For those interested in the ASI 3DME IEM’s, attached is their response on their utilization by audiophiles.
Thank you for contacting us! We also received your comments from Grand Piano Passion. We greatly appreciate your interest in 3DME and hope the information provided to me by our design engineer proves to be helpful.
As Heather Nancy indicated, the 3DME was designed primarily with the performing musician in mind, with very high fidelity audio reproduction and very wide dynamic range capability. While this dynamic range capability is greater than would be needed in a home listening environment, there is nothing that precludes the product’s use in that use scenario. As you have noted, even high quality hearing aids tend not to do well with music, as they are typically optimized for speech frequencies and characteristics, and with limited dynamic range handling.
We expended considerable effort in making the ambience reproduction as natural and neutral as possible. The tiny MEMS microphones inherently have a very flat frequency response, with some low frequency rolloff and high frequency boost, which we do equalize out. But the net response through the system to the user’s eardrum is decidedly not “flat” as conventionally measured and would sound very unnatural if it were. That response needs to take into account the placement of the microphone in the earpiece and the ear, but also very significantly, the blockage of the natural ear canal resonance by the sealed earpiece. All this is not easily describable in a conventional frequency response plot. But your ears will reveal it.
Tapping into the audiophile market does seem to be a natural direction: natural reproduction with the ability to compensate for individual hearing issues. In addition to loudspeaker reproduction, the excellent sound quality is also available for direct earphone listening. A cable adaptor is necessary to take the headphone or line output of a preamp into the 3.5mm Monitor In jack on the side of the unit. While there are many very high quality headphones out there, the 3DME can match up to the best of them, but with the added benefit of its sound adjustment capabilities.
At present, we are still concentrating on our expanding live musician market and secondarily the concert attendee, but we would be well-advised to be looking seriously into the audiophile market. Modifications to the frequency equalization aspects could also be considered, although this would need to be balanced with the need to keep things intuitively interpretable.
As a recommendation, you can purchase 3DME and try it for 30-days. If after 30-days you determine it does not meet your needs, you can return it for a refund, as outlined here. Thank you again for your input and interest in 3DME!
