[protonchain]

So in terms of earphones, I'd always been using crap standard apple ipod ones or ones that I bought in my campus store. The sound was alright, but they were uncomfortable and when walking in the street I was still hearing traffic noises and all that.
 
So in 2006 I got shure earphones and fell in love. I've been using the brand since. However one thing that I've noticed is that after a few months, the wires get all sensitive or loose and I will lose the sound in one earphone. I have to play with the end a bit before the connection is restored. Every time this happens I send in the earphones for replacement under the 2 year warranty.
 
But I'm wondering if this is just par for the course for shure earphones or if there's something I should be doing in terms of care and wrapping that might prevent this, or even if there's something I can do now to the wire to fix it.
 
When I have to wrap the earphones, I usually tend to just wrap it around the ipod (touch), I don't tend to use the little carry bag that they provide.
 
Any insight into the problem is greatly appreciated, thank you all for the help.

 

[tracyrick]

My SE530's started coming apart at that sleeve area where the cord meets the actual earphone. They replaced them for free. I don't abuse them, but I use them a lot. I've had to get my ER-4P's replaced or fixed 3 times. I've had to get both my Clip and Clip+ replaced. All my amps have been worked on before. My point is, I have very few toys that haven't had issues. Warranties usually cover me, try to make sure you have one and keep your original invoice. Maybe the SE535 will be better - that appears to be the main reason for the update. I'm thinking about getting them.
 
Yeah, I'm trying to be more gentle with my stuff since dealing with returns/replacements is a pain, even if it costs me nothing. Time is money. I think a person can only be so "gentle" though, at the end of the day you want to use your equipment and wrapping and some amount of torque is going to happen. So buy what you want, use it but don't abuse it, and let your warranty cover you after that. A lot of these mfg's. cover their stuff pretty good even after the warranty expires. For example, Ety. has charged me about $50 to practically replace my earphones twice (cable and barrel/transducer issues). Pretty cool since both times my earphones were several years out of warranty.

 

[vrenlos]

The only issue I've ever encountered was with my E2c's that were 3+ years old at the time.  I would lose the left channel with every step that I took, and imagined it was my iPod, which had a faulty jack before that I had replaced.  After replacing the jack a second time, I narrowed it down to the connection between the cable and the 3.5mm plug.  I went searching for an inexpensive pair of headphones with a beefy and durable looking plug on them and soldered it all together and never had another problem with them.

 

[Danz03]

I had the same problem with my Shure SE530. Within 7 months of using them, the cable was already broken and one of the sound tubes (the part that the foam tips fit onto) broke off. Since then I've been using the Westone UM-2 and they were really tough wearing in comparison, not a single problem for over 2 years. However, from what I've seen and heard, the new SE535 seem to be much better made and designed and they come with detachable cables, so it seems that Shure is finally taking the cable problem seriously from now on, I hope they would do the same to all their IEMs and not just the SE535.

 

[paddy567]

I've had 3 pairs of Shures in the last 5 years or so - I love the mid-heavy sound, but damnit those cables are crap. Every single pair has had cable cracking issues. Now, I run a lot (circa 35-40km a week), and sweat is not kind to any cables, but I have definitely found other brands (eg westone) last longer with the cables etc. When you consider that Shure is already expensive because of the brand name, it's pretty irritating.