Review: New Mylarones - X3i and XBi

[aureus]

Actually, not that much. I had the impression, my first X3i slightly improved over time, but it was complete after... let’s say, 15, 20 hours. Don’t know exactly. You can’t expect a huge change. With the treble booster on on my iPod (yes, on the iPod!), they sounded very good to my ears. And they handle it quite well, I didn’t notice any harsh sibilance with treble boost on.
By the way, dfkt, very nice review again! It pretty much takes the biscuit. Reading your reviews, I guess my next in-ear will be the Q-Jays.

[dfkt]

Thanks Aureus... If you like the DT880, you sure like the q-Jays as well.

Well, let's see what comes up next for me... SuperFreQ, Sleek, ... ?

[LordZero]

Originally Posted by dfkt

Here's how my XBi look after 3 listening sessions, ~5-7 hours, all in all...

Mine are like that too, but at least they last 1month. I think i will find another substitute for them, I could talk with Wilson, and is probably what i will do,but the time i will be without a good phones, will not compensate if they last this much, and i have to wait weeks every time they broke.

I'm thinking in yuin pk2, anyone can tell me if the build quality is better?And SQ?

[kakakakaka]

Burned my X3i's for 100+ hours now.. the sound stage had noticibally widened and it doesn't sound muffled as it was out of the box, but the bass..I feel it decreased to a degree.

[dfkt]

I've posted this over at Anything But iPod - MP3 Player Reviews & News, but I'm sure it will come in handy to repost it here as well...

How-to: Recabling the CrossRoads MylarOne X3i and XBi

Build quality of the CrossRoads MylarOne X3i and XBi is nothing short of pathetic. Cheapest materials used, and no quality control whatsoever. Yes, they sound amazingly good for a $60 phone, but that's no fun if they crap out after a few days or weeks.



The cable is an awful tube of stiff plastic with two painted wires inside. The outer tubing is not molded to the wires inside, but can move around freely. I've never seen a cable as bad as that. There's also no strain relief of any sort - just the outer tube glued to the little ball on the earphone. This little ball is a very sorry excuse for a strain relief. Furthermore, which is extremely important for a sturdy cable strain relief - the cable is not knotted inside the earphone housing, just the bare wires hanging loosely around in the shell.

Take a sharp knife, pry those hunks of junk open, and take a look for yourself.





See? No strain relief at all...

I've taken the far superior cable of an old version XB (not XBi) to put on the X3i. Nothing to de-isolate, the cables are simply painted. Remove the outer tubing and burn the paint off the cable tips with a soldering iron.



De-solder the old cables and clean the glue residue out of the housing (at the silver connections as well as at the cable entry hole).



Now solder the good cables onto the speaker drivers. Remember which earphone is left and right, and also which cable is the ground and the signal. Also make sure to slip the back part of the housing onto the cable before soldering!



Next you make the strain relief knot inside the housing - the most important part in prolonging the life span of the phones! How CrossRoads could release phones without that knot on the cable is absolutely insane...



Before you glue the housing together, make sure there's sound on both earphones, and the left and right signals are correct.

Take some good glue for the housing (not the wimpy crap CrossRoads uses). I use two component epoxy glue, that should last a lifetime. I put it in a vice, very carefully of course, to let it dry.



Voila, much better than new! Good thing I also got rid of the X3i's awful tiny 3.5mm plug in the process, and back to the proper one of the old X3/XB versions.

[WalkGood]

Excellent work dfkt, thanks!

Most peps in general want to spend $50 to a $150 for a good sounding iem’s and the MylarOne’s certainly fit that bill, but in the same hand not all peps want to spend that kind of money and have to mod their iem’s

I have recommended the old X3’s and XB’s on numerous occasions (I’m very happy with mine), and I’ve heard back from peps telling me how much they like them, well no longer. I’m very surprised that someone or a company decides to increase profits by lowering costs after they've built a reputation on a price/quality/good sounding product & name brand, rather than improve the product and charge a bit more.

[tjumper78]

very nice. very helpful.
i think i'm gonna try this with my newly acquired wires and 1/8" plug.
i think it would be a good idea to put some heatshrinks on around the 1/8" plug part because it seems/feels very flimsy.

[iPatcH]

I've got a pair of X3i's on the way, and I'm really excited.. <3

One thing I'm really confused about though, a lot of you said that X3i has a much better bass improvement over the older model, and someone even mentioned that the bass in their X3 was nonexistant... Now I've had my pair since last april when they were the FOTM, use them practically every day when I walk my hour walk to work, and either they mixed up the drivers and put XB ones in mine or my eardrums are broken... because mine THUMP, so I can't really imagine how big the change in bass is going to be when I try out the new ones..

[direcow]

Originally Posted by WalkGood

I’m very surprised that someone or a company decides to increase profits by lowering costs after they've built a reputation on a price/quality/good sounding product & name brand, rather than improve the product and charge a bit more.

I think what happened is that they decided to focus on fixing the audio problems found in the first generation, which was the lack of bass in the X3i. I guess they then wanted to maintain the price point, which was one of the reasons why the X3s and XBs were so popular, and it resulted in this...

[dfkt]

Guess I'm on a roll... replaced the awful cheap paper filters with proper metal meshes. It increases treble by a bit - which isn't bad, IMO. There's no increase in sibilance, so all is cool.

Note that the gunk on the nozzle is not ear wax, but the shoddy glue CrossRoads uses. But in the meantime we all know about the build quality...



Removed the paper filters with an exacto knife and cleaned the glue residue off the nozzle.



Used metal meshes from the old version XB, my trusty epoxy glue, and voila... much easier on the eye.

[dfkt]

Final mod...

Since the double flanged tips come off too easily (and often get stuck in my ears, needing pincers to get them out again), I simply put some Blu Tack on the nozzle.

[ClieOS]

I posted this over at anythingbut ipod:

For my understanding, only the first batch of X3i/XBi suffered from the cable issue. The problem has been corrected since then. Later (current) batch has all the proper strain relief in place. In any case, if you have any cable issue, Uncle Wilson is happy to replace it for you.

[glac1er]

Thanks dfkt ^ for the mod and a look inside of the x3i. It's really informative, though now I'm a little bit concerned about its build quality. I wonder if you had done the same thing with the old x3 before, which build quality is terrible (crapped out on me after ~80 hours indoor use but quickly replaced by Jaben for free).

Hopefully they will fix the build quality issue with their future products. I'm waiting eagerly for the LB if they are ever going to release it...

[EsthetiX]

Gahhh.. Shipping to US takes too long!

Im dying to have the new models in my collection

[LostPhil]

I'm starting to wish I'd fixed/glued back together the casing on my X3's rather than sending them back.

Still awaiting delivery of replacements but now I'm not looking forward to the build quality of these! Would be nice just to seal them up from the outside - varnish or something.