The TS (Justin) never describes the HARD PART: how to break that MF apart w/o destroying it. SHAME ON YOU
Get something soft and thick (thick paper or cloth), wrap it around the Shure body, strategically put the IEM in between your back teeth, and CAREFULLY bite down but not too much -- you'l hear a soft snap, and that's your cue to stop applying pressure. The biting method worked well as the audibility of the seal snapping can be heard thru the mouth (thx to the ear plumbing and evolution). Now, carefully/SLOWLY pry apart with fingernails -- you'll have to watch this step carefully or you'll tear apart the ribbon cable+xover.
OKAY, now about that BETTER replacement wire/cable ... I asked about it in the DIY IEM thread, and got NOWHERE. What! So how come NO ONE can seem to find the
stock OEM cable/wire supplier/manuf of IEMs like Westone or EarSonics? Those are really nice (thin [28awg??], and soft/plyable) and would be ideal for a replacer.
BTW: My SE530 stock units (2008 model) have no internal silicone (they were replaced by Shure, in 2008, by Shure directly, for you guessed it ... bad cable. In 2007, Shure similarly swapped my E500s for SE530s for same issue. Dunno whether any of the new Shure models have this problem. IAC, the Shure sound is quite sub-standard now, IMO, so I won't be too upset if this repair doesn't work out.
EDIT: Replying to a PM on this issue, I thought parts of that discussion would be of benefit to this thread ...
PM query:
Did you do this post-warranty, or do you know if this is even possible? I owned the 500s and replaced them with 530s just as you did. But now I have 20+ Liquid Electrical Tape repair jobs on them by now with no sign of letting up.
My reply:
My last-replaced (by Shure) SE530 have been out of warranty for about 2yrs now.
Shure is a third-rate company for both product performance**
and reliability, IMO, but they're v. good for customer service. Despite my SE530s now being 2 yrs out of warranty, I may v. well be able to talk/convince them into replacing for free again. But, time=$$, and I no longer like/value the 530s enough to bother with obtaining RA, packing up/shipping out, etc., etc.
I've repaired the cable 1x, but it was not an internal repair like that of the TS from this thread. The last bit of the orig. cable finally (recently) gave way (the Shure wire of course, not my newer/better wire). And now there is really no choice but to go internal. I have mostly disassembled the SE530 so it look's like the pix taken by the TS. That is VERY tricky, IMO. I still have to find the replacement, perfect wire! And I don't know how well it will all assemble back together
and be sealed and (even if all that goes "well") the resulting sound will be as "good" as orig. (which is not great IMO). Frankly, the 500/530 sound worse to my ears than the free R8s that came with my Teclast DAP; I'm not sure why Shure's rate so highly?!
IAC ...
If you're only interested in having a working pair of Shure's (and not in the "hobby" or skill-building-exercise of doing a complex repair job!), try to convince Shure that they should replace them, even if they're out of warranty.
Good luck!
** I've owned other Shure products including the famous V-15 Type V MR phono cart., SM57 microphone, etc. All over-priced "junk" -- and their top-end IEMs, IMO, are REALLY
over-priced junk.
