[PANGES]

I was just curious if anyone could give me some insight as to whether there's something wrong with my earphones, or if this is simply the way they are. I'm thinking about sending them in to Shure, or Earphonesolution, or wherever they need to be sent to be checked and/or repairs/replaced; however, I wanted the people here's opinion before I send anything out... I really don't want to spend money to send them out and have to make EarphoneSolutions or Shure work, if they are in proper working order.
 
The best thing to do to describe what seems to be wrong with my pair is to simply show a copy of my PM I sent to EarphoneSolutions.
 
 
Quote: PANGES

I was going to make a thread, and just ask the people on this forum, but I figure I might be best if I just wanted to shoot you a PM and ask you a question about my Shure SE535's. 

 

I purchase these last week from your site, and have been listening to them since I received them since I received them on Wednesday. The first thing I noticed about them when I put them in and played some music through them is that they are very veiled and muffled sounding throughout the entire frequency range. The best way I can describe their sound signature is that they sound a lot like my Sennheiser IE8's, which I sold off to get these, because I wanted more "clarity." 

 

I went back and re-read all the impressions threads about these IEM's, and everyone kept talking about how clear and crisp they sound, so I thought they would open up, or my brain would just get used to the sound signature over time, but I've been listening to them for several hours every day, and they're still very muffled sounding to me.

 

I'm very confused about them, because even when I did some A/Bing, and listened to my girlfriend's Shure SE115's, her SE115's sound much more clear/crisp than my SE535's. I kept searching this forum for reports of the SE535's sounding "veiled" or "muffled" and it only has people saying that in comparison, they make the Westone 3's sound veiled or muffled. I'm very confused, and I'm beginning to wonder if there is something defective with my pair of SE535's. Personally, I really like the SE535's, as I am very impressed with the build quality, and comfort, but the muffled sound really has me disappointed, especially for the price.

 

Even when I switch back to my Sennheiser HD650, which are supposed to sound veiled/laid back, they sound super crisp and clear in comparison, and when I go back to the SE535, it feels like I'm listening with some cotton balls in my ears.

 

What I'm hearing doesn't sound anything like any of the impressions on this forum, or the impressions on your site, nor do they sound anything like the impressions on HeadRoom's site. This has me pretty worried, because the impressions on Head-Fi, EarphoneSoultions, and Headroom have always been pretty accurate as to what I should expect in a phone.

 

Is there any way you can help me double check or verify any problems with my set? Possibly an exchange for another set of SE535, or I can send you my pair for you to verify?

 

Any advice or help would be greatly, greatly appreciated!

 
And then EarphoneSolutions replied:
 
 
Quote: EarphoneSolutions

It sounds like you may have a defective item or you could be pushing the eartips too far in and closing the end opening.

 

It could also be debris inside the eartip. Sometimes plastic from manufacturing will need to be removed. Lastly it could be wax (very common). So you should change the eartips and in between take a good look inside the nozzle to see if there is anything there. Also make sure you are not "over-inserting" them.

 
The thing is, I've checked the insides of the nozzles for ear wax or debris, as that was my first guess too, but there isn't any. I've also tried every tip available, as well as some Klipsch tips, with little success. I've also tried various depths of insertion to no avail. No matter what tips I use, or how I insert them into my ears, they sound really muffled/veiled. 
 
Any advice? Do any one else's SE535's sound like what I'm describing, or is this just an isolated case with mine? I've tried a decent variety of headphones and IEM's (listed in my profile), and I can say that these are amongst one of the most muffled/veiled sounding phones I have heard. =/

 

[amclaussen]

Hi there, I am waiting for a set of Shure 535's to arrive to the local dealer (I'm in Mexico City)... I have also read a lot of positive comments on them, and all of them only suggest a little (very little) veiling in the uppermost frecuencies, not a heavy veil like you describe.  Being a completely new set bought trough a store, wax or other extraneous matter is almost out of question.  Water damage could be a possibility, but a very remote one.  Heat damage is even more remote (some magnetic materials are somewhat more susceptible to demagnetizing at high temperatures, but I guess those temperatures would damage the plastic earpieces first!).
 
Another, sinister one possibility, is that you received a "fake" chinese copycat or counterfeited merchandise.  These days, counterfeits are a real problem.  We have found counterfeit Transistors, Capacitors and a lot of Integrated Circuit chips, all made in second class factories located mainly in China or even India or Taiwan...  Last year I was gathering parts for assembling a top quality power amplifier, so I needed large power supply capacitors.  A local, otherwise reputable electronic parts store sold me four large 22,000 MFD "Hitachi" capacitors at what seemed a low price.  When arriving home I searched them to have their detailed info at habd, only to discover those "series" were NOT in the Hitachi online catalogue...  The capacitors looked exactly like the originals, but the "series" didn't correspond to any present in the online catalogue from Hitachi.
 
Days latter, my search took me to a thead in DIY-Audio forum, where I found exactly the same "series" capacitors being described as "Fake"... one person in the forum even wrote he had been selling those for some time, and that the failure rate was quite high, so that He stopped selling those to avoid problems with his customers that were reporting a high quantity of rejects; that those capacitors were sold to him through an intermediary,  that were made in China by an anonime factory, pirating the same black plastic coating and gold colored lettering with the Hitachi logo, but were fakes!  From the four pieces I had bought, three measured barely the 22,000 MFD value (quality power supply electrolytic aluminum capacitors usually measure ABOVE their nominal value, the higher, the better, so their usual value is typical +25% or more... but one was OPEN CIRCUIT, which is caused by the faulty construction and internal connection to the heavy binding posts.  So much for their Quality Control. I won't risk an expensive and carefully matched set of output transistors by using a failure prone dude capacitor!!!
 
Believe me, counterfeiting is a HUGE problem...  some factories are falsifying expensive power transistors by putting an old, outdated and cheap transistor chip inside TO-3 cans, so that the unsuspecting customer believes he is getting a fast, powerful, expensive, 30 ampere transitor, when he is really getting an old garden-variety 2N3055 transitor developed and sold since the 70's inside!
 
PLEASE keep us informed on your case, definitely something is wrong with your 535's.
sincerely, amclaussen, Mexico City.  amarquez@imp.mx

 

[amclaussen]

Another less bizarre possibility:  The Crossover in your 535's could be faulty...  or the cable assembly is NOT properly seated in the connectors (remember the new 535's have removable and replaceable cables, which is a great thing since earphone cable failure is a matter of time and usage... I have suffered the failure of THREE earphone sets due to cable coming intermittent or failng entirely after two or three years of frecuent use, even with utmost care), and this brings the possibility of a cable connector being not fully/properly inserted into the earpiece.
 
Just a couple of ideas.

 

[LostAngeles]

I went from the 500 to the 530 and that was my "daily driver" for years.  The 535 is supposed to be a bit of a step up from the 530 and what you describe is not at all my experience with the 530.  I would say send them back.  Hope that helps.  

 

[PANGES]

Thanks for the input guys. I send an email to earphonesolutions yesterday, but I haven't received a reply yet. I'll probably give them a call soon.

 

[PANGES]

Well. I tried to call earlier this morning. lol. No help... at all... The lady on the phone was pretty rude also. Oh well. Hopefully the e-mail method will be of more help. =/
 
edit: As I typed this, I received an e-mail from EarphoneSolutions asking if I wanted a replacement or exchange. I just asked about an exchange for the W4's. The only reason I was wary of buying Westone 4's were due to cable problems, but maybe I'll have good luck with them.

 

[LostAngeles]

I got my W4's from them. The 4's are all that and a bag of chips. For me, the cable issue is a non issue untill it becomes an issue and then I will just replace it.

 

[amclaussen]

 
In my experience, cable IS an issue or will be an issue... As the Gangsters used to say: "You can pay me now or, of course, you can pay me latter, but you WILL pay me!"

 
My very first In-Ear phone was the excellent (for its time and being a single driver design) Shure E-1, which had an "ugly" appearance (flesh color, rectangular body).  Mine performed beautifully for a couple of years, and started crackling due to the extremely thin wires inside the cable fraying and breaking.  A previous unit failed on second day as it was defective from factory (cable again, at the plug) and was exchanged immediately by the store.
 
Every time you touch and flex the cable, it is undergoing a fatigue process, and will eventually fail, sooner or later, depending on care in handling (or lack of), and then; the VERY important matter of the effect of skin oils and sweat on the cable, specially at the point where the cable is placed over and around the ear.  Mine are giving trouble on three spots: close to the right angle 1/8" plug, and on the two sides close to the earpieces; the cable is partially damaged, so that a little twisting allows the sound to continue, but the you cannot walk or jog.
 
My second unit was a Shure 310... same story, only sooner: about a year and a 2-3 months and started failing on one side.  My wife had two sets, a Bose one and an Apple... same kind of problems at three and four years, she uses her phones much less than me.
 
Then Shure recognized the problem and designed the 535 with connectors that made cable replacement possible.
 
I don't know the internal construction of the Westones, so I cannot give an opinion, but on the previous Shures and other brands cable replacement is out of question, because the earpieces cannot be easily opened, and then, you would need a precision neurosurgeon equipped with special soldering equipment, because soldering the new cable to the drivers inside the earpieces would be quite difficult, or practically impossible.  That is the reason Shure never offered repair service for their customers. It appears to me that In-Ear Phones cable replacement WTHOUT connectors is not so straightforward.  In-Ear Phones before the Shure 535 seem to be kind of "disposable after two year" or so, but at close to $500 a set, not all people can replace them regularly.
 
Good luck!

 

[goodvibes]

I found te 535 less crisp than the 530. Warmer and smoother and not so much more xtended on top but less lower treble emohasis which makes them sund more extended. My take was pretty much what turned up on the headroom graphs though I thought them a good phone.

 

[amclaussen]

This morning I'm happy!
Yesterday's night the local distributor called to tell me that my new Shure 535 had arrived (finally... after a wait of many months). So I drove to the store to pick-up them.
After a brief listening just to check if there were undamaged and had no gross defects (specially afer reading this thread), I'm happy to report my first impressions.
 
I'm what my friends say a very "choosy" or picky person, and nevertheless what I heard was quite good; no evident bad manners at all.
 
I can report that the veiling that PANGES heard when receiving his 535 has to be a defective unit, absolutely!  Mine give a full range sound (at least to 15,000 Hz, which is my hearing upper limit, according to my last check at the hearing specialist).
 
The very first impression was on the Bass, solid but not overemphasized. That's probably because other IEM's I'm familiar with are single driver units.  My concerns about possible discontinuties where the passive crossover divides the two way system are not evident, at least on a first listening. Mids seem detailed and smooth. I won't comment on the treble for this moment, since I've found that IEM's require a careful placement inside the ear canal, and due to my canals being on the small side, I need to check which of the assorted tips are the ones I should use, but my yesterday´s short listening was with the ones that come installed (black soft medium).
 
In a nutshell; PANGES: your 535s must have been defective, mine are definitely NOT veiled !
 
Equipment used:
Shure SE535-CL (the clear, transparent body version). S/N 3JG0798883 2010/07/07
24 Bit, 96 KHz original live recordings of an acoustic Jazz quartet made with a pair of PZM type home made microphones (with electret Sennheiser capsules) and a EDIROL by ROLAND digital portable recorder, reproduced thru the store good quality sound server and a professional multichannel mixer. (I don't like the somewhat puny headphone output of the EDIROL.
High Quality red book CDs from Chesky, Ana Karam (Brazilian Jazz and Bossa Nova); The Chesky Test Record.  Played thru a reasonable quality CD player at the store.
Live recordings of  Big Band Jazz made with a Sharp MS-702 MiniDisc recorder on TDK media. The sound of five different Saxophones recorded at 20 feet gives a lot of "information" to keep busy a sound recording-reproduction chain!
 
This equipment is not of outstanding quality, but since the live recordings were made by myself, from musicians I have heard many times, they serve quite well the purpose of comparing the sound to other equipment.
 
Regards. amclaussen.
 
 

 

[MikeATL]

I wanted to post in this thread after having recently bought the SE535s, and experienced sound similar to what the OP had described. They have sounded "normal" to me until popping them into my ears this morning, when I noticed a serious degradation of sound compared to what I was used to. It was very muffled and almost as if I hadn't inserted the connector all of the way, as I have experienced w/other IEMs. I connected them to multiple devices (computer, phone) w/the same result and noticed if I applied pressure on the "L" portion of the connector, or pulled it out slightly, the fuller sound I expected returned. I can't imagine anything that I did that would have damaged the cable, but potentially the OP received a cable that was defective from the manufacturer? I sent my cable off to Shure this morning for replacement which will hopefully correct the issue.
 
I put this out there for others that may run into the same issue, either when receiving their IEMs or having an experience similar to mine.

 

[PANGES]

Hmm. That's interesting. I didn't fiddle with my cable much. lol. It's too late for me to check now. I shipped them back to earphonesolutions yesterday. =/
 
Quote:

I wanted to post in this thread after having recently bought the SE535s, and experienced sound similar to what the OP had described. They have sounded "normal" to me until popping them into my ears this morning, when I noticed a serious degradation of sound compared to what I was used to. It was very muffled and almost as if I hadn't inserted the connector all of the way, as I have experienced w/other IEMs. I connected them to multiple devices (computer, phone) w/the same result and noticed if I applied pressure on the "L" portion of the connector, or pulled it out slightly, the fuller sound I expected returned. I can't imagine anything that I did that would have damaged the cable, but potentially the OP received a cable that was defective from the manufacturer? I sent my cable off to Shure this morning for replacement which will hopefully correct the issue.
 
I put this out there for others that may run into the same issue, either when receiving their IEMs or having an experience similar to mine.

 

[Smillar]

Things are starting to make sense now! I had purchased the Shure E3's when they came out and loved them. All good things come to an end and I had to buy another set of in ears. I ended up buying the 335's but they didn't have the bottom end that I was used to having so I sold them on Ebay. After selling them I purchased the Se335's on Ebay for a slightly cheaper price than I could find around my area...The funny thing is that from the beginning they didn't seem to sound as good as people were saying they were. I thought it was just me! Now this week there is something definitely not right, NO bottom end. I just read your post and my heart sank! I was very suspicious when I bought these however everything including packaging looked ok to me. Thanks for posting your comments I think that I was just screwed.

 

[AM/PM]

I'm a cover band guitarist. I have tried just about every type of earbud out there. Had a ton of Shures as well as Westones, Sennheisers, Audio-Technica’s...Westones being my fav all around...

Had to see for myself about these Chinese knock offs. I mean what do I have to lose buying a pair of Shure se535's for $50 compared to $500? The good news is if they were terrible then I can send them back and cancel the credit card charge on a chargeback.

Have to say, I could care less about how they were packaged or whether the color wasn't right blah blah blah... the one thing we all care about or at least should, is do they sound great? To me that is always the bottom line. Not only did they compare equally to the $500 pair of Shure se535's, compared to the price difference they smoked them..

I know I'm going to get a bunch of gruff from so called experts, but hey the truth is the truth. No cable noise, Rich base Great mid-range terrific high-end, go ahead and call me nuts, I can take it.

But what I think people must realize as far as the packaging is concerned, is where are these made? That's right, there made in China. So I expect things to be a little different in the packaging, but in my case... minus the Chinese writing mixed with the American writing, I got everything in the package identical to a pair sold in the United States. Go figure.

Sorry my friends, I'm just calling it as I see it. Yes the sun does Shine On a dogs you know what every now and then.