When I played in my Heart tribute, the lead singer used them. She swore by it but she didn't have to deal with an instrument other than her voice.

There was also a band that subbed for that used them. They too swore by them but the biggest con was just the start up cost.

If I were gigging constantly with a high volumed rock band, I too would get them. But for now subbing, playing blues jams and playing out solo, the wedges are fine for me.

I used them in a not too loud environment. Mostly to isolate my own monitor mix with what I wanted. (had a piano player that played an acoustic piano so hard it was above the stage volume) It was good. But, Recently was talking with someone that worked with them on a bigger stage and louder environment. He recommended going stereo since you can seperate the sounds better and not have to get them as loud in your ears. He said once they went stereo, it was like night and day difference and he'd never go back to mono IEMs. For what it's worth.

I"m not sure how to make that happen. I guess we would need double the monitor sends??

My band doesn't play near as loud as most rock bands. But, on some small stages I'm right next to a ride cymbal... OUCH!

Dan I have a set of Shure P6R's from my old days. They are a discontinued model now but they worked great. I would highly recommend ear monitors.

Yeah, here's the thing about in-ear monitors. Hearing protection? No, forget it. If you're in a loud band, you have to crank these things. If you're the guitar player (which I kinda assume you are), you'll want to keep one ear in and one ear to the stage. It makes it totally unbalanced, and your hearing is blown out in the monitor ear after the gig.

The advantages? Yeah, if you've got the right ear buds. Our Sennheiser system came with the worst ear buds on the planet. Will be upgrading as soon as I can afford it.

Yes, you hear the vocals much better, if the sound guy doesn't suck. You think your mix is bad in the mains? Wait 'till you hear it in the in-ears.

Just my 2 cents.

Yeh, you would need two feeds. As for saving your hearing...well, most have a built in limiting option. We used that. Plus, as Michael L. mentioned, you need good ear pieces. Ours were the original Shure pieces. Not sure what model number. But we used the Yellow foam inserts that completely blocked out the noise. They did a good job of cutting out almost all the stage noise. I was moved next to the drums and they worked fine. Problem, again, like Michael mentioned, if your sound man isnt on top of things, the mix will suck.

Best bet, but it's more expensive, is to get a Monitor system like Hear Technology or Aviom or something like that where you can do your own mix. But those are mostly used for an installed system.

Good Luck. And remember the old adage...if you can't hear something in the mix, don't turn it up..find what else can be turned down. You'd be surprised how the overall sound both stage and FOH improves when the monitors are lowered.

My band won a I think Yamaha Pass 300 Pa, as we won a battle of the bands. It was much smaller than what we were using so we decided to sell it. We got the new price of $550. for it, we never even plugged it in. We decided we wanted to try ear monitors as we were tired of the loud floor monitors and the feed back, but we didn't know if we would like them or not. We checked out ebay to see what was in our price range, not much Nady E03 and oh nothing else, under $550. We found that we could get the transmitter and 5 receivers with shipping for about $330. I read all the negative posts about the Nady E03 but found some mods to do to them that would make them very useable. One of the tips was to open the transmitter and flip one of the Dip switches the other way and to buy better quality ear buds. Being an electronic tech. the mods were easy. We bought the unit and after trying it out I made the modification to the transmitter and found just how bad the ear buds really sounded. I went to Walmart and bought an $11 set of Sony ear buds and we are all happy with the sound. We are not sorry we spent the money for that Nady as we have been using it for about 4 years now and no problems. They do eat up 9 volt batteries, about 3 or 4 gigs to a 9 volt but that's a small price to pay.

We only run the vocals through the PEMS (personal ear monitor system) but the mics pick up the rest of the bands sound. Unlike the floor monitors you can hear the guys in the band correct their vocal harmonys, they can hear when they are off sharp or flat. you can also hear when they don't have them in their ears, they don't correct. Some of the guys in the band prefer to use only one bud in their ear. Oh yeah, you will have to either get a stereo to Mono adapter or like I did put a mono plug on the buds and wire them in parallel. Even though we spent extra money on new ear buds our cost was under $400 for the works. I think with the Mods they are worth the money and if you don't like them you didn't spent thousands for something you arent going to use. They will be different and you will tend to play louder as you now have ear plugs in your ears. Give them a chance and you will grow to like them. I hope this helped....Jack

Dan,

I use the custom ear plugs you mentioned in your post where you have to take a mold of your ear canal and they make the ear plugs custom for your ear. They weren't cheap ($150) but they are one of the best pieces of gear that I own. They really allow me to hear everything across the frequency spectrum at a lower volume. If you decide against the in-ear monitors, I would totally recommend the ear plugs.

Best,
David
Community Leader, www.sharemyguitar.com