I have taken the reverse journey from a few recent posters in that I bought an AK100II as a gift for myself just before Xmas, and only afterwards picked up the SE846's as a... birthday gift, yeah, that's it
yesterday morning. Such a great combo!
My existing SE535's have given me several very good years of listening pleasure, but once I heard what a difference sourcing from the AK100II made (compared to my previous series of iProducts), I knew my wallet would continue to take a beating. Life is too short to subject your brain to anything but the best possible audio.
After getting home with my new toy, I spent the evening giddily running through a bunch of my favorite tracks comparing the 535 and 846 side-by-side, and while there are improvements across the entire spectrum, particularly at the bottom, I'm mainly impressed with how much more musical and fun the 846's signature is as a whole. The 535's still sound very good, but I have found that they can read a little shrill during certain passages of music that are particularly fuzzy or chirpy, which accelerates fatigue. No such problem with the 846 so far. If anything, I've found that I kinda want even a little bit more from the upper end so I'm currently evaluating whether I prefer the blue or the white filters. It's a good problem to have!
These are the best earphones I have ever owned, and I expect they'll last me for a while. It was reassuring to find that the 535's still held their own when squared off against their younger and slightly more talented brother--this makes me believe that throwing substantially more $$ into my ear canals will only yield small incremental benefits, and with the AK100II/SE846 combo, I'm probably at my sweet spot and can resist further upgrade-itis. I have an appreciation for detail but I'm far from a "golden ear"--I do most of my listening on the streets of NYC and on public transit so urban ambience puts a limit on how much finer a sound I'd be able to hear, and I should also mention that I have slight tinnitus and very mild hearing loss in both ears so super-duper high end gear would probably be wasted on me.
I have to also add a few negative notes however about the build quality of the set of SE846 that I just purchased. There are two issues out-of-the-box that are a bit annoying, and unexpected for a product that costs over a grand.
First, there was a tiny burr in the cable's plastic right where it connects to the left earbud, in just the right place so that it constantly scratched one of the folds of my outer ear when worn. That was really annoying, until I sanded it down on my jeans. Not a big problem in the grand scheme of things, but it literally felt like a needle was rubbing against my ear until I fixed it. Shure must have stamped out a few tens of thousands of those connectors by now so perhaps they need a new set of molds.
The second issue is more concerning, and I'm curious if anyone else has encountered it. I noticed when switching tips that the post for the left earbud has a little teeny bit of give to it. The post on the right earbud does not have this problem and is solid as a rock. I tried swapping posts between the buds after a filter switch, to no difference. Pushing straight down on the post (as one must in order to install the tip) causes it to "creak" a little bit, indicating that the interior parts are flexing against the plastic housing. Given the extremely small tolerances at play I am worried that this might indicate a more fundamental problem with how my unit was assembled, and have an impact on that earbud's ability to perform to its potential.
I'm going to call Shure tomorrow to discuss this issue and will probably end up visiting the store again to swap it out. I was hoping to spend some quality time tomorrow with the things in my ears so it's going to be difficult consigning them back to their box.
