GanChan
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2002
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I've owned a couple of EC2s as well as an SE115, and like so many other Shure customers I've had to return them for replacement due to tears in the earpiece cable cover. It's nice that Shure is willing to send me new phones with minimal muss and fuss, but it would be even nicer if the damage didn't occur in the first place. And so I ask the other Shure owners here:
1. Is it the top-of-the-ear cable positioning that causes the weakness in the cable cover? I see that the Shure manual shows an optional placement that allows the cables to hang straight down. Would this alleviate the problem? Anybody here actually wear their Shures this way?
2. It seems to me that the cable cover breaks after growing brittle and stiff, possibly from skin oils absorbed over time. Is it possible to improve some kind of "second cable cover," in the form of some type of insulated rubber jacketing, over the existing cable? I once tried coating a weakness in my EC2 cable with that flexible paint-on vinyl stuff people use for tool handles, but it flaked off pretty quickly. I could, however, see someone applying a permanent enamel that would freeze the cables near the earpieces into a permanent semi-coil to fit the user and prevent any further bending (limiting the chance of breakage at a flex point).
I'll entertain any thoughts, theories or ideas. I just had a brand-new replacement pair of E115s sent to me, and if there's some strategy I can employ to delay the inevitable, I'd love to hear about it.
1. Is it the top-of-the-ear cable positioning that causes the weakness in the cable cover? I see that the Shure manual shows an optional placement that allows the cables to hang straight down. Would this alleviate the problem? Anybody here actually wear their Shures this way?
2. It seems to me that the cable cover breaks after growing brittle and stiff, possibly from skin oils absorbed over time. Is it possible to improve some kind of "second cable cover," in the form of some type of insulated rubber jacketing, over the existing cable? I once tried coating a weakness in my EC2 cable with that flexible paint-on vinyl stuff people use for tool handles, but it flaked off pretty quickly. I could, however, see someone applying a permanent enamel that would freeze the cables near the earpieces into a permanent semi-coil to fit the user and prevent any further bending (limiting the chance of breakage at a flex point).
I'll entertain any thoughts, theories or ideas. I just had a brand-new replacement pair of E115s sent to me, and if there's some strategy I can employ to delay the inevitable, I'd love to hear about it.