Review: Ear Monitors Australia Custom HD Triple Driver
The debate is over – in-ear monitors are here to stay.
28 October 2011
Review: Andy Stewart
This is the third set of moulded in-ear monitors I’ve had custom made by the guys at Ear Monitors Australia. The HD Triple Driver System – as this review model is known – is effectively an update to the Triple Driver system I reviewed back in Issue 53, and represents almost a decade’s worth of development work.
It goes without saying then that the new model is the culmination of extensive research by EMA. The new HD Triple Driver in-ears are highly refined, tonally balanced and extremely well fitting systems that produce balanced tone right across the frequency spectrum – 20Hz to 20kHz (a world first for in-ears they say). But to a significant extent this ‘research’ hasn’t just involved countless hours updating and honing the technology back in the lab – which EMA is interestingly quite secretive about – it’s also been about the genuine hands-on (literally) relationship between EMA and its customers. One-on-one feedback from end-users is eagerly sought by the EMA team – and is readily forthcoming once the large impression-taking syringe appears – and this information is quickly ploughed back into the ongoing development and refinement of the products, which ultimately benefits everyone. Like no other product I can think of in the pro-audio world, the work of producing custom in-ear monitors is a labour of love that involves a close working relationship with each and every user. Visiting performers at odd hours, and often with time being crucially of the essence, is par for the course with these guys: “I can’t go on stage without my in-ears man, and we’re on in four hours!” is a call Tim and Anthony Plumb of EMA are all too familiar with. To many acts across Australia, EMA has almost become an extension of the production crew.
GOOD MONITORING
I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: being able to hear yourself on stage is about as fundamental as live performance gets. Good monitoring (and confidence in the person managing it) is a liberating experience that cannot be overstated, let alone overlooked. In fact, from the point of view of some performers, foldback is more important than the front-of-house sound. Bad monitoring, meanwhile, has the potential to savagely undermine a show by sapping the confidence of those on stage, rendering everything else that’s good about the production – the PA or the lighting etc – impotent and futile. The great advantage of IEM systems is that they work consistently well regardless of the stage environment, travel for free in your hand luggage, and take much of the risk associated with unfamiliar and/or dysfunctional foldback systems out of the performance equation.
TRIPLE THREAT
The new EMA HD Custom Triple Driver IEM system – which comprises the moulded drivers and some handy extras (that are listed in the box item below) – offers a full, natural and ‘mature’ sound. This has mainly been achieved thanks to several significant advancements in sealed speaker miniaturisation technology that was previously unavailable in the marketplace. Achieving ‘full bandwidth’ sound reproduction from a sealed unit – conventional speakers require an air intake source from somewhere, like a car’s motor; these don’t – is a big step forward for EMA. Somewhat frustratingly however, the company is quite secretive about how it has achieved such a natural 20Hz to 20kHz response. So much so that my so-called ‘clear’ (i.e., uncoloured – you can choose any colour) HD Customs had a smokey white paint mixed through the moulds to conceal the internal drivers, making my new in-ears look uncannily like bird poop – not a very flattering on-stage look I might say. [Tim, you should have advised me to run with black!] The other improvement over my previous Triple Drivers is that the new HD in-ears are now made to fit a little tighter in the ear, making the sound of these monitors quite superb. Ironically, this snug fit combined with the wider bandwidth response makes you feel less cut off from the outside world, not more so. If your on-stage in-ear mix includes crowd ambience for instance, this can be replicated more naturally and therefore sound less artificial. (There are also passive and active ‘talk though’ options available for those who tend to feel claustrophobic wearing IEMs.)
No matter how loud you drive them – and they can go dangerously loud if you’re not extremely careful about how you manage audio signals feeding into them – and regardless of what instrument you’re playing, these HD in-ears pack a punch. The significant change, however, is not just that they’re even louder than before, or even that the new ‘bird poop’ model makes the old one look out-of-date. The important difference is that the tone of this latest version is fuller, particularly below about 200Hz and above 10kHz. If you’re a singer, especially if you’re one who’s inclined to open your mouth wide, the beauty of these new ‘snug fitting’ customs is that they prevent the seal being compromised by the movement of your jaw, which often generates distracting swishing or swirling sounds and a loss of bass response. This has improved my experience of wearing custom in-ears significantly, and given me far greater confidence in the whole concept of IEMs than I’ve had before. No longer am I concerned that the tone will suddenly become too thin or harsh the moment the seal is broken.
Of course, given this fuller sound, and particularly with a decent foldback system behind them, the tone of these HD Triple Drivers can now be essentially anything you want it to be, particularly live. To some degree the ‘flat’ response of the HD Triples is less important live than the fact that they can now reproduce any tone you want: loud and smooth, bassy and mellow, hard and cutting – whatever you require. They’re essentially a blank canvas for you and your foldback engineer to manipulate. Saying that, without EQ the tonal balance of these in-ears is very reassuring. They’re capable of recreating a very big and impressive soundstage on a scale befitting the physical surrounds of a big stage environment – psychologically it makes no sense, on a big stage in particular, for your in-ear monitor mix to sound small, constricted and dominated by midrange.
NEED TO KNOW
Ear Monitors Australia Custom HD Triple Driver
In-Ear Monitors
WEARING THEM IN… & OUT
It goes without saying that in-ears are an acquired taste live, and even among those lucky enough to be in the position to choose their on-stage monitoring format, many are still sceptical of the technology. Meanwhile, there’s hardly an engineer left on the planet who wouldn’t agree that in-ears ultimately benefit a live production in several respects: they clean up the stage spill, they virtually eliminate feedback, they increase on-stage real estate, they reduce the production costs… if you’re touring they can even make the truck smaller! Musicians can monitor at any level they want, loud or soft, rather than simply compete with the loudest player on stage, and in some situations this can lead to vastly reduced on-stage SPLs for both the performers and stage crew. These benefits also impact hugely at front of house. FOH engineers can mix the sound for an audience without being compromised by spill from out-of-control on-stage volumes. But all of this means nothing of course if the musicians aren’t comfortable wearing them.
But that’s not all in-ears do. If you’re a musician that plays live, chances are you’re also in the studio recording at some point and in this environment in-ears work brilliantly. Wherever standard headphones are used, custom in-ears (or for that matter ‘generics’) can act as a perfectly viable replacement. As with on-stage performance, the benefits of in-ears in the studio are several: they’re light, inconspicuous and less cumbersome than headphones or wedges, they reduce spill and virtually eradicate feedback – yes, you can get feedback in the studio too, I assure you. (Just like a conventional foldback wedge, headphones can sometimes cause feedback when they’re in close proximity to a mic – during vocal tracking etc.) General spill from click tracks and other instruments is also mitigated by virtue of the headphones being in your ears not on them. They’re great for drummers too, who can often accidentally clock bulky headphones with a stick at particularly ‘expressive’ moments of a take. Personally, I use in-ear monitors everywhere now: on stage, in the studio, behind the drumkit, tracking vocals… even when I’m mixing and mastering.
FAMILIARITY BREEDS CONTENT
Familiarity with them is the key. Once you’re over the hump of feeling self-conscious about wearing them and used to the essential differences that exist between in-ears and wedges (or for that matter headphones), using them in different situations ultimately makes you feel more comfortable wearing them everywhere. By that I mean: the more you wear them the more natural wearing them seems. Once you’re in that zone you’re free to carry your own personalised monitoring system with you everywhere you go, in your pocket no less. Try doing that with a wedge! Live performances feel less alienating and unpredictable, recording sessions feel more comfortable and less fatiguing and the two situations start to feel more like one another. From where I stand that’s a good thing.
DRIVING BLIND
The main problem with expensive custom in-ear monitors like the EMA HD Triple Drivers remains the fact that they’re impossible to test drive, which makes outlaying significant wads of cash for a pair all the more difficult. As I probably mentioned the last time I reviewed EMA custom in-ears, I wouldn’t advise lashing out on a pair until you’ve at least trialled ‘generics’ for a while and gotten familiar with the idea of performing live with something shoved in your ears. Some find the physical reality of monitoring this way completely incompatible with stage performance. Discovering that in-ears aren’t for you after you’ve spent thousands on a pair that only you can wear is just plain silly. You can’t on-sell them later… unless you have an identical twin, I guess. Having said that, generics don’t offer quite the same experience as custom-moulded in-ears, and may turn some people off the idea prematurely. But as a general rule: if you hate wearing generics, you probably won’t feel much different about customs.
What I can say with assurity is that the EMA HD Triple Drivers sound amazing, fit snugly without feeling tight or causing fatigue, and can reproduce a wide bandwidth of audio signals. No matter what instrument you play – whether it’s drums, bass guitar or Bach trumpet, these IEMs will ably represent your instrument. Personally – and I keep saying that because it’s a very personal experience – I much prefer these EMA HD Triple Driver in-ears to my ‘reference headphones’ nowadays. To me, the in-ear experience is far more satisfying and accurate than conventional headphone monitoring. The left/right balance, spatialisation and depth perception of mixes is unmatched and makes placing sounds in three-dimensional space much easier to finesse. Much of the guesswork is taken out of it; minute details relating to delay and reverb setting and the like are clearer, and generally speaking, things panned hard and mixed low are more audible. Now that EMA’s new Triple Driver IEMs offer such a broad frequency response, I can’t resist using them everywhere. I’m a convert, no question.
