Comply Foam 400 Series Ear Tips for Bose

Comfort and isolation; virtually every earphone review mentions them. But Comfort and isolation are for the most part dependent on the ear-tips, rather than the headset itself. Generally, we mess around with the stock ear-tips until we find one we can put up with. Sticking things TIGHTLY into your ears is not exceptionally comfortable. So we usually end up with a compromise between an ear-tip size that does not make our ear canals BURN too much while also giving a fair degree of isolation from outside noise. But there's more to proper ISOLATION than shutting out distracting outside noise. A LEAKY SEAL WITHIN THE EAR CANAL WILL ALWAYS COMPROMISE AN IN-EAR MONITOR'S BASS RESPONSE AND DYNAMICS. Without a proper seal, other aspects of the headset's response will also suffer, though perhaps to a lesser extent. So how do you get the phones sealed properly within your ear canal without that uncomfortable "burn"? You upgrade to whichever ear-tips Comply recommends for your particular phone. (One size does not fit all. My NuForce NE-700x phones take the 200s, my HiFiMan Re-Zeros the 400s.) Use your stock ear-tips as a guideline for ordering: if the medium sized ear-tip seem most comfortable order a medium size from Comply, etc. Also, I suggest you ignore the manufacturer's recommendation to compress the Comply tips prior to insertion. When I do that they expand unevenly resulting in the unwanted "burn". Instead, do this: ==> Loop your wires over your ears leaving a little slack and NUDGE the Comply ear-tips into one ear first, then the other (just enough for them to get a grip). ==> Without music playing, check to make sure the phones are sealed. Do this by breathing slowly in and out through your nose. If your breathing sounds amplified, good. If not push them in just a bit further. ==> Now check to see if the ear-tips are sealed evenly. This is done by popping your fingers alternately next to your right ear and left to see if the attenuation is equal. Again, adjust as needed. This process gets the Comply tips properly sealed into your ear-canals most comfortably. You will have much better bass response and dynamics, among other more subtle benefits. You'll have pretty good isolation too. Pushing the ear-pieces in more deeply will give even better isolation if that's what you are after. The TX series comply ear-tips also offer an acoustically transparent screen to protect your phones from being clogged with earwax. Wax can ruin a phone, which is why a lot of models come with replaceable screens for their drivers. The TX series ear-pieces are a safe-guard against this. If your are compulsive about cleaning your ears daily and checking you phones after each use you probably don't need them. Otherwise the few extra bucks are probably well spent.