Quote:
Originally Posted by appophylite /img/forum/go_quote.gif
If I were the one involved in the trade, I could tolerate the wear on the gold plating on the jack. I could also tolerate the housings losing some of their paint, but the crack in the strain-relief is not something I would have tolerated at all. You keep making the argument that that crack isn't a big deal, but I know first-hand that it can be. Especially with smaller headphones like IEMs that is likely to be one of the first places the cable of the headphone would begin to fail. Also, the amount of stress the cable must have been under to create such a crack there would lead me to expect that the cable is going to be weakened significantly at that point. I would not be satisfied with such a trade, and I'm having difficulty seeing why you feel that because you would be satisfied with such a trade, someone else should be too.
The appearance of a pair of headphones is probably one of the quickest indications of how well it was handled prior to ownership, ergo, quality. Based off of those pictures, I would not have trusted those headphones at all as it doesn't look as though FYDave maintained them very well.
|
I wouldn't be satisfied with the trade. I wouldn't have traded Westones for Shures in the first place. In any trade, however, especially if I was concerned about the aesthetics of the piece, I would ask about the condition. I agree that the crack in the strain relief is bad, though I don't agree with your assessment of "it must have been under a lot of stress to do that". Headphones, especially IEMs get body oil on them, which will eventually degrade them. This seems like much more a case of Shure's design problem than any kind of abuse, and I'd wager that Shure would probably even warranty them given that their customer service is supposed to be pretty good.
Under normal circumstances, I'd totally agree that Dave should trade back. But these aren't normal circumstances. Mule has mishandled the situation and effectively abused Dave. The mob has effectively tried to bully Dave into doing what Mule wants. [sarcasm] Why oh why isn't Dave responding positively to this type of treatment? [/sarcasm] Again, while I would still trade back given that Mule is unhappy, I can certainly understand where Dave's coming from. Also, if I were Dave, at this point I'd be seriously concerned about getting the Shures back in any kind of usable condition. Given what Mule's already done here with this thread, I'd be astounded if the Shures arrived back to Dave unscathed. It's obviously not in Dave's interests to ship the headphones back, and given how much the mob has already jumped down his throat here, I doubt doing so would restore his rep. You posters have done nothing here to help Mule's cause, and in fact you probably have seriously contributed to the reason that he isn't going to get them back at this point.
Since returning the headphones is completely not in Dave's interest at this point, returning them to Mule would be a favor. Would you do a favor for someone who's mistreated and abused you? I don't think so. This is why I understand where Dave's coming from - he really doesn't have a good reason to return the headphones, and he has several good reasons not to. I'd have handled the situation much differently on both sides, but what this comes down to is the fact that Mule didn't handle himself well, and now he's likely not going to get his headphones back. At least, however, he does have the Shures (which was his original intention with the trade btw; just because none of you would trade westones for 530s straight up doesn't mean that Mule didn't originally intend to). So, Mule still does have functional high-end IEMs. They just don't look as pretty as the ones he sent away. As much as Dave is to blame for this, Mule is as well.