00:18:26] Tal Kocen: Nils Nils

[00:18:26] Dave Friesema: nicest per, yeah. Neil's Lofgren, who's the nicest guy. Um, I've probably the nicest guy I've ever talked in the music industry. Just a really nice guy. Um, but also the, uh, the drummer from Slayer, Dave Lombardo uses him too.

[00:18:39] Tal Kocen: Yeah, and it's just that it, you know, as, as Dave was saying earlier, it gives you better fidelity. You get less, less distortion. So I, that could be a happy medium between in ears and stage wedges. Uh, for people that just cannot deal with, uh, ims. You know, it's like some people, no matter how. much the engineer tries to, uh, you know, kind of give them the room and the audience.

It's just, there's a disconnect. Um, and if you're not used to it, you're not used to it. And some people just can't get with it. And so sometimes, you know, you could still use, you could still use earplugs, uh, and, and, uh, have a happy, safe life, you know.

[00:19:26] Sean Walker: Are yours, uh, changeable? Can you change the attenuation filters in them so you can just like, Hey,

[00:19:32] Dave Friesema: can just pop 'em right out.

[00:19:33] Sean Walker: and when I'm attending and somebody else has just got the gas all the way to the floor, I can put in the 20 fives or 70 fives or hundreds or whatever the big one is and live all day at that one.

[00:19:44] Tal Kocen: yeah. And then like a full block. I don't, I don't know if we're selling, we're not selling the full blocks right now, but, uh, I have

[00:19:50] Dave Friesema: We will.

[00:19:50] Tal Kocen: I got somewhere, um,

[00:19:52] Andy Leviss: Is it, is it the standard, like the the EMO buttons or.

[00:19:56] Tal Kocen: Yeah, so, so Dave can talk about this, but yeah, we do use the standard etymotic buttons, um, mainly because of the flat frequency response, or as Dave says, the linear frequency response of them. Um, I dunno, Dave, you, you know, a little bit more about kind of, uh, how those came about and kind of how they function, right? It's like there's physics to

[00:20:19] Dave Friesema: those were designed before I got there. So I, I, you know, I can't, I, I don't remember the full, I'm sure I've heard this story, but I don't remember the whole backstory about their creation. But I, I do know that they are the, the flattest attenuators on the market now, now they're not perfect.

Nothing is. Um, the fifteens and the 20 fives are actually a little bit flatter than the nines. Um, the nines are. Are challenging, but basically, you know, the primary difference in 'em is, is the diaphragm itself that's in there. You know, that, that basically kind of functions as a, a, a passive radiator of sorts.

Um, and it, it just kind of dissipates energy. Um, you know, the, the, the 25 is a thicker membrane than the 15, and then the nine is, is correspondingly thinner again. Um, you know, and, and they're tuned. There's like a little equal equalization filter in there. There, there's these two kind of side slots. Um. You know, similar actually to what's in couplers, uh, the ear simulators for testing, um, that are used.

And so it's just, it's a combination. The design is a combination of, of the sound channel, uh, you know, going in, you know, and, and this, this, these little side slits. Um, and then it goes into the, uh. You know, it, then the sound hits the diaphragm. And then it also kind of functions in, you know, in conjunction with the acoustic mass of the ear mold itself. Um, and you know, as far as our, so we do use, like I said, we use the emos for, you know, the upcoming, and we'll talk about this a little bit later, but for the upcoming, um, ambient IMS that we've got, we don't actually use the. the. at emotive ones we used the, A company called DEC because they're a little bit smaller and they actually fit better in an I am. Um, but for pure attenuation on a, on an earplug for Etymotic, stuff works the best. Um, as far as what sets our molds apart, um, I think we pay a little bit more attention. We talked about this last time, I think. Um, but we pay a little bit more attention to the occlusion effect. Um, you know, we try to make them. You know, a little bit longer when possible so that they're not, um, while still, you know, it's, it's a balance basically with that. Because if you make them too long, then you're out of the specs for the acoustic mass and the, the frequency response suffers. Um, uh, but if they're too short, then they become problematic for singers and things like that because you can hear your own voice, um, via occlusion a little bit too much.

So we basically, we just have experience with this stuff, and that's, I think what sets us apart is that we, we dial them in well.

[00:22:41] Andy Leviss: And, and then is, is that part, so that's part of the pitch for going with customs over like the, the generic fit ones too, is, is the occlusion and then I assume the like just comfort and ease of putting them in.

[00:22:54] Dave Friesema: Yeah, the comfort really is the main one. Um, comfort and the ability, like Sean talked about, of swapping out filters. So that you can basically dial them into your preferences. Um, those are the two main advantages. Um, you know, the other thing is, is that with, uh. It's the same thing with Iam, with Custom iams versus the, uh, you know, universal Fit Iams is that with a custom, you have a defined insertion depth that's always the same every time because it stops at the same point every time, which means you'll get consistent high frequency performance.

Um, you get that tends to vary a lot with insertion depth. So if. If you change it up, whether it's an earplug or whether it's a an Im, it's just gonna be a little bit different. So if you wonder why your universal sound a little bit different day to day, you might've put 'em in a little bit more shallow or a little bit deeper or something like that.

[00:23:49] Andy Leviss: That makes sense.

[00:23:50] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

Um,

[00:23:55] Andy Leviss: oh, go ahead. No, go ahead.

[00:23:56] Tal Kocen: you have a question?

[00:23:57] Andy Leviss: go, go, go where you were going and then we'll get back to mine.

[00:24:00] Tal Kocen: I was just gonna gonna, uh, talk a little bit about the ambience that we are coming out with.

[00:24:05] Andy Leviss: That,

[00:24:06] Tal Kocen: kind of brought it

[00:24:06] Andy Leviss: gonna ask.

[00:24:07] Tal Kocen: Yeah. Um, it's something that, you know, of course we've been asked, asked for since. Day one. Um, it's just took a little more development time to, to get it sorted out. Um, but yeah, I mean the, the ambient, we get a lot of people that ask for it.

And, uh, you know, as I talked about earlier, some people that are wearing, you know, full, fully isolated ims, they just can't. Connect with the audience the same way they want to, they can't connect with the stage the same way they want to, right? Because they just, you don't hear the amps behind you, uh, the way you are used to. And so with an ambient system, you're able to get a little more of that and, uh, just feel the room more. Hear the audience more. Um, and then when you have, you know, that combined with things like audience mics, that's also a, a big helpful thing too to, it kind of connects the two, uh, together.

[00:25:04] Dave Friesema: And I, I think on bigger tours, they do use the audience mics to blend in ambient, and that's, you know, that works pretty well actually. Um, and gives you good control over it. But especially for smaller gigging musicians and folks that work at churches and things like that, sometimes it's just not that loud of an environment.

It's loud enough that they wanna knock it down a little bit and be safe, but they don't necessarily want the complication of adding. Mic on stage. Um, so sometimes they're more prone to liking ambience there. There's also a pretty, uh, big name performer, I'm not gonna say, but uh. He was saying how he likes using, uh, a set of old ims because they don't seal and he gets a controlled, I would argue,

not very controlled amount of bleed.

And you know, he just doesn't like being fully isolated on stage. So for

somebody like him, an ambient is a better solution than a poorly fitting ear mold because you don't really know what level is coming in that way. At least with an ambient, it's controlled.

[00:26:06] Tal Kocen: Right?

[00:26:08] Sean Walker: Dude. Cool. That seems like a good, like. Middle line between wedges and

full I ems, you have that like a little, little baby step, right?

[00:26:19] Dave Friesema: Yeah. And those have changeable filters too. You can pop 'em out, you can block 'em, you can do, you know, so

[00:26:24] Sean Walker: so if you started

[00:26:25] Dave Friesema: there's flexibility there.

[00:26:26] Sean Walker: if you started with the ambience, you can change filters, then you go to a full block to have just like you'd ordered no ambient IMS kinda deals. You kinda get the best of all worlds.

[00:26:34] Dave Friesema: Yeah.

I mean, I.

[00:26:35] Sean Walker: That's dope.

[00:26:37] Dave Friesema: Yeah, I mean, it, it effectively works that, I mean, if you know you are going to use a sealed, IM all the time, I'd still recommend getting a sealed. Im all the time. It's a little bit less expensive. It's, you know, there you don't, it's just, it's, it's simpler, but for

somebody that wants all the options, that'll give you all the options. Now we are rolling out the ambient with our three driver model, but we're looking at expanding it. Into more models in the line. So over time, you know, we'll, we'll be rolling it out. Uh, obviously it's one more thing to fit. So when you start getting into the higher driver counts and you add ambient, like you have to make sure it's gonna fit in smaller ears.

That can sometimes be a challenge, but, uh, we're getting pretty good at jamming 'em in so.

[00:27:17] Tal Kocen: Yeah, and we're not, I mean, I don't wanna give away our secret sauce, but we're not adding a, another sound channel. We're basically dumping it into one of the other sound channels. Is that right

[00:27:28] Dave Friesema: The low frequency one specifically.

Yeah.

And that works. It's, it's fine. You, you just have to properly, you know, damp it at the end to get to preserve the frequency response.

[00:27:40] Sean Walker: Sweet.

[00:27:41] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

[00:27:42] Dave Friesema: Exciting.

[00:27:44] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Well, that's cool. I never, I never realized they were interchangeable. Um, like I just am like, oh, there's like a little vent that lets some audio in. So.

[00:27:53] Dave Friesema: Yeah, the, the only downside is that the filters we're using, which are these, you know, small metal filters from DEC, they're actually really nice. Um, they, there's limited values. Basically there's 17 and 23 right now. Um, I'm hoping that they introduce a lower level model at some point, but the stock is 17, then you can go up as well.

[00:28:15] Sean Walker: Cool.

[00:28:16] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

[00:28:18] Sean Walker: That's awesome. You guys, you guys pretty excited about that? You get a lot of que, a lot of people asking for ambience,

[00:28:24] Tal Kocen: Yeah, we do. We get a lot of people asking about it. We've, we've had, um, you know, I mean, we've had people, you know, honestly, we've had people that decide not to buy from us because they want ambient. Um, so it's a, it's a business decision as much as it is a,

um, you know, a product decision, you

know,

[00:28:42] Sean Walker: hundred percent. Dude. Absolutely.

[00:28:44] Tal Kocen: so.

[00:28:45] Sean Walker: I mean, they'd be crazy not to buy from you. 'cause the sixes are just stunning. Good. Like stunning. Good.

[00:28:51] Tal Kocen: That's what I got right now.

[00:28:52] Sean Walker: Yeah, dude, we,

me and

[00:28:54] Andy Leviss: we're You guys can't

[00:28:55] Sean Walker: of nerd friends of mine have been,

[00:28:56] Andy Leviss: all pointing at our ears.

[00:28:57] Sean Walker: yeah,

[00:28:57] Tal Kocen: yeah.

Right.

[00:28:58] Sean Walker: Me and a couple of nerd friends of mine got got going behind the scenes and freaking, we're just, we're unbelievably stoked about how good those sixes sound, man.

Good job, fellas. That's, it's

[00:29:08] Dave Friesema: Thank you. You know it's funny though.

[00:29:11] Sean Walker: When you hear music in your head, I know we're talking about IMS and that's looking funny, but like, you know how you hear music in your head and you're like, it never quite sounds like that when you do it someplace else. The sixes are how I hear music in my head.

I just, I put 'em in and I was like, fuck yeah, dude. That's what's up. That, that's my jam right there.

[00:29:25] Tal Kocen: Yeah, I mean that is, you know, the, the whole kind of ethos of our brand. Um. know, is built around that initial kinda accuracy of sound, right? That we kind of build from. It's a, it's a foundation, uh, that is rooted in, um, science, right? Um, and it gives you just a, a much clearer picture of what you're hearing, allows you to listen quieter.

It allows, uh, your engineer more control over, right, over over what they're putting into your ears. Um. You know, I think there's a lot of ims out there that, you know, for better or worse, that they are, you know, just going to, they just wanna make the loudest thing possible. There's,

[00:30:12] Sean Walker: Bro, they're all too bright.

[00:30:14] Tal Kocen: There's stuff out there that, uh, we'll go from a, a brand unnamed, but you know, it's like everything is full range.

Right. Dave? Uh, you were telling me there was a pair you measured that there was like barely any impedance to it. They were just so sensitive. Um,

[00:30:29] Dave Friesema: I mean, a lot of

[00:30:30] Tal Kocen: was just firing everything. Like all the drivers are firing full range. Um, you know, we try and be, we like our sound to be a little more nuanced, uh, so that, you know, you ha you can have a better mix.

Right. I think. A lot of engineers, um, do battle with, you know, getting their mix to a baseline before they can really start to like expand that mix. And I think a lot of guys and ladies don't know that necessarily until they, you know, sort of, uh, start to understand a little bit more about, um, you know, about how this stuff works.

[00:31:09] Dave Friesema: Well, and the other

[00:31:10] Sean Walker: idea how any of this stuff works, but I went. Last year through NAMM and listened to, to literally every single IEM that was at the show and every model of IEM that was at the show and there were only two yours and the God, what's the one? It's like 4, 4, 5 grand. It's metal X six or x four FIR audio.

Makes, makes one. You stunning sounding fricking set of ins, but there was only two in the whole show and there was hundreds I listened to where you were like, no, that's what music sounds like. Every other one was too flipping bright. It was like ice picks to the fricking ears. And I, maybe that's what they need on stage is you've got legacy artists that have hearing damage or something, but like most of 'em were, were unbearable to listen to man.

And I don't say that. I'm not saying that just to stroke your ego. It was, it was a pretty, it was a pretty eye-opening experience to go listen to all the ims and then. Find the two on the floor. That sounded amazing. And then now, not just listening to music. 'cause I, you know, we, we've all got music on our phone.

And then, because I do studio work, I've got mixes I've made and uh, that kind of thing. So I've got also non mastered audio that I can listen to, but to now have gone and used them in the field, both front of house. And it monitors. And the mixes come together way faster and way easier. 'cause I'm not like. Guessing, I don't have as many people on stage going, uh, I need this, or I need that, or This needs to change, or, that doesn't sound quite right. Like, it all kind of just sounds better to everybody. And it was, it was an easy, easy monitor, gig for sure, dude. 'cause it was great. So thanks for making a killer product at, at a price most people can afford,

[00:32:48] Tal Kocen: Yeah. I

[00:32:49] Sean Walker: They're not, four grand a piece.

[00:32:50] Tal Kocen: that is kind of the, the. The reason we exist, right? It's like we wanna make a better product. I mean, I think we make a better IEM than anybody else. Um, and that's, you know, it's, uh, it's all about spreading the word. Um, and that's kind of, that's the stage that we're at as a, as a company, I know we have a great product. Um, and it's just getting people to know and, and just like you, Sean, so many people that get our products. Like, we'll reach back out and be like, oh my God, I had no idea. Like, I've been on X brand for this many years and this brand I've tried. And it's like, like, what? Like what do you guys do? Like, why is it so different?

Why is it so good? Um, and that's why, you

know,

[00:33:36] Sean Walker: we haven't been bought and sold so many times to private equity

[00:33:39] Tal Kocen: there's that too. Yeah. It's 'cause we're poor and struggling now.

[00:33:44] Sean Walker: because we're still technicians trying to do the dang thing.

[00:33:47] Tal Kocen: Right.

[00:33:49] Dave Friesema: well, I will say that the six, go ahead, Andy.

[00:33:53] Andy Leviss: No, no, go ahead.

[00:33:55] Dave Friesema: I will say that the DMA six is by and large, it is by far the more popular one for guys like you. You know that for what you, for front of house folks, for life sound

folks. That's the model that people gravitate towards, you know, and, and it's funny, you know, you, you talk to Sean about. A lot of high frequencies. I think you're actually right that some of those that have been out there were designed either by people or for people that have been, that have been performers for such a long time, that there's significant high frequency loss and they're trying to restore it vias, um, which is, you know, hey, if that's the tool you need, that's the tool you need.

Um. It's just not the tool that everybody needs and it's certainly not the tool that a front of house person that has largely been taking care of their ears needs, they want something that is fundamentally a little bit more accurate and lets them dial in a mix easier than something that is either, you know, flat with a high boost or something that's massively V-shaped, you know, pre eqd it, it, I've always felt it's easier to start with something and eq it out of more accurate than to eq into more accurate

[00:35:00] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

[00:35:01] Dave Friesema: Most people don't know exactly where that accuracy lies. Um, without measurement equipment,

it's, it's challenging.

[00:35:07] Sean Walker: everybody drives differently, right? And that's the cool thing about our industry and our business is that. Look, ultimately, as long as it fricking sounds good and you're getting hired and nobody's getting hurt, like you're doing a great job, right? So we'll just take this all with a giant grain of salt and a shot tequila.

But personally, I like to, if I've got the option, build my mix and if I've got ears or headphones or whatever that sound good, make it sound great there. And then when that show file shows up on show day and something doesn't sound right, you're like. Not worried, not trying to figure out where to chase this.

You're like, cool, I'm gonna get to work on the pa 'cause I know the file is banging, right? Rather than just guessing and you're like, cool. Now I don't know, do I cut it outta the vocal 'cause the vocals muddy, or do I take it outta the pa or do I take it off the bus? Or what, where, where am I going or what am I doing?

You're not like chasing your fricking tail all the time. You're, you know where to go. You're like, Hey. This is smoking in my studio monitors. It is smoking in my ears. And now when I go put it up in the pa, it sounds like a hot mess. You're like, maybe I'm gonna un hot mess this PA that I got today. Rather than fucking up your mix, that has to also go to broadcast or to the records or to whatever else you gotta send this thing to.

Right? And. To be able to take some reference with you that has some semblance of isolation, even though you're still getting smashed at SPL. Like, I know it's not isolated, but like some semblance of at continuation. It sounds great. And now you can have, you know, 'cause most of us all have to do a billion things from front of house.

Sometimes you gotta do monitors, you often have to do records, you gotta, you know what I mean? You got other people that want to, you know, take feeds. This, that, the other thing. So. The better it sounds, the the better you can, you know, you could look to everybody and it's been super helpful to, to be able to do that rather than like, you know, guessing on several different things and then trying to figure out which way is which on what, because there's never enough time, right?

It's not like everybody gets to go through every system, make sure it's all right, you like, there's a lot more running and gunning than we'd like to admit. You know what I mean? So to have a constant reference with you is fricking awesome man. Especially that small.

[00:37:09] Tal Kocen: Right. Yeah. And I, and I think you, you make a good point 'cause you know, you, you trust these, you know these, you know that they're gonna be accurate and so you can, you can kind of. You can base the rest of your mix off of it, right? You can say, I'm gonna cut, you know, I need to cut 125 hertz outta this, whatever, bass, guitar, whatever. You know, that's the right frequency because you know where you're starting. Um. You know, oftentimes you get, uh, engineers that have, you know, maybe they have a, a, you know, staple X to say a, a higher base frequency. And so you get, you know, naturally the I Eems might have some muddy mids and then you end up cutting too much because you're trying to compensate for the engineers. Um, and that's kind of what I mean, you know, when I say. That we wanted to make a foundation for engineers to work off of so that they know what they're hearing is what's coming into, for the most part, what's coming into that console so they can make the right choice, uh, on a cut, you know,

or, or a boost.

But I prefer to cut.

[00:38:17] Sean Walker: I'll do both. I'm a booster man. I'll do

[00:38:19] Tal Kocen: a booster. Mm.

[00:38:20] Sean Walker: I'll,

cut where I need to cut, but I'm, gimme, gimme all of it. I'll, I'll throw the kitchen sink in that mug, bro.

[00:38:24] Tal Kocen: Have you guys ever have you guys, uh, I'm sure you guys have had some long, drawn out conversations about, uh, not how to mix, but mix techniques. Like I'm, I'm the kind of engineer that I've, I've always been in the mind that you can always cut what's there. You can't add what's not there. And so I try and cut EQ as much as possible.

[00:38:43] Sean Walker: Yeah, I,

[00:38:44] Andy Leviss: That's how I tend to be Sean. Sean tends to be, and I paid for that eq. I'm using everything I paid for.

[00:38:48] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

Up and down.

[00:38:50] Sean Walker: and minus 18 for a fucking reason. I'm using all of it, you know what I'm saying?

[00:38:53] Tal Kocen: Right.

[00:38:54] Sean Walker: Dude, I, you should have seen, I, I had this, we're gonna tangent one second here, but we, I had this

one mix I was doing in this Oh yeah, a hundred percent. I was doing it in the studio and, uh, I was blessed to be one of, you know, working on an actual SSL 40 60 4G plus. But the, the red knobs the top right. Just a, just take a ruler across it dimed all the fricking high shelves to get it bright enough, 'cause it all came in super tubby and

[00:39:18] Tal Kocen: Hmm.

[00:39:19] Sean Walker: And, uh. It, it at that time sounded great. That's not a standard, you know, mixed choice for me, but that's just what it needed at the time.

Basically, like the guy that owned this studio came in, he was like, what the fuck? I was like, ah, that's just what we had to do. And he was like, good Lord. I was like, well go, you know, plus, plus 15 for a reason.

[00:39:37] Tal Kocen: Right.

[00:39:37] Sean Walker: can, you can't get away with it in live sound as, as much. 'cause the, you know, it just, it reacts differently, right.

But, uh, but yeah, dude, I, I'll cut and boost and whatever you gotta do, man. You know what I mean? A lot like. My kick drums look like a giant smiley face. Same with the Toms. They're just baby kick drums. Add some low end, cut all that middle out that nobody likes anyway, and add some top in so it goes bang, bang, whack, whack.

Pow, pow.

[00:39:58] Tal Kocen: Yeah, I think I, I, I will agree with that. There, there are certain instruments where, yeah, like on pretty much every kick drum, I have a pretty standard EQ and it does include a boost. Um. So I guess I'm not all cut, but Yeah.

Yeah, I mean

[00:40:13] Sean Walker: son of a gun. Stop lying to

[00:40:14] Tal Kocen: I know. I'm

[00:40:15] Sean Walker: all cut.

[00:40:16] Tal Kocen: Not all cut.

[00:40:17] Andy Leviss: I don't know. He looks pretty cut.

[00:40:19] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

No. Yeah. Whoa.

[00:40:21] Sean Walker: Wow. You can sell that from the neck up, huh? Again. Damn it. Andy, we had this talk. Stop it. Oh, that's funny.

[00:40:33] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

[00:40:33] Andy Leviss: so veer, veering back on topic, I realized I was just skimming back through what we talked the first time we had you guys on, and one thing we didn't really get into, and now that you've got the sevens added to the line is what? What's the difference? Like what's the difference? What's the target for like the models in the line?

Like I know that's a question obviously, like the ideal for customs particularly is to like hook up with somebody who can get you a demo and let you listen for yourself and decide what works. But if folks are like, I'm crazy enough to trust these guys, Sean and Andy, if they say they're good, they're probably pretty good.

Which one should I look at? Like what's, or I know even like when I'm looking and trying to explain to folks like, well, this one's targeted for that. You wanna give us the quick, the quick rundown on the lineup, and then tell us where the new one falls in.

[00:41:19] Dave Friesema: You want me to take this one to?

[00:41:21] Tal Kocen: Yeah, why don't you take it?

[00:41:23] Dave Friesema: All right. So, you know, let's kinda look at the 4, 6, 7, and eight just to kind of bracket it in. 'cause those are all kind of, when the line starts going up a little bit. Um, but we, we can talk about the other ones too. We can get there, but, you know. The f basically, they all start from sort of the same spot, which is a modified diffuse field curve, right?

Where it ha, we've talked about it before, about the peak, you know, the 2.7 killer's peak in your ear and stuff like that. Um, you know, the four probably has the most accurate of the peaks. Basically, uh, you know, it, it's got the, the fullest mid-range peak. Um, that's going to appeal to like a vocalist or somebody that really wants to hear that mid-range.

[00:42:09] Tal Kocen: Yeah, it's something that cuts right with guitars.

[00:42:11] Dave Friesema: Yeah, it right. And it's got, you know, it's got a base boost as well, but it, you know, it's, it's kind of, it's probably the most top to bottom, like accurate from a true, like, measurable sense. Now, the problem is a lot of people don't like that much mid range. You know, they, they either call it, you know, it's just, it's just common.

People just want a little bit less, and that's

[00:42:34] Sean Walker: Ns tens have entered the chat.

[00:42:37] Dave Friesema: Yeah, hopefully not. I, we don't have an NS 10 model coming

yet. Um,

[00:42:45] Sean Walker: do it. Save us all. Don't do it bud.

[00:42:47] Dave Friesema: not,

not doing it. No. Yeah. DMDM and anyway, the dam 10. Yeah. Or

whatever. But anyways, so, damn

[00:42:58] Sean Walker: and signature model Damnit. 10.

[00:43:01] Andy Leviss: Look, just 'cause I work for Yamaha.

[00:43:04] Dave Friesema: Do they still make those?

[00:43:07] Tal Kocen: No,

[00:43:07] Andy Leviss: Nope.

[00:43:08] Sean Walker: No, I'm not afraid to heat decades.

[00:43:09] Tal Kocen: didn't they stop making 'em because of, uh, some chemical in there? That something with the driver,

but yeah, allegedly. I know the, uh, maybe Andy, you can, you can, uh. Confirm this. I, I know the tangent. Um, but the NS 10, I was always told that the NS 10 came from Yamaha had made some, it was kind of in like the days of the home stereo when they were making stereo kits.

And, and Yamaha made this thing and it failed miserably. And then some genius was like, let's sell these as studio monitors, uh, that people can. Use as like a reference. And that's sort of like how the NS 10 came about, came to be the standard for like home reference. Um,

[00:43:53] Dave Friesema: in every studio for 30

[00:43:55] Tal Kocen: still are right there with the aone.

[00:43:58] Sean Walker: Clare Mountain. Clare Mountain was the guy that did that. So they made bookshelf speakers. He was really tired of going studio to studio and have it all be different and broken JBLs everywhere. And so he took a pair of those and all of a sudden you make one hit with those and everybody has to have 'em.

[00:44:12] Tal Kocen: Right.

[00:44:13] Sean Walker: Clare Mountain was the godfather of

[00:44:14] Tal Kocen: it. Okay.

[00:44:15] Sean Walker: traveling

[00:44:15] Andy Leviss: gotta, we gotta get him on sometime if we can.

[00:44:18] Sean Walker: Dude, totally.

[00:44:19] Andy Leviss: Because like folks, folks know like, he's like the, the record mixing guy, but like, I don't know how many folks realize he's also the guy, like, you call for like so many live broadcast music mixes too. So like he does actually touch into our world.

[00:44:31] Tal Kocen: Hmm. I did not know that myself.

[00:44:33] Andy Leviss: if I,

[00:44:35] Dave Friesema: Nor did I

[00:44:35] Andy Leviss: was one of the four music mixers on, uh, on fire aid last year for the LA Fires. Yeah, like an a and b truck at each of the two venues. And he was one of the four. He does, I think he does the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame every year.

[00:44:47] Tal Kocen: Yeah. I think he lost his studio in the fires.

[00:44:49] Andy Leviss: He did. They, they recently reopened a new, yeah, they reopened a new temporary one, um,

just

[00:44:55] Sean Walker: his wife?

[00:44:57] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Like basically across from, across from the, the headquarters.

[00:45:00] Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah. His, because his wife owns her, is the president of Apogee, right?

[00:45:04] Andy Leviss: Yeah. She's, she's almost more of a badass than Bob is. That's, I, I wanna get the two of them on if we can.

[00:45:09] Sean Walker: Oh, shit. That'd be fun. Let's

do that Let's hang up with, hang up with Tall and Dave. Let's get them

[00:45:13] Andy Leviss: knows the Clear Mountains, send them my way.

[00:45:15] Sean Walker: Yeah, right.

[00:45:15] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

[00:45:17] Andy Leviss: It's,

[00:45:17] Sean Walker: I'm just kidding. You guys we're, where's Matthew? Yeah. That, that was, yeah, understanding. All right, Dave, back to what you were talking about

with fours and sixes. Sorry for the squi.

[00:45:24] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

[00:45:25] Dave Friesema: No, it's all good. Um, so the six is basically, so they use a different mid-range driver and frankly a, a different dual high and tweeter as well, but. The functional difference really is that they reduce the midrange a little bit in ways that people like a little bit. Um, it actually is a little bit less high end too.

Not a ton, but just a little bit. And I think people find them just a little bit, I don't know, more comfortable. It's a more comfortable shoe to wear.

[00:45:54] Sean Walker: Sound right.

[00:45:55] Dave Friesema: They just sound right, It's, it's how peop Yeah, it's, it's how you described it. It's like what people expect them to sound like. Not everybody wants absolute, you know, kind of fundamental accuracy, which frankly the four is a base boots, so you can't say it's exactly accurate, but it, you know, it's.

It's accurate with a boost. The six is a little bit more balanced towards tiny bit less mids, which can also help because not everybody has that exact same peak at 2.7 kilohertz. Some people are a little bit up, a little bit down, and this kind of averages that out a little bit naturally. Um, the eight, I'm gonna come back to the seven, but the eight is fundamentally very similar to the six, except that it uses a quad base driver, which basically gives, you know, it's a series parallel configuration. It gives more output. Um, actually I've called parallel series, but whatever, it doesn't matter. But it's, it, it basically is a six with more base output. It's probably more than you need if you are mixing from front of house that, you know, it takes it a little bit away from accuracy. So you may not want that, you know, we made it because some people really, really like base.

We find,

[00:47:01] Andy Leviss: They're real fun to listen to.

[00:47:04] Sean Walker: Right. Totally.

[00:47:04] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

[00:47:05] Dave Friesema: fun. They're really good. I mean, they sound good. They're fun. They're, the corner is still low, like we talked about last time. But what we found is that when it came to drum, some drummers, some percussionists, some bass players, the corner was too low. Effectively. So what we did was we developed the seven and, and the seven basically has a shit ton of base output and it's got a higher corner. It's still, we try to keep it outta that muddy area. You know, it's kind of that fine balance of. Not muddy, but definitely more action going on between 103 hundred hertz. You know, that, you know, we had tried to take out, because that can be really muddy on stage, but I think a lot of drummers and bass players felt like it took a little bit of a tactile feel away for them. So we brought it back. It uses the same mid-range driver as the four actually, because we wanted, you know, it, it just balances a little bit better in there.

Um. So, but it uses the same tweeter as the six and the eight. So it, it's just, it's kind of balanced a little bit more for those stage performers. I typically wouldn't recommend it for a front of house engineer.

I would tell them, save the money, buy a six. It's probably a better fit for you. Um, you know, different people listen differently obviously, so, you know, we're happy with whatever people choose. But, you know, I, I think when you're talking about who they're for, um. The seven is a little bit better for performers, particularly those types of performers.

I would, I wouldn't recommend the seven for a vocalist either, and probably not for a guitar player. You know, I think a guitar player will be happy with a four or a six, um, or maybe an eight. I don't know. When the corner is that low, you can get away with, with the amplitude of the base boost on the eight. Um, but once that corner starts creeping up, it, it does kind of. You know, it, it does affect things in a way that, again, bass players, percussionists drummers like, but not necessarily recommended for mixing.

[00:49:10] Sean Walker: And when he was talking about the corner frequency, you can visualize that like the tilt when we're talking about systems tuning, like where that, where that. For us in live sound, where the sub will first start. How, how high up in that frequency range do they start? What does that look like and how does that affect the rest of everything?

Right Dave? So that like,

you know, you're, it's not just how much base, but how far up into the audio spectrum is that base coming up to change the tonality of things in the ears and, and where? Right. So it's gonna change what the bottom of the snare drummer, the bottom of the guitars sound like. Not just how much bass output there is, but it will fundamentally change. What different things sound like. I will say that the six that we, that I've got is in no way, shape, or form lacking for base output. It, it is, it's a absolutely full sounding, incredible sounding thing. What we're talking about or what, what Dave's talking about now with the seven and the eight is. A, a boost, a more tilt than, than normal.

Right? So when you got people that are like, I just need it to, to crush in my ears on, on the low frequencies, those are the people that are gonna want a seven or an eight, right?

[00:50:20] Dave Friesema: Y Yeah. So specifically the corner is if you take the flat area of the frequency response, 'cause it's not a straight tilt, you know, there is a flat, uh, if you go from the flat, the. The corner frequency is the three DB up point, and basically that tells you where it's starting to slope. So in the case of, you know, like the seven or the eight, you know, the eight's, you know, closer to more a hundred hertz are a little bit lower, and the the seven is higher than that.

So even if the, even if the amplitude is the same at say 20 hertz, you know, it, it's where the ramp starts

that colors the frequency differently. To your

point, Sean.

[00:50:58] Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah. Cool dude, that's awesome. I'm cool. I'm stoked that you guys are getting a, you know, good depth of product range going and got some, uh, the earplugs. That's killer dude. How awesome

[00:51:10] Tal Kocen: growth.

[00:51:10] Sean Walker: Are the, are the filters, uh, excuse me if you've covered this already, but are the filters between. The earplugs and the I Eems interchangeable, or are those two different sets of filters that are not interchangeable,

[00:51:22] Andy Leviss: That's, that's what they were saying. They're using the other brand and the metal ones. 'cause they're, they're less accurate, but they're smaller. I

[00:51:27] Tal Kocen: Yeah, the problem

[00:51:28] Andy Leviss: the quiz right.

[00:51:28] Dave Friesema: they're

smaller

[00:51:30] Tal Kocen: the emo ones are pretty big, and

you know how big an

IM

[00:51:33] Sean Walker: yeah. Size matters. I got you. Lots

[00:51:35] Tal Kocen: It's, it's just,

yeah.

[00:51:36] Andy Leviss: sometimes smaller

[00:51:37] Dave Friesema: in ims.

[00:51:38] Sean Walker: Never, never.

[00:51:39] Dave Friesema: Stick with that, Andy.

[00:51:41] Sean Walker: Yeah,

right. Totally.

[00:51:42] Andy Leviss: I, so I used to, I used to make, uh,

[00:51:44] Sean Walker: your wife that.

[00:51:45] Andy Leviss: I used to make mini like, chain hoist pickles, like built into the, the

[00:51:49] Sean Walker: Stop, stop, stop. Well, we're making bad jokes. Do not go to mini pickles, bud.

Sorry.

[00:51:53] Andy Leviss: I had a line of.

[00:51:55] Sean Walker: Send an apology to the wife

[00:51:56] Dave Friesema: HR showed up yet?

[00:51:57] Sean Walker: Yeah.

[00:51:58] Andy Leviss: I, I, I had a line of swag. I had a line of smaller is better swag.

[00:52:05] Sean Walker: Oh my God. All right. Train derailed. I just got us canceled. Sorry everybody. It was been nice knowing you.

[00:52:10] Tal Kocen: so we, uh, uh, I'll change the subject. Um, you know, something else we're also, uh, doing now is universals. Um,

now not universals in the sense of, uh, you know, manufacturing shells, you know, overseas, like stamping 'em out. Um, this is more custom universal, so, uh, you can still customize your IMS however you want.

Only you'll use 'em with a tip. Um, we're also gonna have some, uh, ready made models on the site as well that people can buy.

So if they don't want. Custom or they don't have time for custom. Right. Um, things like backups. Maybe somebody wants a universal backup or maybe an engineer doesn't want to carry around a pair of se two fifteens everywhere because they're crap.

Sorry. Sure. Um, maybe can edit that out. Um, but, but they want to carry something that's good. Right. Maybe they have a pair of sixes and they want to carry universal pair of sixes. So if somebody's go down,

uh, they have an alternative,

[00:53:14] Andy Leviss: That's, awesome.

[00:53:15] Tal Kocen: because, uh, you know, something that, that we hear all the time is, you know, bands that are, this is why we, why we prioritize customer support, uh, sometimes over a new build.

Because when somebody's on the road and they smash their IEM or something happens, uh, maybe they have an intermittent connector, who knows, right? Things go bad. Um, you know, some brands who will remain unnamed. Uh, can't fix anything within six months to save their life. Um, and you know, it's something that if you're on the road and your tour is only six weeks, you break an IEM at the beginning, you know, what do you use?

Right? And so, um. A universal, you know, DMA six, it kind of fits the bill, right? Uh, and so that's something that, that's gonna be, uh, gonna be rolling out, uh,

[00:54:11] Andy Leviss: Oh, that's awesome.

[00:54:11] Tal Kocen: near future for all those who wanna, and it, it allows you to have a custom without the friction of getting impressions, having to send them in, you know, turnaround times faster because, you know, it's a, it's a, you know, not ready made, but it's something

[00:54:27] Andy Leviss: You, you've already got the, the, the fab ready for it.

[00:54:30] Tal Kocen: Right.

Um, so yeah, I'm, I'm pretty excited

[00:54:34] Dave Friesema: there are some people sorry to, uh,

frankly, there's some people that just prefer universals. I mean,

[00:54:40] Sean Walker: Sure.

[00:54:41] Dave Friesema: you know, back in our old life we used to sell 'em to like. Bands like Muse, huge, huge bands that are on these big tours. They just didn't like customs, you know? So I, I think U2 was like that for a while too, so it's like, you know, sometimes folks just like universal, so having more options is always nice.

[00:54:58] Tal Kocen: Yeah,

[00:54:59] Sean Walker: enough. Dude, muse is a ripping band. Those guys are so good. Live. Holy cow.

[00:55:03] Dave Friesema: Yeah, they

[00:55:03] Sean Walker: Have you gotten to see him live? Dude, they're so good. I didn't know three dudes could make that much noise.

[00:55:07] Tal Kocen: right. I haven't seen him live.

[00:55:09] Sean Walker: So good. So good. Well, we're coming up to an hour here. Before we bore everybody to tears, is there anything else we need to ask you about or didn't ask you about?

Or where are we going to dinner? Where we come hang out? Like what's up

[00:55:19] Tal Kocen: so. I

mean, I'm gonna be, so I think, uh, this, well, I guess it'll be passed by then, but there is a, a

[00:55:24] Andy Leviss: no, we're, we're gonna be, we're gonna be out in time. That's, I was gonna say, make sure you plug that.

[00:55:28] Tal Kocen: yeah. So, uh, can Jam, which is a big, uh, headphone show, uh, connected to a big headphone form. It's more audio file based. Uh, but there's a lot of cool stuff there. We're gonna be there.

Dark Matter will be there. Uh, selling I Eems doing impressions. Um, it's a pretty cool show, uh, even if you're not in that space, just 'cause you know, there's some, there's some pretty amazing. Headphones out there and amplifiers and things that, uh, aren't all snake oil. Um, you know, we're not talking $10,000 cables, like we're talking, you know, tube amplifiers for headphones.

Like some really cool stuff.

[00:56:06] Andy Leviss: think I saw Sennheiser ISS gonna be there.

[00:56:08] Tal Kocen: yeah, that's, uh, March 7th and eighth,

uh, which is this coming

[00:56:12] Andy Leviss: Saturday and Sunday. So this episode will be out like Thursday or Friday. So if you're in that early chunk that listens to this, go see, uh, chance you might run into me there. One of the days. I'm gonna try and get in.

[00:56:23] Tal Kocen: New York City at the Marriott Marquee Hotel.

[00:56:26] Sean Walker: Yeah, that's sweet. All right, cool.

[00:56:27] Andy Leviss: Yeah. Right in Times

[00:56:28] Tal Kocen: yeah, come visit us. We'll, uh, you know, we'll be doing our thing, doing our demos, or come listen to the DMA six, seven, the eight. Um,

yeah,

[00:56:38] Sean Walker: here, the six. It's stunning.

[00:56:39] Tal Kocen: yeah. I think, uh, I don't know, do you guys wanna, you know, give a, um, maybe Dave we should give them a discount to, uh,

give out to their

[00:56:48] Andy Leviss: we had, the code you did on the Discord that just ran out, so

[00:56:51] Tal Kocen: Okay. What do

[00:56:52] Dave Friesema: Yeah.

we, we can do another 15% code

just to, yeah.

we should. For the,

for the folks

[00:56:57] Sean Walker: That's awesome dude. People are gonna love that.

[00:56:59] Dave Friesema: I mean

we the Discord folks have been.

[00:57:03] Tal Kocen: What are we calling it? What do you guys wanna call it? What's, what's the code? What's the code?

[00:57:10] Sean Walker: S two N 15? I don't know. I think

[00:57:12] Tal Kocen: boring. That's

[00:57:14] Sean Walker: that I can think of is, I'm already,

I'm already, I got us canceled already. I'm not going to

[00:57:18] Dave Friesema: 10, 15%.

[00:57:19] Tal Kocen: 10 15?

[00:57:21] Sean Walker: Right. Totally.

[00:57:25] Dave Friesema: So, Andy, I can't believe we made it almost an hour without talking about coffee.

[00:57:29] Andy Leviss: You know,

[00:57:30] Sean Walker: do it. Don't do it.

[00:57:31] Andy Leviss: the next episode

[00:57:32] Sean Walker: don't do it.

[00:57:33] Andy Leviss: and I hit it.

'cause you know I'm good on big coffee, but you also, this is what I'm drinking right

[00:57:38] Tal Kocen: Uh.

[00:57:39] Sean Walker: his dunking going.

[00:57:40] Andy Leviss: my

[00:57:40] Sean Walker: He's got

[00:57:41] Tal Kocen: a, uh, I just got a

coffee

[00:57:42] Andy Leviss: convenience.

[00:57:44] Tal Kocen: I just started

roasting my own coffee.

[00:57:46] Sean Walker: Nice dude. We've been roasting Andy for

[00:57:47] Tal Kocen: a cheap thing. Yeah, yeah.

[00:57:49] Sean Walker: somebody else in there.

[00:57:50] Tal Kocen: Hey, so, but,

[00:57:53] Sean Walker: All right, well thank

[00:57:54] Tal Kocen: I have to do a, a, a show on, uh, roasting coffee,

[00:57:57] Sean Walker: Yeah,

dude.

[00:57:58] Andy Leviss: of dark matter.

[00:57:59] Tal Kocen: different

kind of dark matter.

[00:58:00] Sean Walker: totally. Fellas, thank you so much for coming and hanging out for the hour and chatting about the new stuff. I'm stoked, man. That, that's gonna be great.

Thanks for giving

[00:58:07] Dave Friesema: thanks for having

[00:58:08] Sean Walker: That's killer. They're going to super appreciate

[00:58:10] Tal Kocen: so it is

S two N 15.

[00:58:13] Sean Walker: There you go.

[00:58:13] Tal Kocen: it guys.

[00:58:14] Andy Leviss: Awesome, and we'll put that in the

[00:58:15] Sean Walker: Matter site.

You get some, save some dough, y'all.

[00:58:17] Tal Kocen: Yeah.

[00:58:18] Sean Walker: All right, well thank you to Alan Heath and RCF for letting us Yap about audio and stuff for the next week. That's the pod y'all.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green