Earbud and method of manufacture

An earbud for carrying sound from a source to a person's ear canal, includes a soft foam body and a sleeve of stiffer material lying within the body. The body is molded around the sleeve and is chemically bonded to the sleeve without an adhesive between them. The earbud is molded around the sleeve by placing the sleeve on a mandrel pin within a mold cavity placing foamable material in the mold and closing the mold. The mold has shoulders with one mold shoulder that abuts one end of the sleeve and another mold shoulder that lies within 0.1 millimeter of the other sleeve end, to prevent foaming material from leaking into the space between the mandrel pin and the sleeve passage.