Off Ear Headphones, Inspired by the Valve Index

thingiverse

I made these because I cannot stand anything on or in my ears, I have tried an assortment of earbuds and headphones over the years, on the ear, over the ear, bone conductive, and even shoulder speakers. I did not like something about them all, so I set out out to make my own off the ear headphones inspired by the speakers built into the Valve index and Valve's prototype hummingbird headphones that they made while developing the index. This is currently in a usable state, I use mine daily, but there are still some issues. The screws work their way loose and parts break occasionally. I intend to fully resigned most or all of it at some point. As this is something that I use daily, expect periodic updates. At some point I intend to make an lighter version of these with the original index speakers and a super light version using Koss Porta Pro drivers. They would not sound as good as these, but the lower weight would make them more comfortable and the Porta Pro version would not need the external amp. If the Porta Pro based one works out well I will probably also make a wireless one at some point. Features:The primary feature with these things is that they do not have to touch your ears at all, they work well at about 1-0.5 inch from your ear, while still producing surprisingly decent bass with excellent mids and highs. With the right EQ. My newest update has been an adjustable headband, it should fit most adults I think. My first several iterations of it broke constantly, but the latest version is holding up very well, I have also switched to printing with PLA+. This version has 2 3.5 mm jacks on each speaker so that audio can be provided from either side. Each speaker is mounted on adjustable arms that give you a lot of freedom to position the speakers just where you want them. At the moment I am using a piece of elastic clamped behind the head supports as padding and neoprene on the head supports. I will probably add in some sort of optional elastic clamp in a future update, but this works fine. It would probably be possible to improve the comfort by ripping some real headphone padding off of some old headphones and gluing it on them.Audio Notes:These headphones require a custom EQ using Equalizer APO on your PC to get decent sound, so they basically will only work with a PC unless you run them through some sort of external dsp such as a hifi berry or similar. The default sound signature of these drivers is not very good, but the BMR drivers respond extremely well to EQ. I have included what I consider to be the best of the EQs that I made with my calibrated mic. You can import the eq file into EqualizerAPO(https://sourceforge.net/projects/equalizerapo/) or Peace UI(https://sourceforge.net/projects/peace-equalizer-apo-extension/) for EqualizerAPO. I also included the baseline data in case you want to make your own EQ with REW (https://www.roomeqwizard.com/). Even if you do not like my EQ it is highly recommended that you start with it and tweek it to you liking a bit in equalizer AP or make your own using REW and the provided data file. It is near impossible to get good results without a baseline reading from a calibrated mic. Note that my EQ is made for the Douk U3 amp but It should still be close enough on other amps to correct by ear.These speaker used in this project will require a headphone DAC to power them, they will not sound good running off of the built in audio from most devices. They need a good bit of power about 500mA to achive their max EQ potential. I am currently using an inexpensive little $42 DAC the Douk Audio U3 Headphone Amp: https://www.amazon.com/Douk-Audio-Headphone-Amplifier-Desktop/dp/B08C2MKBGN/ref=sr_1_3_pp?crid=2UYCCZ93PQAH0&keywords=douk%2Baudio&qid=1703652500&sprefix=douk%2Caps%2C222&sr=8-3&th=1The Douk U3 has a few flaws, it has noticeable amp noise over about half volume and its response is not completely flat, it has a peek at around 180hz, but as it is 1300mA I do not have to turn it up above half and the peek can be easily corrected with EQ. An impressively good little amp for the price, I tried the $170 Topping L50 for a bit then sent it back, it had a flatter response and about 3 times the power, but Distortion and sound quality was about the same at the power levels that these headphones need. At least to my ears and within the capacity of my basic calibrated mic to test there was very little difference.To connect the amp to my PC I use the $29 Behringer U-Control UCA222 USB Audio Interface. The audio interface built into most PC's motherboards kind of suck so I recommend one of these: https://www.amazon.com/Behringer-U-Control-UCA222-Ultra-Low-Interface/dp/B0023BYDHK/ref=sr_1_5?crid=387P6C0IZFT0D&keywords=behringer+usb&qid=1707039686&sprefix=barringer+usb+%2Caps%2C139&sr=8-5Printing Notes:I highly recommend printing these parts with something better then basic PLA I did my first prints in basic PLA and many of them broke pretty quickly it just cannot handle daily use under stress. PLA+ is doing much better, ABS would probably be best. I recommend 100% infill on all of the parts. They are all under a decent bit of stress and need maximum strength.All of the parts except for the headband connector need to be flipped in Cura or whatever slicer you use to print the other sideParts you will need:2 Tectonic TEBM36S05 BMR speakers drivers, I got mine from parts express for $10 each at the time. Here is a link: https://www.parts-express.com/Tectonic-TEBM36S05-4-1-1-2-Square-BMR-Full-Range-Speaker-4-Ohm-297-2166?quantity=30008 Small M2 bolts with nuts around 8-12mm long, this is what I used: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0C3VQ5N5W/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=116 M3 bolts between 12-16mm long. I do not really have a recommendation here the assorted bolt set that I got from the DYWISHKEY brand on Amazon had bad M2 bolts in it, so I would not recommend that brand. Although the larger bolts in the set where fine.Short audio cable to connect both sides together, I made my own, but this one should work: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FYWN9H0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=13.5mm audio jacks. This is what I used, be careful the first time you plug something into them, the first time is really stiff and they break them out of whatever they are mounted on: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01C3RFHDC/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1Small stranded wire, anything around 18-26 gauge should work.Small shrink wrap that will fit the wires.Something to use for padding the headphone and or some elastic. I included the .blend file if anyone wants to make modifications.