[cactus_farmer]

The old ones were sturdy and built of metal, and the new blue plastic ones with the black mesh on the center manage to break in half every time I try to remove them with the filter removing tool (which is made of metal - and when metal is against plastic, metal wins) to put a new filter in.

And when they break in half, they leak out all the crap that was in the filter down the driver - making the protective functionality of the filter absolutely redundant!! I know credit crunch and all, Etymotic needs to make savings by making cheap plastic filters instead of the nice old metal ones that never broke, but it is still annoying as hell.

Does anyone else find that when they try to remove the new plastic filters, they break in the middle and leak out all the crap down the nozzle of the earphone? Anyone got a solution for this? (It's not like I'm forcing the filters out violently either.)

 

[jsmithepa]

I believe the old filters are designed to never be use again, so break at will. To avoid crap going down the shaft, just hold it nose down during operation.

 

[nc8000]

Both filters are designed to not be reused but the old metal filters never break apart when removing, they come out in one piece just naturally with the front mesh broken. I have not yet tried to replace one of the new filters as I still have 6 sets of the old metal filters left and also very rarely change the filters as I use a small piece of nylon stocking over it held in place by the tip and this piece of stocking catches most and gets replaced every time I replace the tips.