I get my ears fitted for ear protection every two years. The company also does in ear monitors. For the life of me, I can't think of the name. I'll find it somewhere.

A regular audiologist can do this for you as well.

I have a pair of JH13 which is a fairly neutral transducer, but I highly recommend the Westone 4 for those that don't wish to get their ear fitted. Its a 4 driver transducer and it is fairly neutral. It's got a slight roll off on the top end, but I've never noticed it to be much of a compromise.

For a while I detested using universals but what I found was that the manufactures rarely pre-install the monitors with the optimal eartip. For instance, I had the Westone 4 for several weeks and I could not get anything below 60Hz with them until I realized that there were larger foam tips than the ones preinstalled on the nozzles. If you take a look here, http://www.headphones.com/store/i/is.aspx?path=/shared/images/products/Westone/WESTONE%204-2.jpg&lr=t&bw=750&w=750&bh=525&h=525 its interesting to not the assortment of tips, however I've spoken with an engineer at Westone recently and he agrees that the tips preferable for their products are the longer foam tips.

I'm very comfortable with the Mackie HR824, although I know they are not god's gift, but I find that the Westone 4 is tweaked similarly and I have been using them a bit more than my JH13. The JH13 feels sucked out in the mids a little while the W4 have a bit more bloom.

Etymotic Research and Westone (who make Etymotics) are the two biggest players for custom fit IEM and earpro and have been at it the longest. The US Military issued ER15's to me and to other Marines in high SPL environment jobs. Current earpro for USMC comes from lots of places like Surefire etc but for the bandsmen Etymotic/Westone is still the best in my opinion. Nearly any audiologist in your neighborhood ought to be able to make the custom molds and there are kits one can do at home as well.

I never found the etys to be really comfortable. I have a custom fit westone, the es5 but it isn't really tweaked sonically for a sound engineer, it's extremely rolled off.

The irony is that Westone manufactures all of Etymotics products for them.

Thats funny, I didn't know that until your post:) Maybe they intentionally make the ergonomics worse since it doesn't boast their name LOL :D

audiokid, post: 388115 wrote: I feel like I'm listening to a vacuum salesman that has the pitch memorized. But hey, well done to him and a cool product. I never stop paying attention to what people are listing with.

Ultimate Ears Customize Part2

And from a professional POV:

I find these too expensive. I just use Hi fidelity earplugs from etymotic.