What is the Purpose of an Earbud Gummy?

The purpose of gummies placed on earbuds is to increase the sound functionalities of the earbuds and a secondfold reason is to produce comfort in the ears of a user.

First, let us examine how the gummy serves to increase the functionalities of sound of the earbuds. It does so in two ways. The first is that it increases the frequency response of the speakers, meaning that the speakers play sound at a greater and more constant amplitude across the different frequencies of the bass and the second way is that the gummies increase the passive noise cancellation of the earbuds so that the user hears less outside noise when listening to music or any recording.

Audio testing was performed on an Andrea iBlink Earbuds. Audio analysis was conducted on the earbuds with the gummy on and with the gummy off. The data was then analyzed and compared to see the difference in performance in the earbuds with these two different conditions.

Below is the difference in Speaker Frequency Response of the iBlink Earbuds. The results indicate an average of +20dB bass boost gain from 10Hz to 600Hz when using the gummy. Thus, the gummy improves the speaker frequency response significantly.

Another functionality that the gummies increase in earbuds is the passive noise cancellation. This is the amount of noise that the earbuds allow into the speakers. The less noise the better. This comes in use so that when a user is listening to music, he hears less outside unwanted noise. If the noise cancellation is poor, it lets in lots of noise so that a user hears a lot of outside noise with the music he is listening to. This is undesired.

Test results below show that there was an average of -12dB noise reduction from 600Hz to 20KHz when the gummy was on the Andrea IBlink Earbuds. Thus, there is significant less noise when the gummy is on and a user can listen better to the desired sounds he wants to hear with less intrusive ambient noise.

The third and last reason for gummies on earbuds is for comfort. Usually the earbuds themselves are made out of a hard plastic encasing; thus, placing them in your ears alone can be very uncomfortable. The gummies that are placed on earbuds are normally made out of soft rubber and provide more comfort in the ears.