[janw]

So my SF5pro is slowly falling apart, the venerable thing survived many occasional drops into hot coffee and all other torture

Didn't quite make the last cable change (7th in 2 years?) though, the right connector came out with everything. A short operation on the IEM went fine (puh, it works

) but the low end has dropped in volume which is slightly annoying.

Bought a Phonak PFE from yuin.eu url, they have great prices in the EU. The sound is much better than the SF5pro in many aspects and I like the PFEs a lot, except for two drawbacks. First the filters are really sensitive to, ehmm, "ear microclimate"

which is kind of weird for an IEM. Second, no replaceable cable :-/ So I kind of see it already, 20% of time the PFE will be traveling the scenic routes to warranty replacement and back, 80% of time it's actually "here".

Longwinded story short - are there any <$200 IEMs on the market that are in the league of SF5pro or the PFE, with a replaceable cable?

Like say the IE8 but not that expensive and more like the SF5pro semi budget category.

Or has anyone found durable oil/acidity-resistant cable material for DIY IEM cables?

 

[ljokerl]

Replaceable cables can be found on the UE SF3, Sleek SA6, and Ety ER4

 

[rawrster]

well theres also the SA1(not sure if its out yet) and uhp 336 but its rebranded ue sf3

there really isnt a big selection of choices if you must have replaceable cables. are you making ur own cables to put on those earphones?

 

[Zai]

You never tried the Westone cable?

 

[david1978jp]

Quote:

Originally Posted by janw /img/forum/go_quote.gif So my SF5pro is slowly falling apart, the venerable thing survived many occasional drops into hot coffee and all other torture Didn't quite make the last cable change (7th in 2 years?) though, the right connector came out with everything. A short operation on the IEM went fine (puh, it works ) but the low end has dropped in volume which is slightly annoying.

7th cable change! You win. I cut my SF3 loss after 3rd cable (within 6 months), I used that set only when I worked in front of computer, never torture it. I did like the sound.

 

[silentmeloud]

2,5 years with ety - nothing wrong! Cable is perfect. You can always change it to s, p or b. Great vustomer service. Often repair items for free even when they're out of warranty!

 

[janw]

Quote:

Replaceable cables can be found on the UE SF3, Sleek SA6, and Ety ER4

Thanks, the SA6 looks promising!

There is one .co.uk shop and some on ebay.fr, cost is 200eur and higher. But maybe i can convince myself

Cables, US amazon.com sells them and surely somewhere in the EU there has to be at least one shop selling them..

Etymotics, cool, mp3-player.de has the ER4P for 190eur. Some say though that the low end is lacking vs PFE/SF5pro and that the new ety cable, too, still suffers from microphonics(?)

Quote:

You never tried the Westone cable?

Would've tried them, but nobody(?) sells them in Europe. Importing from say Australia, after postage plus toll&vat, the price is insane :-/ There are also the Null Audio cables (supposedly good, not that i buy into the silver and RF transmission line techniques really... teflon sleeving looks impressive tho). Unfortunately the Lune would've cost more than the IEMs - before taxes - ouch!

Quote:

are you making ur own cables to put on those earphones?

Ideally yes... Like the sennheiser cables for the HD's that seem to last forever, but thinner than those. Maybe even with a nailon sleeving/harness like some clip-on headphones have. Tried to dig on digikey.com but well -- i'm still looking!

 

[silentmeloud]

Yeah, ety has some troubles with microphonics, but when use clip - they are OK. They lack bass a lot compairing to Superfi's, but one one of my friend consider them to be the seconв coolest iems after Triple.Fi 10. You will gain more detail, more clarity & much better highs. But a lot depend from player. If you have bass boost - they would be great. Though - very different from SF 5pro.
HAvent listen to PFE, so can't really compare them. but a lot people consider etys be better

 

[kojebee]

Panasonic HJE900 has a replaceable cable.