Not many people are in the market for $1,000 custom-molded earphones. But for audio enthusiasts in the age of the iPod and portable media, excellent earphones are every bit as important as a solid home stereo system. If you're more likely to spend that kind of money on audio gear than a television, Altec Lansing's A3 Custom Triple Driver Earphone ($999.95 direct) may be just what you're looking for. Unlike many custom-molded pairs, like the excellent JH Audio JH16 Pro ($1,149, 5 stars), the A3's earpieces are made of soft silicon, which results in a more comfortable fit and earpieces that are less likely to be damaged when dropped. A non-detachable cable, along with some minor distortion on deep bass tracks at maximum volume, keeps the A3 just a hair away from perfection, but its beautiful audio performance and comfortable fit are sure to please most listeners.?
Design
High-end custom earphones all pretty much look the same, and the A3 isn't really breaking any new ground in this regard. Your pair, whether it's from Ultimate Ears, JH Audio, or Altec Lansing (which works with the British audio company ACS to make its custom line), is going to very much resemble (the inverse of) the inside of your ear and the entry point of your ear canal. Most pairs, like the aforementioned JH16 Pro and the Ultimate Ears' UE 18 Pro ($1,350, 5 stars) feature hard plastic molds. I know firsthand that these plastics are quite breakable, so the soft silicon earpiece of the A3 is a huge advantage. The soft material also warms as it sits in your canal, which helps secure the fit even better.
Unfortunately, the audio cable is not detachable?which means you'll have to send the A3 in for repair should an issue occur, rather than just buy a new cable.?Simply put, cables fail, eventually. Replacing one on the UE 18 Pro or JH16 Pro is as simple as going to the manufacturer's website and ordering a new cable. But the connection point for the A3 is embedded in the silicon earpiece, so you'll have to send the whole thing back to Altec to get it serviced. The cable also lacks stiffness on the over-the-ear section (the cable loops up, over, and behind the top ridge of your ear). Particularly in colder weather, the cable tends to flip out from behind the ear, since it doesn't have a stiff, moldable cable portion near the ear like the UE 18 Pro and JH16 Pro do. The fit of the earpieces is so secure that this is not an issue that would cause them to come loose or affect the sound?but it's likely to annoy you.
Most of the aforementioned custom pairs come in slightly ridiculous metallic boxes that are fine for roadies and touring musicians to carry around, but not terribly practical for the rest of us. The A3 comes in a stylish hard leather case, which also houses an earpiece cleaning tool (yes, wax will need to be removed from the earpieces periodically), a ?-inch adapter for larger headphone jacks, and a tube of "comfort cream" that some users will find unnecessary, but listeners in colder environments might find quite useful. It's basically a grease that you can apply to the canal portion of the earphone to ease the fit, and a very small amount should do the trick. A smaller zip-up carrying pouch is also included with the A3.
Performance
Even at this price, the A3 does not disappoint. On all material, be it classical or electronic music, the A3 offers crystal clear, dynamic, excellent audio with a wide-ranging frequency response. The A3 can get quite loud?uncomfortably so. At these top, blatantly unsafe listening levels, it is my duty to note that the A3 will distort slightly on deep bass tracks. It is also my duty to inform you that if you plan on listening at these levels for even short periods of time on a regular basis, you will not be able to hear the distortion in a few years.
At safe listening levels, there is not a hint of distortion, and a song with tremendous low-end, like The Knife's "Silent Shout," is reproduced with generous bass response that is always articulate, never booming. The A3 offers a more or less flat response?the highs do not seem to be tweaked too much, and the lows offer only a slight boost. This is not a bass-lover's dream pair of earphones, this is a pair for audiophiles and music lovers who wish to hear audio the way it sounded when the engineers mixed and mastered it. John Adam's "The Chairman Dances" sounds clear and compelling, with each aspect of the instrumentation, from lower register strings to high-register, wooden percussion seemingly owning its own space in your ears. It's not quite like sitting in the sweet spot of Carnegie Hall, but it's about a tenfold improvement over cheap earphones?and even some quite expensive pairs. From folk to rock to hip hop to jazz, there's not a genre that doesn't work well on the A3.
Conclusions
Have I heard better custom in-ear monitors before? Yes. I enjoyed the performance of the JH Audio JH16 Pro more than just about any in-canal pair I've ever heard?but it'll run you another $150. Sitting squarely at $1,000, the A3's soft earpieces make it a unique standout offering. Ultimate Ears, now owned by Logitech, has a few models in this general range, including the higher-priced UE 18 Pro and the Ultimate Ears' UE 11 Pro ($1,150, 5 stars). Choosing which sounds best amongst the UE pairs or the A3 likely comes down to whether you prefer flat response (go with the A3) or if you'd like a touch more bass in the mix (check out the UE lineup). The JH16 Pro has the most realistic response of the whole bunch.
Admittedly, the lack of a detachable cable and a stiff over-ear cable section is a little disappointing at this price. Nonetheless, the A3 sounds phenomenal, and if you are in the market for high-end custom earphones, you have a new enticing option to consider. If the A3 is well outside your price range, consider the Ultimate Ears' UE 4 Pro ($399, 4.5 stars). At less than half the cost of all of the above mentioned models, it's still a custom-molded earphone pair with high-quality drivers.
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